Q&A: Prayer
Prayer
Question
I read and heard your approach regarding prayer (that prayer is almost not meaningful today). Like all your writings, it is fascinating and original.
I wanted to ask:
A. According to Maimonides, prayer is a Torah-level commandment, and according to Nachmanides as well, in a time of distress it is a commandment from the Torah.
Doesn’t that complicate things a bit? If so, then this is not just a mistake of the Sages, is it?
B. Don’t you see the return to Zion in our day as a miracle? So that at least the prayer “May our eyes behold…” did help and was fulfilled.
C. You said (in lesson 11 on messianism) that what caused you to awaken to this issue was the prayers for Nachshon Wachsman.
Do you think that prayer for the success of a military operation is only a prayer that a miracle should happen, or that there should be some deviation from nature?
Is the success of a military operation dependent only on nature and on preparation for the operation? Doesn’t it also depend a little on “luck” — that no soldier does something foolish, that they are not discovered, that everything goes according to plan without exceptions? Seemingly, the difference between a successful operation and a failed one is hair-thin, and not everything depends on preparation for the operation. Is it not relevant to pray for that?
More generally, in your opinion were all the victories and achievements of the IDF according to nature?
D. Is all our life really according to nature alone? Two people go out on a trip or drive to work. One breaks a leg / has an accident.
Is there no issue here of “luck” (heavenly assistance, or the opposite)? Is that really your feeling?
Answer
A. This is not a mistake. In the past, the Holy One, blessed be He, had a policy of being involved, and therefore there were miracles and prophets. Today He is not involved, and so the status of prayer changes. See about this here:
Discussion on Answer
A. First, such a thing is certainly possible. After all, commandments will be abolished in the future to come, and even today most commandments are not relevant at all (sacrifices and impurity and purity, ordained religious courts, and more). But regarding prayer, there is no need for all this. Who says that the content of the Torah-level commandment is request? Only the dimension of request has ceased to be relevant. Beyond that, who says Nachmanides is right that this is a Torah-level commandment? After all, he himself also does not accept my conception of providence, so why should we raise a contradiction from one person against himself?
B. I think I explain there that this stems from our biography, which instilled in us the survival instinct and the ability to redeem ourselves, and not necessarily from divine involvement. This is not reinforcement for the involvement of the Holy One in the world, but for the uniqueness of the Torah, which created in us this nature that made it possible for us to be redeemed.
C. No. Nature is deterministic, and given certain circumstances the result is predetermined; there is only one. This is true in physics, and therefore also in history. History is nothing but physical events (a human being is a collection of physical particles).
And in another formulation, you are in a certain situation. Now I ask what will happen if you do not pray. You say: either X or Y. That is not true, as I explained. But let us assume you are right. Still, in the end one thing will happen. So I now ask: what is it? If X would happen even without prayer, there is no point in praying. Prayer is only about the possibility that naturally Y would happen, and you ask that the Holy One intervene and cause X to happen. There you have it: every prayer is a request for intervention.
And in a third formulation: even if you are right and there are two natural possibilities, intervention by the Holy One causes it to be the case that only one is possible and certainly only it will happen. But that itself is intervention in nature, so that instead of being free, the result is predetermined.
You’re welcome.
Oy vey? What are you writing here?!
Are we really so wise that we understand the mysterious conduct of the world? We haven’t even begun.
We know that prayer works because that is what is proven from the Torah. The fact that there are difficulties from philosophy or science reminds me of a study about a medicine that I once read, where they saw that it works, they just didn’t understand how, and there were something like 10 researchers’ theories about what that medicine was doing in the body.
Ugh, I was happy to find a site with someone who believes and also isn’t afraid. You ruined my enthusiasm.?
Sorry for the bother,
A. Can I understand from your words that following the change in the Holy One’s policy, there is a commandment in the Torah
(certainly according to Nachmanides) that simply is not relevant today?
B. In Notebooks of Faith (booklet 5, I think) it seems that you relate somewhat differently to the return of the Jewish people to its land and the realization of the prophets’ vision. This event is brought there as a strengthening of faith. What kind of strengthening is that if it is a natural event and part of the Spring of Nations?
C. I am probably much weaker than you in X and Y and in many other things too, even so, couldn’t it be that nature can lead both to situation X and to situation Y, and now I pray that the best natural situation should happen?
That, in my opinion, is the case in every military operation.
Thank you very much for your answers so far
and for the enlightening website