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How shoud I have responded to this question?



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shoshanim999




 
 
    
 

Post Fri, Jul 11 2014, 6:28 am
My family and I were guests at a neighbor a few weeks ago and there was another guest at the table who was not that frum. He asked that if religious people always says prayers for the sick (tehilim) then doesn't it stand to reason that jews r living longer then non jews. This conversation went on for over an hour. I have to admit that we did not have good answers. We talked about the neshama and how it helps them in the next world. But he kept coming back to whether or not from a pure statistical standpoint, if nebach 2 people r diagnosed with a terminal illness, will the person who tehilim is being said for outlive the other? And if so, why isn't the average lifespan much higher in the frum community who have the benefit of tehilim? What would the proper response be?
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Ruchel




 
 
    
 

Post Fri, Jul 11 2014, 6:35 am
I would say there are stucies that people prayed for (any religion) are better off. Whether it's prayer, or placebo, now...
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imasinger




 
 
    
 

Post Fri, Jul 11 2014, 6:46 am
I wonder if he feels it is a worthwhile activity to explore space. After all, statistically, it is so much more cost effective to stay on Earth.

But sometimes, there are benefits beyond the most superficial level.

We all know that davening for refuah doesn't mean that refuah will happen. But we don't have any statistics about whether pain is comparatively eased, either psychologically or physically, for the choleh or for the family.

And it is not possible to measure what the saying of tehillim does for the neshama of the one saying it.

With any significant endeavor, there are gains that lie beneath the surface.
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Chickpea




 
 
    
 

Post Fri, Jul 11 2014, 7:07 am
Ruchel wrote:
I would say there are stucies that people prayed for (any religion) are better off. Whether it's prayer, or placebo, now...

I've read the same studies in reputable medical journals. It was not in fact, a placebo effect because the people that were ill did not know that people were praying for them. I will try to find the source, if ur interested, but not until after Shabbos.
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Dolly Welsh




 
 
    
 

Post Fri, Jul 11 2014, 7:17 am
Well, the answer is before him. The Jews as a people are much older than any other group, having outlived the Greeks, the Romans, and blah blah blah.

Some fairly efficient personalities tried hard, seventy years ago, to make sure that conversation never happened and would never happen, and it happened.

"I am wondering if prayer is effective, but the fact that I am here to wonder that at all is my answer"

Pass the peas.
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HonesttoGod




 
 
    
 

Post Sat, Jul 12 2014, 11:46 pm
Sometimes G-ds plan is unchangeable and whilst we pray and hope for the best it doesn't mean G-d sees it as the right thing. Therefore this person will still die. But since our tefillot are never wasted it goes towards something. Whether to help this person in the world to come, in their zechut, or to something else entirely we can't know.
We have no idea even if a jew and non jew died from the same thing at the same time and only the Jew was prayed for, what will be with both of them in the next world.


I find that sometimes people asking such intense random questions don't really want a specific answer they are just stubborn in trying to prove a mute point.
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Learning




 
 
    
 

Post Sun, Jul 13 2014, 12:00 am
Hashem answering also the prayers of the non Jews. They ask to be healthy even if they don't daven. He protects all his creations. As jews we have a closer connection to Hashem but it doesn't mean that we are better physically. On the other hand hashem asks us to be better and judges us more closely.
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FranticFrummie




 
 
    
 

Post Sun, Jul 13 2014, 12:04 am
I read a different spin on the "prayer study". While there were no significant differences between the group of ill people prayed for and the control group, there was something else they discovered. The people who were praying for themselves had a much better outcome, healed faster, recovered faster, and tended to surprise the doctors with the outcomes.

This leads us to the conclusion that heartfelt tefillos from the ill person direct to Hashem is the most powerful form of prayer. Remember, prayer does not change G-d, prayer changes YOU. G-d does not need our prayers, but WE need to pray to G-d.
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DrMom




 
 
    
 

Post Sun, Jul 13 2014, 12:38 am
shoshanim999 wrote:
My family and I were guests at a neighbor a few weeks ago and there was another guest at the table who was not that frum. He asked that if religious people always says prayers for the sick (tehilim) then doesn't it stand to reason that jews r living longer then non jews. This conversation went on for over an hour. I have to admit that we did not have good answers. We talked about the neshama and how it helps them in the next world. But he kept coming back to whether or not from a pure statistical standpoint, if nebach 2 people r diagnosed with a terminal illness, will the person who tehilim is being said for outlive the other? And if so, why isn't the average lifespan much higher in the frum community who have the benefit of tehilim? What would the proper response be?

