Q&A: The Traveler’s Prayer Nowadays
The Traveler’s Prayer Nowadays
Question
Hello Rabbi,
Regarding the Traveler’s Prayer, I wanted to ask whether nowadays there is any need to recite it for daily travel on the roads, since there is no danger, and in most places one can get almost immediately to a nearby city in case of an accident, God forbid. If there is still a need, for what kinds of trips and distances?
Answer
Hello Oren.
I once heard in the name of Rabbi Lichtenstein that one should not recite a blessing over such trips unless you feel there is danger. By simple reasoning, that also seems right to little me. Add to that my view that the Holy One, blessed be He, does not really intervene and protect us in our conduct in the world, and therefore this whole prayer is a bit problematic.
Therefore, it seems to me that perhaps there is room to recite it either for a place presumed to be dangerous, or when מדובר in an unusual trip to a place where you are isolated (not everyday travel). It is hard to set a fixed distance, but the fixed distance in Jewish law does not seem relevant to me for travel where people are constantly passing by you (these are not deserts, neither in terms of danger nor in terms of solitude and lack of help). Not to mention the cell phones.
——————————————————————————————
Yuval S.:
“Not to mention the cell phones.”
A modern version of the law of those who travel through deserts—places where there is no cellular reception, or the battery dies, Heaven forbid.
——————————————————————————————
The Rabbi:
You mean, the battery dies.
Discussion on Answer
Requests of this kind create an unresolved conflict for me. On the one hand, the Sages instruct us that one should not pray for a miracle (even if it is a hidden miracle, such as the sex of a fetus in its mother’s womb). On the other hand, they assume that there is divine involvement that is not a miracle, and only for that may one pray. But today we know that the laws of nature are deterministic, meaning that any divine involvement is, by definition, a miracle.
In principle, we are bound by the halakhic determinations of the Sages, but not by their factual determinations. But here, the halakhic determination apparently arose from a factual conception. The question is whether in such a case the obligation to their halakhic determinations still exists, or perhaps if they were with us today, they themselves would change the ruling 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 that halakhic ruling.
Of course, in my view He would not intervene even if there were a need for it, but who knows. My feeling is that you are mixing up different claims here. The question whether He intervenes and the question whether it is permitted to pray for such intervention are different and independent questions. The Sages, for example, thought that He does intervene, and nevertheless forbade praying for a miracle.
The Rabbi mentioned this in the answer, but I didn’t completely understand, and I’d be glad for some elaboration— is there no problem with reciting the Traveler’s Prayer even in a dangerous place, on the grounds that one is praying for a miracle? Or is there reason to think that if it is a dangerous place, the Holy One, blessed be He, would intervene?