Question

Hello Rabbi. In the series "Doubt and Statistics" you said that the Sages prohibited, in the Mishnah at the end of tractate Berakhot, praying about the past, because this is a prayer for a miracle (something physically impossible), and one may not pray for a miracle. But it seems to me that the Mishnah implies that this is a logical impossibility: "If one was coming along the road and heard a cry in the city, and said: 'May it be Your will that these not be members of my household'—this is a vain prayer." It seems from the Mishnah that the person is not praying that the Holy One, blessed be He, perform a miracle and fix reality; rather, this is a request that reality should, from the outset, not have occurred in a certain way that included his household, even though the reality has already occurred. Comparable to someone who sees on the news that there was a stabbing attack and prays: May it be Your will that it not be my son who was stabbed.