Prayer and Providence

Hello Rabbi Michael!

I was at your talk yesterday at Heichal Shlomo regarding the issue of desalination and rain, and I would like to ask you a few questions about it, and also add on a slightly different topic.

I'll just say upfront that my understanding of providence is strictly Rambamistic, so any statement you make on the subject won't scare me (unlike perhaps some of those present yesterday).

Yesterday you raised a question about praying for rain. You assumed that, from a physical point of view, weather belongs to the realm of chaos, and although we cannot yet calculate all the variables and equations, the question of whether it will rain tomorrow or not is subject to a deterministic system.
In light of this, you claimed that perhaps praying for rain would be a vain prayer. After all, just as in the case of a man praying that his pregnant wife will give birth to a boy, this is a vain prayer, since at the moment there is something permanent and even if it changes we cannot know, in the case of rain there is also something permanent at the moment and even if it changes we cannot know.

I have a question about that:

1. Philosophically speaking, what are we praying for? If I don't think that when I ask for healing, God will send me antibiotics with a giant syringe from heaven, what am I actually saying when I pray "Heal us…"?
I perceive prayer as something that empowers me, that sends me to action, that improves my path. As it seems to me that this is the way of Maimonides in teaching the confused. If I ask for the Temple, it should encourage me to go build it, if I ask for wisdom I should go to the books and learn. Isn't it the same in this case? I pray for rain, and it makes me go develop systems that will add water to me. As it seems to me that today there are means in man's hands to make it rain.
2. If we assume that during prayer there is also a level where we truly place our hope in God that He will intervene in reality and change something, what is the problem with praying for that? Why is this a vain prayer? I know from the forecasts that tomorrow will be rainy, and I ask God that it will rain tomorrow. After all, He has the power to do this, why does this meet the boundaries of a vain prayer?
3. The blessing of years is directed, among other things, at livelihood. We ask God to bring us livelihood, the rain is (at least for today) a kind of symbolism.
4. Are there no other blessings in the prayer that your question relates to?
5. Regardless of the question of vain prayer, I am interested in your opinion. According to the Torah, rain does indeed depend on our actions. Moses was the master of the prophets and said these things. Is this just a parable, or did the Torah really believe in this?

Other questions regarding supervision:

In light of the fact that I believe in absolute free choice and providence according to the Maimonides, and so I got the impression that you also perceive it this way (I wouldn't use terms like "God forsook the earth" because I don't really see the issue that way), I will ask a general question. How do you take the stories of the Torah and the prophets regarding divine intervention? That is, if we look at it from a historical perspective – humanity has existed for thousands, tens of thousands, millions of years, it doesn't matter how many at the moment. Did God suddenly "decide" to intervene for a certain universal need and speak to Abraham? The parting of the Red Sea and the standing of Mount Sinai – what actually happened there? Did God "touch" in a one-time manner? Or is it all a matter of man's search for the sublime and the Torah 'decorates' the story in its own way?
What do you think?