Segulos & Prayer

Over the last number of weeks, a number of people have been decrying the seeming reliance and obsession a large swath of the Orthodox community has with segulos (essentially charms). As Wolf noted:

To me, I think there is a fundamental difference between prayer and the segulahs that LWY brings in his rant. When one prays, one (hopefully) takes the time to recognize to Whom he is praying and takes into account that He is the source of all our blessings. God expects us to pray to Him for our needs and wants. He *wants* us to turn to Him for help and to recognize Him. Prayer causes us to develop a relationship with our Creator and to become closer to Him.

Or, as G said yesterday in a quick (G-)chat:

Ez: whaddya think of it
G: of segulos?
Ez: yah
G: depends what it's tied to
Ez: ?
G: dont buy the whole do a and get b
but if the idea is to "turn you to God"
then...maybe

With all of those posts on the mind, I attended one of my best friend's weddings a couple of nights ago, and at the chuppah, they handed out a small piece of paper listing who would be walking down from the families on one side... and a beautiful poem on the other side, written by the wonderful young woman who was about to walk down the aisle. And that will be the next post.