[Avodah] why stop learning?

[Micha Berger]

On Sat, Feb 11, 2012 at 06:30:59PM +0000, Allan Engel wrote:
: The gemoro that I alluded to earlier in this conversation states that
: the actions of a child can cause benefit to a parent, but not the
: reverse.

: This would seem to contradict the assumption that anyone can engender
: schar to anyone else at will.

There is another way to explain davening for another rather than imparting
zekhus to that person's account.

>From http://www.aishdas.org/asp/2008/03/mi-shebeirakh.shtml

    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. ...

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             I have great faith in optimism as a philosophy,
micha at aishdas.org        if only because it offers us the opportunity of
http://www.aishdas.org   self-fulfilling prophecy.
Fax: (270) 514-1507                              - Arthur C. Clarke