Prayer for a miracle

I understand that your problem with the issue of prayer, and its implications for God’s involvement in the world, stems first and foremost from a certain assumption: the Sages forbid praying about what has already happened, because it is “vain prayer.” You tend to understand the concept of “vain” not as a halakhic prohibition, but as a factual assessment – that is, such prayer simply will not be useful. In other words, there is no normative prohibition here in the laws of prayer, but rather a statement that God, the Blessed, does not intervene in these cases.
Here I would like to comment on this assumption: You yourself wrote that there is no doubt that God can intervene in nature, since He created the laws of nature and can also enforce or violate them. In addition, you do not rule out His miraculous intervention in the past, nor do you rule out sporadic intervention in the present.
So why not say this: Technically, God can certainly intervene, but on the subject of prayer there is a set limit. This limit is either halakhic-normative in the laws of prayer, or it is indeed possible to interpret the word “false” more in your direction, which is a factual statement – that prayer simply will not be helpful. But the intention is: it will not be helpful because the Sages understood theologically that God may not want to intervene or does not want to be approached to intervene in nature in such a case. But certainly “false” should not be interpreted as if God, in general, cannot intervene, since we have already assumed that the One who created the laws of nature is also capable of changing them.
Once this assumption is accepted, the other problems are no longer essential. The Sages do indeed prohibit praying for a miracle, and you are right that the deterministic reality of the laws of nature makes any intervention in nature a miracle by definition. However, since God has the ability to perform miracles and intervene in deterministic reality, the central issue is to define when He will do this and when He will not, and this is exactly what the Sages did: they set halachic limits or offered theological insights for when prayer can have an effect, because He may intervene and save. In the matter of 40 days after the birth of a child – this is a limit at which, according to the Sages, there is room for prayer, and after which there is no more.
To explain the difference between before and after 40 days, one can use the concept you brought up in the laws of Shabbat regarding “pseudo-ontic doubt.”
It is said in your lessons on Shabbat law that, supposedly, even on a bench, as in a fly box, the chances of a scratch can be statistically calculated, and why divide them into ontic doubt versus epistemic doubt? Except that, in relation to a scratch, to the layman, due to the complex statistical calculations, it looks as if there is a doubt, and therefore, halachically, it is considered a “doubt in reality,” and by your definition, a “pseudo-ontic doubt.”
Similarly, it is said here that 40 days before the fertilization of a child (and in our scientific knowledge: the moment of fertilization), this is a situation that can supposedly only be seen realistically in complex statistical calculations – and therefore it is a “pseudo-ontic doubt” that allows for prayer.
I mean, the matter of when one can pray is a halakhic boundary determined by the person (God can change nature in any case), and this boundary is determined by his ability to diagnose situations of “gap” and doubt from his perspective. And since from the perspective of the person, he lacks the ability for statistical calculations, there are still “a few possibilities” here – he is allowed to pray. Even though it is essentially a miracle (which God can do).
After 40 days, the situation is perceived as certain, and therefore it is forbidden to pray.
Indeed, as you wrote, the difference between 40 days before and after is not a matter of a hidden miracle versus an obvious miracle, because the sages did not have ultrasounds, and even after 40, in relation to the sensory possibility – in their time – the matter was still considered “hidden.”
But the boundary is not in sensory frustration, but rather deals with what we “see” at the level of intellectual knowledge we have accumulated, regarding the moment when it moves from a state of ontic doubt to pseudo-ontic doubt.
In the time of the sages, within the limitations of their knowledge: 40 days after birth, this is the time when we moved from a state of pseudo-ontic doubt, because it is “obvious” to us – according to scientific knowledge that there are several possibilities. To a state of ontic doubt – even in our human eyes, reality has already been determined.
And in our time, the same idea only with respect to the moment of fertilization.
An issue that perhaps needs to be resolved is why did the Sages define this as a prayer for a “miracle,” as opposed to the previous 40 days, which is also a miracle?
This is a semantic question,
And perhaps, as it is written, the concept of “miracle” in relation to prayer does not refer to God Almighty and His abilities, because He can do everything, but rather to us, to define for us when it is perceived by us as humans as a change in nature, and this is in the reality of ontic doubt, after 40 days – and it is forbidden to pray. And before 40 days – it is permitted.
Conclusion: Every essential prayer is a prayer for a miracle. God can perform miracles. And He does perform them. Chazal taught us that He performs them or wants us to turn to Him to perform them in practice, only in our case – limited humans – the situation seems to be ambiguous (although it is not, because everything is deterministic). That is, God intervenes in the world, there is something to turn to Him for to change the deterministic reality, albeit with certain reservations.