Reminds me of a story. A certain yungerman’s wife had agreed to bake challah as part of a 40 woman group. Thursday night, this woman was extremely tired and was distressed at the thought of beginning to bake challah. The husband told her, “go to sleep, I’m baking challah.” Now that is my kind of segula.
oomis: I like your take on the issue. To view it as a way to do chessed sounds good to me.You also seem to be asking what danger I see in segulas.
The way I heard it from my rebbeim, the issue is that people tend to use it as a substitute for real growth. Every emphasis is also a de-emphasis on something else. Recall the recent perek shira frenzy. Perek shira is a nice thing to learn, but is it really as important as many other things which could have been focused on? Saying “amen” is extremely important, but are amen parties really the best way to use that time to serve Hashem.
My point is that by focusing on easy, less important issues, people get a sense of having achieved levels in ruchniyos which they have not, and do not work on the issues which truly need work.
Please address this: I applaud your view that baking challah is an exercise in chessed and achdus. However, I can think of far better ways to do chessed and practice achdus. Why not get 40 women together to actually help people in a physical way?