It's All Greek to Me
Chareidim and secularists speak different languages
Image from Craiyon
Natan, in his latest post, has the following line:
Is parnasa completely determined by Hashem based on spiritual reasons? (This means that it is utterly unaffected by physical hishtadlus, which has no actual significance. There may be a spiritual requirement to engage in a certain defined minimum amount of hishtadlus, but obviously no spiritual need to increase hishtadlus beyond that in order to gain extra parnasa.)
Later in the post, he claims that most chareidim actually think "material endeavor is meaningless". Let us assume for a moment that chareidim do speak in such a manner. The problem here is that chareidim and Natan Slifkin speak completely different languages.
Chareidim speak in the language of Emunah, which is the language of the Torah that they study and practice. Thus, their sentences are punctuated with "Baruch Hashem", "B'ezras Hashem", "Hashem Yishmerainu". To them, Hashem is real, His hashgacha is real, His Mitzvos are real, He is the Provider, He is the King, what we say in Birchas Hamazon is all true, we daven to Him and we hope for a response.
Therefore, in that context, a line like "material endeavor is meaningless" is not to be taken literally, but means that spiritual endeavors are much more important for life success than physical efforts, and that Hashem the Provider will take care of us, even if our physical efforts are not as great as they could be otherwise. In this way, the language of Emunah parallels that of the Torah in countless places, such as (Psalms 33)
אין־המלך נושע ברב־חיל גבור לא־ינצל ברב־כח
Kings are not delivered by a large force;
warriors are not saved by great strength;שקר הסוס לתשועה וברב חילו לא ימלט
horses are a false hope for deliverance;
for all their great power they provide no escape.
On the other hand, Natan, lacking the requisite Torah background, or at least acting like he does, doesn't speak this language at all. He speaks the language of kefirah, of materialism, of atheism. Apparently, this is part and parcel of being a “rationalist”.
Therefore, he is totally missing the context and background necessary in order to understand what chareidim mean by that concept. Instead, like a child who asks where the dimes are when he hears the phrase "a dime a dozen", Natan demands empirical evidence that hishtadlus is meaningless.
Here is another example of how hopelessly confused he is with his rather childish questions in this post.
What is more curious to me is that Natan has written a lot about "lashon bnei adam", usually totally butchering it, but doesn't even think about applying it when it is actually relevant!
What's astounding is that Natan thinks he brilliantly discovered this question. The Ramban in Sha'ar Hagmul famously deals with how although we know that everything is decreed min hashomayim, many times it's very hard for us to discern how that is so and sometimes life seems to be based on very 'natural' circumstances.
https://www.sefaria.org/Sha'ar_Ha'Gemul_of_the_Ramban.1?lang=bi
This is in fact one of the central messages of Sefer Iyov.
I think everyone agrees think that not too many people are on the level today to say that absolutely no hishtadlus is necessary. This was the machlokes discussed in Brachos between R' Yishmael and RSHBY. And we see that even in Chazal's time, R' Yishmael's view was the accepted practice. Although even his followers advocated for minimum hishtadlus, such as working only for two months a year and learning the rest of the time.
That being said, from my own personal friends, I can think of one guy I was with in Yeshiva who was definitely not the brightest, nor the most assertive type. He was kinda always at the edge of the pack. He now owns a mortgage company and according to a mutual friend is earning in the upper seven digits - annually. And I can think of another friend who is exceptionally smart, people savvy, determined, and aggressive, and nothing ever seems to work out for him. He is always going from one thing to the next.
The way I learned it recently was that hishtadlus is the illusion by which we have the free will to believe our effort makes a difference. There have been times in my life when I have to work very hard for parnassah, and there have been other times where I barely have to lift my pinky. It's not meaningless. At the very least, it's an ongoing test. That's par for retards, putting words into our mouths to bolster their pathetic arguments.
I've experienced personally that more hishtadlus does not equate to more parnassa.