[Avodah] Praying to angels

[Zev Sero]

Danny Schoemann wrote:

> While we believe that Hashem is everywhere, we also say our tefillos
> go "up" to be heard. For a whisper or thought to go anywhere it needs
> intermediaries if it's to go anywhere.

This is explicit in gemara and halacha: we are told that while the
tefila of a minyan, or of an individual during the Aseret Yemei Teshuva,
goes directly to its destination, the tefila of an individual during the
year must be conveyed by mal'achim, who don't understand Aramaic, and
therefore can't convey those passages in the tefila.  What exactly this
means isn't clear to me, but it's there in all the sources, black on
white.

 
> Maybe a better parallel would be from the olden days you'd ask an
> operator to connect you; Machnisei Rachamim... maybe we're simply
> asking the spiritual operators to be so kind as to create the
> "connection" to the One Above.

The problem with this is that mal'achim are not supposed to have
bechira.  Indeed, the definition of shituf is the belief that the
powers above, such as the sun and moon or the mal'achim, have the
bechira not to convey Hashem's blessings to us, and therefore have
to be cajoled, or even bribed, in order to do so, just as is the
case with a king's ministers and servants.  That's allowed for Bnei
Noach, but not for us.  We're supposed to understand that they have
no bechira, and therefore asking them to do things for us is like
asking a workman's tool to do something, instead of asking the
workman himself.

Back before automatic telephone exchanges, one did indeed have to ask
the operator politely to connect one to the desired number; if one
didn't ask she wouldn't know what number was wanted, and if one was
rude she could refuse to make the connection.  Nowadays nobody thinks
to ask the telephone to please connect to the correct number.

So where does that leave us with "machnisei rachamim" and "shlosh
esre midot"?  All I can say is that this was dealt with over the
centuries by those well above my pay grade, and the overwhelming
majority concluded that it should be said.  My bottom line is that
if R Amram Gaon and R Shrira Gaon wrote to say it, it can't be wrong.


> - Danny, not really understanding what he's talking about.

Zev, ditto.

-- 
Zev Sero               Something has gone seriously awry with this Court's
zev at sero.name          interpretation of the Constitution.
                       	                          - Clarence Thomas