The prayer of the road in our days
Hello Rabbi,
Regarding the road prayer, I wanted to ask if it is necessary to recite a blessing these days for daily road trips, since there is no danger, and most places are within almost immediate access to a nearby city in the event of a road accident. If it is still necessary, for what types of trips and distances?
Hello Oren.
I once heard from Rabbi Lichtenstein that one should not recite a blessing on such trips unless one feels in danger. And apparently, that seems to be the case to me as well. Add to that my perception that God does not really intervene and protect us in our conduct in the world, and therefore this whole prayer is a bit problematic.
Therefore, we will consider that there may be a place to recite a blessing either over a place that is considered dangerous or when it comes to an unusual trip and to a place where you are alone (not a daily trip). It is difficult to determine a fixed distance, but the distance set in the halacha does not seem relevant to me when traveling where people pass by you all the time (these are not deserts, both in terms of danger and in terms of loneliness and lack of help). Not to mention the Pelapens.
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Yuval S.:
“Not to mention the Pelepens.”
Modern desert walkers’ rule – where there is no cellular reception or the battery is dead, we are not responsible.
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Rabbi:
You mean the battery is dead.
The Rabbi mentioned this in the reply, but I didn't fully understand it and I would appreciate an expansion - is there no problem with praying the prayer of the way even in a dangerous place from the perspective of praying for a miracle? Or is there reason to think that if it is a dangerous place, the Holy One, blessed be He, will intervene?
Requests raise an unresolved conflict for me. On the one hand, the Sages teach us that we should not pray for a miracle (even if it is a hidden miracle, such as the gender of a fetus in its mother's womb). On the other hand, they assume that there is a divine intervention that is not a miracle, and only for it is it permissible to pray. But today we know that the laws of nature are deterministic, meaning that any divine intervention is a miracle.
In principle, we are obligated to the halachic determinations of the Sages, but we are not obligated to their factual determinations. But here the halachic determination is apparently born from a factual perception. The question is whether in such a situation the obligation to the halachic determinations of the Sages still exists, or whether if they were with us today they themselves would change the teaching and permit praying for a miracle. I do not know how to decide this.
Since I am in doubt, I do not have sufficient certainty about the matter to change this halachic teaching.
Of course, in my opinion, he would not intervene even if it were necessary, but you know what I mean. My feeling is that you are mixing up claims here. The question of whether he intervenes and the question of whether it is permissible to pray for such intervention are different and independent questions. Chazal, for example, thought that he intervened and yet they forbade praying for a miracle.
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