What is Prayer and Does it Actually Work?

Prayer is a key role in Jewish ritual. It embodies much of our day; much emphasis is put on it halachicly and it is a key source of inspiration for many. Yet so many questions surround it. We will attempt to address those issues in hope to find answers. Here are some big questions asked regarding prayer:

Is God arrogant that He needs our prayer, not to mention three times daily?^[1] Does He actually need our praise? Are we changing God’s mind through our prayer? If the issue that we are praying for was ordained by God to happen, why should our prayer change God’s decision? Why pray if “everything is for the good” ^[i] which essentially means that the “bad” that we are praying to get fixed is in essence “good”? And the biggest question of all is: does prayer actually work?

To answer these questions, we will need to explain what prayer is. Prayer isn’t to feed God’s ego. Prayer isn’t to inform God of our issues. Prayer isn’t magic. And prayer isn’t necessarily to change anything. So what is Prayer? We will give two approaches to the idea of prayer. It would seem that prayer is a combination of both ideas or at least presented so in Jewish thought.

(1) This approach doesn’t require any changes to happen from our prayer. Prayer isn’t intended to fix the issue that is being prayed for. It is taking an opportunity to express and strengthen our faith and commitment to the Lord. We do this primarily through asking him to change the situation, which in effect expresses our faith and recognition that all comes from Him and it is essentially in His power to change. This doesn’t mean that what we prayed for will be changed. What will be changed is connection with the Lord and our faith in Him. It is for this reason that there is a Mitzvah to pray – independent of whether or not it actually affects or helps the situation.^[ii] Speaking to Him on a daily basis also turns God from a concept to a reality in our minds so that we end up serving Him better.

Based on this the above questions get answered. Is God arrogant that he needs and wants our praise? No, because prayer is essentially intended for us. It is for us to express and strengthen our faith in God. God doesn’t need it – it is for our benefit. How can we change God’s will? We don’t. Prayer wasn’t intended for that. Why pray if “everything is for the good”? Because the idea isn’t the change of what God wanted and decreed rather the idea is the expression of faith that is accomplished through this prayer. Are we informing God any information He didn’t previously know? Absolutely not, rather the whole idea of prayer is that it comes from us – not from His infinite knowledge. Does prayer actually work? Well solely based off this idea and approach to prayer, no prayer doesn’t need to work. But it does work to strengthen our connection and faith in Him. By speaking to Him on a daily basis, we build our relationship with Him and He becomes from a concept to a reality. Therefore prayer is from the most fundamental concepts in Judaism.

(2)  The idea of prayer is repentance by changing ourselves and strengthening our faith. If we succeed enough, God’s judgment on us changes for the positive. If someone was suffering a physical punishment for a sin they did, then by praying they reverses their transgression and are therefore spared from the negative judgment. [Alternatively, even if the suffering wasn’t the result of a sin, it can be reversed with a good deed granting them an additional merit.]

So is God arrogant and in need of our prayer? No, because prayer is for us to repent through expressing our faith and strengthening our commitment to him and hopefully reverse the negative judgment if the repentance and prayer was proper enough. Did the prayer change God’s Mind? No, because it was only His intention that this sinner be punished. Once the person finishes their prayer, they transform themselves into a new person requiring a new positive judgment. So, it was always part of God’s Will that if he repents well enough his negative decree will change. Why pray if “everything is for the good”? The concept of “everything is for the good” is for everything that God does – not for what we do to ourselves. Our actions with our Free Will result in consequences sometimes positive and sometimes negative. The prayer is attempting to reverse our negative consequences. Are we informing God any information He didn’t previously know? Absolutely not; the whole idea of prayer is that it comes from us – not from His infinite knowledge.

Does prayer actually work? Based on the first approach on the idea of prayer there was no necessity for it to work. However, based on this approach, there should be a difference after the prayer and the question is only how often. Perhaps a certain level of repentance and faith is required in order allow for this change. Therefore, the average prayer which is void of such sincerity and faithfulness and is mere lip-service will be fruitful in the sense of actually making a difference (though there will be the benefits mentioned in the first approach to prayer mentioned above).

