Does prayer really have power? How do you know?

Laiya

Tue, Dec 11 2018, 12:45 pm

amother wrote:

Granted, we can and should be grateful for the gift of life. However, to try to apply the events that we see in this world and determine from them that we see a kind and compassionate god I think is being dishonest and really a result of many years of brainwashing. Again, we just don't understand god. But to try to twist every tragic event into demonstrating hashems kindness and love for us is dishonest.

I think it's fair to say we can't understand Hashem.

But, if one believes objectively that the gift of live overshadows everything else, including pain and suffering that may go along with it, why is it impossible to accept that people who are able to thank Hashem from the midst of suffering, are genuine? If that's your starting premise, it's a logical conclusion.

Imo, if you don't view G-d as loving and compassionate, I think it's hard to relate to tefillah as an opportunity to strengthen that bond.

amother

Pearl

Tue, Dec 11 2018, 12:54 pm

simcha2 wrote:

But the Rambam didn't believe that you change Hashem's "mind" by davening, he believed you changed yourself.

I just named 2 'giants' but think of king David, king Solomon etc.. our forefathers were way smarter and wiser than us, one of them understood the language of the animals.. How wise must he have been! They had ruach hakodesh.. IF THEY BELEIVED TEFILLA HELPS, THEN I BELIEVE.

Mommyg8

Tue, Dec 11 2018, 5:16 pm

simcha2 wrote:

Rambam did believe it helped tzaddikim, just not most people.

So then why do we daven?

I asked my in-house encyclopedia, and he answered me as follows:

The Rambam may hold that davening may only help tzadikim, but who is a tzadik according to the Rambam? Someone who has more mitzvos than aveiros. So assuming we all fasted Yom Kippur and did teshuva, I would imagine that we on this thread are all eligible.

Mommyg8

Tue, Dec 11 2018, 5:21 pm

PinkFridge wrote:

I want to like this wonderful post, but I'm afraid this paragraph could discourage people from davening unless they were in the right frame of mind.
Two vorts:
1. I think it's the Kotzker who said this on the words of Shema, "Al levavecha." Why should the words be on our hearts and not in? Because sometimes we are not receptive. But we want the words to be there, so that when our hearts do crack open, all the words and meaning behind them will fall in.
2. Rabbi Reisman's spoken about davening even when we're in a rut (think, yemei hasina, etc.). It's still valuable. There's a mashal about a village where when the clocks stopped working, they had to wait for the traveling clockmaker to get to their town to repair them. The smart person will continue to wind the mechanism so it won't atrophy. So davening even when we're not in the optimal frame of mind is important, to keep the mechanism from atrophying.

I'm sorry you didn't like my post. I don't make anything up, everything I say comes from sources. Rabbi Matisyahu Salamon in "Hearts Full of Faith" makes this point repeatedly. That we really have to BELIEVE that Hashem will answer us in order for tefillah to work. There is value to rote davening, I guess, as there is value to everything that we do when we try to do the right thing, but specifically for bakashos to be answered - you have to believe.

Rabbi Brezak, in a recent column in the Yated, said some really inspirational stories. And he also emphasized that the more you believe that what you daven for will be answered, the more the chance that Hashem will answer. He wrote about a girl that davened that she should win a class lottery, and guess what? She did. This was a random story that happened as part of his class parenting workshop.

Rabbi Yisroel Brogg relates countless, almost miraculous stories of people who davened really hard and were answered in a spectacular, almost miraculous way.

I am willing to continue this conversation if you are willing...

Laiya

Tue, Dec 11 2018, 5:26 pm

Mommyg8 wrote:

Mommyg8, that is the most optimistic thing I've heard in a while! Smile

simcha2

Tue, Dec 11 2018, 5:31 pm

Mommyg8 wrote:

That's not at all what he writes.

It doesn't mean that Hashem doesn't listen to our prayers, and that by davening we don't change ourselves, and therefore change how Hashem interacts with us in terms of reward and punishment . But, Rambam holds it's blasphemy to think that we can appeal to Hashem's emotions, because Hashem is perfect and doesn't have emotions.

PinkFridge

Wed, Dec 12 2018, 8:04 am

Mommyg8 wrote:

Chas v'shalom I'm disagreeing with them, or you.
Just that we need to be reminded about the importance of believing AND continuing to daven even absent that belief. At least I think that's an appropriate approach.

Mommyg8

Wed, Dec 12 2018, 8:13 am

PinkFridge wrote:

I think that my point is - and I have heard this from Rabbi Brog and others - is that when someone says, I davened for something and I wasn't answered, the question is, did you REALLY daven? Did you really believe in what you davened? Did you ask for something really hard, like a miracle - did you daven enough? Do you have enough zechusim?

Rachmana liba ba'I. While rote davening has value, ultimately it is not the kind of tefillah that Hashem really wants.

Mommyg8

Wed, Dec 12 2018, 8:21 am

simcha2 wrote:

So I guess I misunderstood you, because earlier I thought you wrote that Hashem only answers the tefillos of tzadikim.

What you are writing now is a completely different concept. The Rambam, at least the way I understand from what you are writing here, is just explaining how tefillah works in a much deeper level of understanding. In second grade, we learned (or thought we learned) that tefillah is about putting money into a jukebox - in goes a coin, out goes a song. But as we get older, we realize that tefillah is much more complex than that.

I actually did learn this in high school/seminary, I just didn't realize it was the Rambam, or maybe the teacher said it and I don't remember (it's been a long time). We DID learn that tefillah is about changing ourselves - my teacher explained that the Hebrew for tefillah is hispallaltee -we are doing something to ourselves - and therefore we change how Hashem interacts with us.

It makes sense that Hashem has no emotions, as He's not a person, although the Torah does use physical characteristics to explain certain actions - vayichar af, Hashem had rachmanus, etzbah elokim, yad Hashem etc. etc. etc. I think this is a machlokes of the Rambam and maybe some other Rishonim about the concept of Hashem's physicality (it's not that Hashem is physical in any way, but rather how we as humans perceive his actions).

In any case, this is all rather complex and deep and imamother is not really a good medium for these type of discussions.

The bottom line is that tefillah does work (and if you want to explain it the Rambam's way, go ahead), in whichever way you want to explain that it can work.

PinkFridge

Wed, Dec 12 2018, 9:02 pm

Mommyg8 wrote:

No, it's not the ideal, and I think people who do it, by rote or by rut, know what they're doing and do want change.

But can we agree that it is possible that someone really did believe, really did ask hard, and Hashem still didn't answer the way s/he wanted?

As far as enough zechusim, how in the world can someone answer yes to that?(?!?) "You know, Hashem, I don't get it. I had enough zechusim. Why did You say no?" What about "anochi afar v'efer"?

sub

Wed, Dec 12 2018, 9:54 pm

Many moons ago I was working in a school where a beloved teacher was very sick. For weeks we said tehillim. The community had gatherings to say tehillim. Chain calls went around. She passed away leaving a household of children.
The principal brought a a rav a speaker to talk to the girls. This is what he said (as much as I remember from over a more than a decade ago)
Her “job” was to bring people together to daven with all their might. It was Her neshama’s time to go up. The tefilla was not necessarily for her refuah but possibly for zchus for her neshama to follow up to shamayim. And it could very well be that the tfilla was for someone else or for tearing a gzar din. Or to bring achdus between all those who joined in the tfilla. We don’t know.
I understood from this that tfilla is important and powerful but we cannot begin to understand the how and why.