[Avodah] effects of religous worship on health

[Micha Berger]

I suggest people read RAF's blog entry (and not simply because he quotes
me) about tefillos that don't seem to get answered.

See "Can Prayer Fail Us?"
<http://ariefolger.wordpress.com/2008/12/05/can-prayer-fail-us/>

> stems from the understanding that prayer is about asking for what we
> want - and getting it. Theologically, however, such an understanding
> of prayer is difficult....

> Praying is not about being like the bashful child sweetly asking an
> undeserved favor from his parent, but is a most serious matter; it is
> about engaging in a most personal way in the service of G”d. The
> Talmud calls it ... service of the heart and stresses that it
> is our heartful expression of our love of G-d...

> Rabbi Chaim Volozhin, in his Nefesh haChayim, goes one step further
> and stresses that ideally, we should not pray for anything specific,
> but rather for bringing general blessing to the world - Shefa,,,

> Clearly, prayer is first and foremost an intense act of self
> transformation. Indeed, if our prayers fail to arouse us, if they fail
> to elevate our souls, perhaps we have muted and even deadened our
> words of prayer, robbing them of their effect, by not preparing
> ourselves to change....

> But is prayer primarily really about praying for particular, well
> defined things? Some would say so, and our duty and long standing
> tradition to intensify our prayers... at times of distress, supports
> such a conception of prayer. The tractate Ta'anit we quoted above,
> is full of halakhot regarding special fast and prayer days decreed in
> response to looming tragedy.

> However, Rabbi Chayim Volozhin remarkably claims that prayer is mostly
> not about bringing about particular effects, but rather about bringing
> undiscriminate blessing to the world, or at least to a larger geographic
> area. When we engage in prayer, we effectively join our Creator in
> sustaining the world, by bringing abundant goodness to the world. 
...

Much more there, including the contradictory results achieved by various
studied of intercessory prayer.

Please read the blog entry before reading this reply.





I understand that RAF was writing as a pulpit rabbi, and wanting to
stress an answer to what bothers people, but...

I disagree with his playing fown the role of simply turning to Abba.
Extrapolating from the Gra, I formulated Jewish prayer as being three
distinct mitzvos:
    - qeri'as Shema
    - tefillah -- the reflexive, hitpa'el, of lehispallel, that RAF
      describes
    - tachanunim -- the raw crying out to one's Father, to the Beloved,
      when in pain. As in those books of Yiddish techines many of our
      grandmothers had. Or "kol ha'oseh tefillaso qeva, lo asa tefilaso
      tachanunim."

You can search the list archives for "tefillah tachanunim" and save
everyone sitting through a repetition of the notion and its sources
at greater length.

RAF stressed the concept of tefillah, but did so by inadvertantly
playing down tachanunim. Or, to put it another way, his formulation is
too much "im ka'avadim" and not enough "im kevamim".

One reason we turn to G-d is the same as why an elderly person who is
suffering might cry out for "Mama". Not out of an expectation that
help will necessarily come (and in my mashal's case, they even know for
sure it won't) but because part of being an eved Hashem is developing
a personal relationship with Him.

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             When you come to a place of darkness,
micha at aishdas.org        you don't chase out the darkness with a broom.
http://www.aishdas.org   You light a candle.
Fax: (270) 514-1507        - R' Yekusiel Halberstam of Klausenberg zt"l