Q&A: Requests in Prayer Even Though God Doesn’t Answer
Requests in Prayer Even Though God Doesn’t Answer
Question
Hello, Rabbi.
I was thinking that perhaps even if we accept that God does not intervene in the world and does not answer requests from human beings, it may still have some meaning to make requests even if He does not respond to them. The reason is that in the future, at some point (on the Day of Judgment?), we will be able to say that as far as we were concerned, we did everything—we asked and pleaded, we kept adding more and did not give up, even though He never answered… What is this comparable to? To a woman who sends letters to her beloved in a faraway country, and he does not answer them, and she does not know whether he is alive or not and whether he will ever return, yet for her part she continues faithfully to send them—isn’t there here a kind of proof of her love and her great longing for him?! And even though today this has no meaning, the moment they meet it will have great meaning in her eyes and in his. Here too, it may be that today He really does not answer, but on the day when there is some kind of meeting between us, then we will have proven our faithfulness. And even if there will be no such meeting, it still seems that there is meaning in the fact that from our side we did everything we could despite His ignoring us.
I’m sorry for the lack of precision in how I wrote the idea; really this is mainly just a feeling that there is some meaning here. I’d be glad to hear your opinion… gently, if possible… ?
Answer
Requests whose purpose is to express love and longing are of course possible. But requests in prayer are, originally, meant to be answered. In principle, you ask when you lack something. If it is about expressing love, then you can ask even when you lack nothing at all, simply in order to express love and attitude.
And in general, if we know that He does not answer, then continuing to ask just to show some attitude seems to me a bit silly.
Discussion on Answer
If you are asking factually (whether this can be known), then obviously one can never know for certain. It is possible that He answers without us noticing. If you are asking theologically whether it is possible to think that He does not answer, in my opinion yes. I explained this in several places here (about the Holy One, blessed be He, changing policy because of our maturation—like the disappearance of prophecy and miracles).
Where is that explanation?
For example, here:
And I elaborated further in several other places on the site, for example here:
https://mikyab.net/%D7%A9%D7%95%D7%AA/%D7%9E%D7%94-%D7%96%D7%94-%D7%94%D7%A2%D7%A0%D7%99%D7%99%D7%9F-%D7%A9%D7%9C-%D7%A2%D7%96%D7%91-%D7%93-%D7%90%D7%AA-%D7%94%D7%90%D7%A8%D7%A5/
Is a situation possible in which one can say, “We know that He does not answer”? Of course, I am not asking about situations of failure to observe rational commandments and obligations between one person and another, and duties of the heart, regarding which rebukes were said such as, “Even though you make many prayers, I do not hear,” and the like.