[Avodah] efficacy of prayer

[Micha Berger]

On Fri, Mar 7, '08 3:07pm, R Liron Kopinsky wrote:
: L'mashal, if you need something from Person A, you make no regular
: effort to let them know that you need it, but decide to just send
: person A's best friend to ask for it, person A will probably say "I
: don't think s/he really needs it since they could have asked me for
: it themselves."

: Similarly, if Person A has something you need and 100 other people
: also need it, and you all fill out an application form for it, but
: you can ask person A's best friend to put your application on the top
: of the pile, that will obviously not hurt your cause.

I fail to see the nimshal.

In the first paragraph, you're saying that HQBH would figure that if I
really needed it, I would have turned to Him myself. But HQBH doesn't
have to guess whether or not I need it based on my actions. He knows
my need and my mindset directly. Perhaps it would be more appropriate
to attribute to Hashem the reasoning (kevayachol) that if I turn to
Him myself, I am more changed, and thus should get a more changed
response in how He treats me.

In the second paragraph, you are speaking of a person who has finite
attention, and therefore will give most consideration to the top
application on the pile. The nimshal fails here too. HQBH considers
all people based on what's best for them; there is no triage or
competition.

The case where someone goes to a tzadiq for tefillos it's because the
tzadiq shares in your pain. Hashem may do more to alleviate the
tzadiq's share of my pain than He would for me myself.

(I thought I said the following already this conversation, but I
didn't find it searching the archive. Maybe I'm thinking of my blog
entry at <http://www.aishdas.org/asp/2008/03/mi-shebeirakh.shtml>. If
I'm repeating myself, I'm sorry.)

When I attended Morasha Kollel, RMWillig presented this idea besnheim
RYBS. Quoting myself on Aspaqlaria:

> When someone is found guilty of a crime, he may be sent to jail. But
> that person isn't the only person who gets punished. His wife loses
> his companionship. His children lose access to their father. They
> and his parents are shamed. His employer loses out on an employee,
> and his customers on his services. The person he used to say
> "Hello!" to on the way to work every morning gets that much less joy
> in the morning. For that matter, the people they meet get impacted
> because the employer faces these people when he is more stressed. The
> impact of one person's imprisonment ripples outward.

> We are only human beings. We can't take all that into account when
> deciding when and how to punish someone.

> However, Hashem can. Every person impacted by some tragedy are
> impacted in some customized way appropriate for their life story.

> Rav JB Soloveitchik uses this idea to explain how a "Mi sheBeirakh"
> works. It is hard enough to understand how someone's own prayer can
> cause their fate to be modified. But how would we explain how a sick
> person's health would be improved in response to the prayers of
> people he might not have ever met or ever learn of their prayer or
> perhaps never even know of their existence?

> Rav Soloveitchik answers that the tefillah turns the personal
> tragedy into a communal one. Across the community, someone does not
> deserve to hear of the tragedy. Someone's impact would be unfair.
> And the community itself, as a corporate entity, has merit that
> perhaps is greater than that of the sum of its members. The
> community's standing is continuous since Avraham, touched by every
> person along the chain of tradition; its members' standing dates
> back to their births.

(Much like RMM's citation from RSRH about Avraham's tefillah for the 5
cities around Sodom or for Avimelekh being effective because of
Avraham's pain at seeing another suffer.)

I still don't see how this helps the person who was prayed for in the
long run. If the person themselves didn't improve (e.g. turn to
Hashem), then isn't this mechanism just stalling -- at some point the
negative will have to be paid by him.

Which then divides into stalling where it's dinei nefashos, and
stalling for more time is of value just for the increased opportunity.
And other cases where I am not sure why someone would gain by getting
this onesh ameliorated without eliminated the underlying spiritual
cause.

Perhaps the point is that if someone approaches a tzadiq /instead/ of
their own tefillos, they're like the first person in RYK's mashal,
whereas if it's in addition, they're like the second. That the
tzadiq's tefillah has to be an enhancement beyond one's own effort, or
else it's "buying off G-d" -- or at least one's conscience -- and
might even ch"v have the reverse effect.


The next day (Sat) at 12:46pm EST, Michael Makovi wrote:
: Perhaps fewer people got hurt than would have otherwise.

This is quite likely. The killer entered the library at a time when
most talmidim were at a mesibah for RCh Adar II. I get shudders from
the thought of what could have happened had the murderer taken his
kalishnikov into a room filled with row after row of talmidim ch"v
(!).

: Perhaps it is because of some sin we have, that no amount of prayer is
: strong enough to overcome.

I'll save this question for the thread "Mitzvot and sins cancel each
other, or not".

: Perhaps G-d, for some reason, put the prayer in the bank for later -
: i.e., perhaps it has had some effect on the future, that we cannot see
: yet. I recall in A Tzadik in Our Time, somewhere, it says something
: about no prayer or tear going to waste, and that eventually, it will
: bear fruit, even if we cannot see it....

I know there are many stories that imply that zechus is fungible. E.g.
The tzadiq who offers to buy an esrog in exchange for the seller
getting the sechar mitzvah. Or the concept RMM gives here.

They don't make sense to me, as the middah is "din" not "masa umatan".

SheTir'u baTov!
-micha

-- 
Micha Berger             "Man wants to achieve greatness overnight,
micha at aishdas.org        and he wants to sleep well that night too."
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