[Avodah] Davening for Others [tefilah and the war with Midyan]

[Micha Berger]

On Tue, Aug 02, 2011 at 11:55:59AM -0400, T613K at aol.com wrote:
:  that the choice is all ours -- BUT He puts His fingers on the scales a 
: little  bit, the choices are not really evenly matched.  In reality, He makes 
: it a  little bit easier for us to go one way than the other way. Our bechira 
: is  not absolute because Hashem really makes it a little bit easier for us 
: to be  good than otherwise, and He further tips the scales by always allowing 
: us to  "undo the past" by doing teshuva.  He gives us do-overs.

This is aside from the original issue of how praying for others might
help them. After all, they didn't even go through the self-transformation
of prayer -- why should their outcome change?

RMWillig repeated this thought, roughly, besheim RYBS. When someone is
sent to jail, he is being punished. But so is his wife, who now has to
do without him, and perhaps has to go find more employment to replace
his income. His children no longer have his presence, as much of their
mother's time, are perhaps taunted in school, etc... His parents no longer
have his presence, they are quite probably embarassed of their son, etc...

When the RBSO punishes, every person involved -- from the one hurt to the
person who got a slightly more abrupt response from someone saddened by
reading about it in the newspaper -- got exactly what HQBH was planning
for them. (Assuming, as RYBS did, universal hashgachah peratis ["HP" in
Avodah-speak.)

If one of them davens, and thus improves what outcomes their life should
contain, that could be enough to drive the whole chain of events in a
different direction.


Now about bechirah in particular and one's prayer on behalf of others,
which involves bechirah vs. hashgachah.... This problem exists regardless
of whether one follows the rishonim or current thought on universal
HP, just the belief that one can have an instance of hashgachah in
response to tefillah.

A rat chooses (perhaps not freely, but this is just a mashal) which
turn to take at the branches in a maze, but the neuroscientist doing
the experiment desides the layout of the maze.

A different mashal to the rat-in-a-maze:

There are three classical games: chess, go, and backgammon. In chess,
you learn that some things are worth more than others. In go, every piece
is equal, but with a 19x19 board, you have to learn to not only rely on
deductive reasoning, but also to get a visual sense of the big picture.
But life is most like shesh-besh, a good player only maximizes his odds;
there are always aspects outside bother players' control.

Bechirah is deciding how to play your die rolls, even though you can't
control what the roll will be.


If a train breaks down, delaying its arrival so that it comes just in
time to block your child's view of that troubled boy from a few blocks
away, and an encounter that could have led to a destructive friendship
is altogether avoided, that's HQBH helping our kids.

If our kid does happen to encounter the boy and yet chooses a boring
afternoon over hanging out with him, that's bechirah.

Similarly, the guy who tried to car-bomb Times Square last year. Here's
how I put it in <http://www.aishdas.org/asp/2010/05/backgammon.shtml>:
    The following is probably fiction, but is certainly possible.

    Picture a salt truck in February 2008, running down a Manhattan
    street, its mechanism scattering salt behind it. One particular
    piece of salt is sprayed out of the back of the truck, balances on
    a pebble embedded in the asphalt for a moment...

    ... and falls to the left. There it enters a weak spot in the street,
    a crack where water accumulates. The salt and its effect on freezing
    water accelerates the growth of that crack.On May 1st 2010, a Nissan
    Pathfinder bounced over the crack. Something fell out of place in
    the crudely made incendiary device in the back of the truck. The
    effects were scary, but no one was harmed.

    ... and the salt falls to the right. The SUV doesn't get jarred,
    and the device remains functional. In this world -- Explosion,
    fireball. Possibly hundreds of lives ended or people maimed. The
    number of people whose fate would have permanently altered for the
    worse would have been large.

        We are very lucky.
		-- New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, May 1, 2010 CE
		   (as quoted in the Wall Street Journal)


The key to understanding the topic, IMHO, is getting out of the mindset
of a chain of causes and effects, and instead remember that every event
is the convergence of numerous causes. Saying that hashgachah is a cause
says nothing about whether or not bechirah is another cause.

A boy's bad choice of friend, or a bomber's success at murdering hundreds,
depends on numerous causes. Which choices they are confronted with,
how they decide, and then whether the other pieces are in place for the
outcome to fit their plans. We can daven for two of the three.

-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             Zion will be redeemed through justice,
micha at aishdas.org        and her returnees, through righteousness.
http://www.aishdas.org
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