Q&A: Prayer / Providence
Prayer / Providence
Question
Hello Rabbi!
There is a question/topic that has been occupying me a lot lately, and I haven’t been able to find a satisfactory answer.
Assuming that God is perfect, how can there be change in Him, or that He has will? How can it be that God hears our prayers, watches over us, intervenes in the affairs of the world, and changes things? After all, all of these point to His changing / having will, and it seems to me that logically, if God is indeed perfect, it cannot be that He has will, nor can it be that God changes in any way.
On the one hand, I do sometimes feel in my prayers, and in various situations in my life generally, that God is listening to me and watching my actions (at least to some extent). On the other hand, logically it doesn’t make sense to me, which leaves me confused. Should I rely on logic? Or on intuition?
Thank you very much in advance, and may there be good news!
Answer
Why shouldn’t there be change in Him? His perfection does not have to be static. Think of a perfect function in the shape of a sine wave. Its perfection is not in this point or that one, but in the function as a whole. The perfect God is a God who at some stage creates a world and supervises it, etc. That whole picture is what is perfect.
On the other hand, I דווקא don’t identify with the end of what you wrote. I don’t feel that He listens, responds, or watches. And at least regarding being answered, even if there is such a feeling, in my view it is an illusion resulting from our upbringing.