But it would seem that even according to this approach, prayer for oneself should be much more efficient over prayer for another person. Because the whole idea is repentance to fix yourself up from the transgression that caused you to have the negative judgment, fixing yourself up won’t have an effect on another person’s judgment. The only way to interfere with his judgment would be in cases where God allows for others to influence his judgment for the better. It’s like transferring from your merits to the person you are praying for. When this is allowed is something known only to the Judge Himself.

It is important to mention that very frequently G–d will not answer one’s prayers because it is in fact good for the person to have whatever troubles they are having. Only God, who sees the greater picture, can see the future and build-up of events to know that it is ultimately for the good.

Statistics taken^[iii] seem to conclude that no visible observation is seen to differentiate between medical-patients who were prayed for and those who were not. Based on our latter explanation of prayer, there should at least be some sort of difference, even slight, visible. But the statistics taken fail majorly to actually investigate the issue. The survey included people who weren’t sincere about their prayer (i.e. although sincere about their request they were not sincere with their faith and commitment to God), people who were non-believing atheists (either agnostic or decided to pray “just in case” there’s a Creator), people who are evil or vicious anti-Semites, and people who pray to the wrong being, such as Jesus or Muhammad. If these people weren’t included in the survey, perhaps the results would have been much different. In fact, there are many miracle prayer stories circulating within religious Jewish communities. The accuracy of at least some of such stories seems high. So yes, I do think prayer has an effect, though it is not the norm. When prayers weren’t answered it is probably because of (a) the repentance wasn’t good enough, or (b) the suffering is in fact good for the individual, or (c) God decided to allow nature to take its course.

On a sidenote, in prayer we tend to focus on the positive that God does. He frees the captives and feeds to poor. What is missing from the prayer book is that God also ties up the captives in the first place and makes poor people to begin with. So why are we selectively choosing only the positive elements of God? A great example would be the first blessing before kerias shema “Blessed is He… Who forms light and crates darkness, makes peace and creates everything.” This blessing is almost a direct quote from Isaiah 45:7: “Who forms light and creates darkness, makes peach and creates evil.” The last word – evil was intentionally replaced in order to focus on the positive.

The realization that evil exists is an important reality to come to terms with. We shouldn’t deny reality. However, we shouldn’t focus on evil and sad things throughout the day. We should focus on the positive things in life and thank God for the good that He does. Sure we can express our distress about the existence of evil to Him, but that shouldn’t be on a daily basis. It is simply not a healthy thing to do. When we wake up in the morning, we shouldn’t contemplate the evil in this world but rather we should think of the beautiful elements of life. This selective bias thinking is the healthy way to conduct life.

He who heals the sick and redeems the captives

A large part of the standard prayers include praises like “He who heals the sick and redeems the captives” (second blessing of the amidah/shmoneh esrei) and ”Gives food to the hungry… restores sight to the blind… erects those who are bent” (Psalms146:7-8). A question that comes to mind is why we are being selective in our description of God. Just as God heals the sick, so too does He make them ill in the first place! Just as He feeds many poor, there are other’s who He doesn’t feed! So why do we selectively choose the praise while ignoring the “bad” that He does?

I see three possible approaches, and perhaps even all reasons are true in their own merit. The first is that we aren’t saying that that is what He does, rather that that is what He should do. We pray that He should feed the hungry and heal the sick. Perhaps some support for this approach is the beginning of the second blessing of the amidah/shmoneh esrei “He who awakens the dead.” Now, according to the biblical account there are only three examples of a dead person miraculously being resurrected.[2] Obviously, then, we are referring to God as Someone who constantly raises the dead. Instead, we are praying and expressing hope that He will do so.

The second approach is that we are stressing the good that He does in order to praise Him and invoke those attributes of His. An analogy is when one beseeches a favor from a king, they will praise the king instead of criticizing Him. God, as the King of all Kings, surely deserves such a courtesy.[3]

The third approach is more of a kabbalistic approach. Kabbalah sees everything that God does as ultimately good, and even what appears to be “bad” is actually a hidden good (see here). The Talmud expresses this same idea in statements like “all that the Lord does is for the good” and “this too is for the good.”[iv] Therefore, we can rightfully stress the good while leaving at the bad, since it isn’t really “bad.”