Q&A: Prayer Empty of Intention
Prayer Empty of Intention
Question
Hello Rabbi Michael,
I read No Man Rules the Spirit, and the book sharpened insights for me that had already been dwelling in me for a long time. In particular, the central thesis you presented there—that we have no reasonable basis to assume that the Holy One, blessed be He, intervenes in the world in a personal way, let alone answers specific requests—makes prayer in its simple sense irrelevant for me. In practice, my feeling is that there is no real reason to think that when I ask, “Graciously grant us from Yourself wisdom, understanding, and knowledge,” there is someone hearing—and certainly not someone who is about to answer.
I also read the suggestions you offered there: to try directing the prayer not toward myself but toward the Jewish people as a whole, or to leave room for the faint hope that perhaps this time the prayer will in fact be answered—but honestly, they do not manage to sustain me in practice. I cannot feel that I am really turning to someone or that anything is happening. As a result, I do find myself standing and praying, but not asking, not expecting, and not believing in the reality of the act.
And on the other hand, I am still committed to Jewish law, at least in its formal sense, and therefore also to prayer as a rabbinic obligation. But when I try to fulfill it, I cannot get beyond the external form—and I have no sense of emotional participation, faith, or intentionality.
I wonder whether such a fulfillment of prayer has any meaning at all. Is there value to an act empty of intention? Is it right to try to hold on to the framework even when it has no inner content? And is there another way that you would suggest seeing the act of prayer, in a situation where a realist understanding of reality negates the very relevance of the request?
I would be very glad to hear your opinion.
Respectfully,
Answer
As a rule, you are describing a psychological difficulty, not a principled one. My suggestions solve the principled problem; it is just that it is hard for you to connect to prayer or to feel anything. So don’t connect, and don’t feel. Commitment to Jewish law does not include connection and emotions. This is not an act empty of intention, but an act done with full intention and without emotion. On the contrary, such intention is purer and cleaner than that of those who ask on the assumption that they will be answered. You pray because there is a commandment in that, and that is the content of intention in commandments. It is true that in prayer, beyond the general intention, the intention of the words is also required, and that is why I offered the above suggestions.
Discussion on Answer
I didn’t understand.
Since I don’t think it will be answered, I do not really intend to ask for anything, so I haven’t prayed.
Are you suggesting that I should always direct it toward the Jewish people as a whole?
If you have reached a clear conclusion that prayers are not answered, then indeed you cannot ask. But that is not what you described.
They most likely will not be answered for me, and therefore the request will not be sincere.
Yes, that is what I wrote—except for cases in which you yourself have no natural way out, and then perhaps you will be the one who is answered within the framework of sporadic answers.
If it is only “most likely,” then everything I wrote still stands.
If I may ask, do you direct “wisdom, understanding, and knowledge” toward the Jewish people as a whole? Why would God answer that prayer and improve the IQ of the Jewish people?
It is not about improving IQ but about help in applying it. Strengthening intellect over urges and emotions, as for example in your case, in my opinion, where emotion is thwarting the understanding of the intellect.
Okay, thank you for your time. I will try to implement what you said.
In general, thank you for your books—my shelf is full of them…
With pleasure. Much success. I am very glad that my words are being read, and especially by serious people who think about them and try to apply what seems right to them.
I will note—apparently you have heard this—that you are simply a lifesaver for certain Haredi yeshiva guys.
I identified with the one who said that you left his head under the kippah.
Following up on this question: your view is well known that you cannot rule out sporadic intervention. But do you at least have no doubt about it? That is, in light of the renewed understanding that the Holy One, blessed be He, is generally not involved in the world, and that “the Lord has forsaken the land,” does doubt not arise regarding sporadic involvement itself? And if so, since the obligation of prayer is rabbinic, and doubt about sporadic involvement leads to a rabbinic-level doubt, one should rule leniently. No?
Of course there is doubt. A great deal of it. And still, in order to cancel an existing law that was established by a formal rabbinic quorum, without another quorum permitting it, certainty is required. It has nothing to do with a rabbinic-level doubt.
That is not a psychological problem, because technically I am not making any request at all.