As I understand it, studies have shown that religious people do tend to outlive secular people (within the same community that is).

http://longevity.about.com/od/.....e.htm

But I don't think it matters which religion.

And the studies are murky on which is the cause and which is the effect (or if there is causality at all). Each person can read into the correlation what he wishes, I suppose.

I don't know if you take 2 religious people who are ill and say tehillim for one and not the other what the outcome would be. I don't think anyone would want to perform this experiment.
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5*Mom




 
 
    
 

Post Sun, Jul 13 2014, 1:06 am
I think the question reflects an overly-simplistic yet common misunderstanding of what prayer is.
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Heyaaa




 
 
    
 

Post Sun, Jul 13 2014, 1:53 am
I know plenty of situations where a person was given a certain amount of time to live. Thousands of people davened for these sick people and when the person outlived what the doctors predicted, the doctors were shocked and said there's no logical explanation because it's a miracle. Tefilla always has the potential to give us what we want but when Hashem decided that someone needs 1billion hours of tehillim to live past a month, it's just not possible to daven that long. Also, non Jews also pray for their sick. Hashem doesn't only listen to Jews.
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PinkFridge




 
 
    
 

Post Sun, Jul 13 2014, 5:03 am
5*Mom wrote:
I think the question reflects an overly-simplistic yet common misunderstanding of what prayer is.


This. "Hashem is not our employee."
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miami85




 
 
    
 

Post Sun, Jul 13 2014, 8:54 am
shoshanim999 wrote:
My family and I were guests at a neighbor a few weeks ago and there was another guest at the table who was not that frum. He asked that if religious people always says prayers for the sick (tehilim) then doesn't it stand to reason that jews r living longer then non jews. This conversation went on for over an hour. I have to admit that we did not have good answers. We talked about the neshama and how it helps them in the next world. But he kept coming back to whether or not from a pure statistical standpoint, if nebach 2 people r diagnosed with a terminal illness, will the person who tehilim is being said for outlive the other? And if so, why isn't the average lifespan much higher in the frum community who have the benefit of tehilim? What would the proper response be?


I think that the basic answer to this question is that it has nothing to do with lifespan, sometimes we pray, but the answer is 'No'.

I think another idea behind praying for a sick individual is that we are showing HaShem that this person is connected to this world and is important to other people in this world, and therefore we are beseeching that HaShem find merit to keep him in this world. On Rosh Hashana we try to daven with the congregation because a group has more merit than an individual, therefore by including the sick person among the community we are asking if the community's merit can keep this person alive.

But you are right that praying for a sick, even terminal, person is not entirely for this world, we believe that there is a world to come and we want that person to heal completely and not have to suffer in the world to come, and that the person's punishment should be fulfilled with the illness in this world.
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MountainRose




 
 
    
 

Post Sun, Jul 13 2014, 1:07 pm
I agree with a lot of the posters above, but we should also remember that Hashem answers the prayers of the other nations as well.

I wonder how the average lifespan of religious people in general compares to areligious or atheist people.
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shanie5




 
 
    
 

Post Tue, Jul 15 2014, 7:42 pm
Tefillos can make a persons illness less painful. It can lengthen s/o lifespan. It can help them be more active than otherwise. We don't know how our tefillos help others (and ourselves). We don't know what their lives would have been like without them.
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debsey




 
 
    
 

Post Tue, Jul 15 2014, 9:07 pm
So there are lies and there are statistics- you can cut the numbers any way you want. The concept of a "prayer effect" is usually looked at as a function of "belief" or a function of the stress relief aspect of praying. It's not looked at as "G-d actually intervened." But if you CHOOSE to interpret it that way, you can.
Statistically speaking, if there WAS a "prayer effect" that would mean that G-d is like a vending machine. Stick in the right money - and POOF - a cure comes out. G-d is more like a CEO than a vending machine. Hashgacha pratis means that He considers each case individually. Prayer can "tip" the balance sometimes, but ultimately, He decides.
If it were that simple - prayer X leads to outcome Y, we'd all be perfectly frum and there would be no bechira.
Sometimes, G-d says No.
debsey
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ElTam




 
 
    
 

Post Tue, Jul 15 2014, 10:46 pm
There's no answer you could have given this guy that would have satisfied him. He wasn't interested in your answers. He was interested in his own agenda.
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