How Prayer May Bring Change – Not How You Might Think

I’m writing to share the remarks I delivered at this past week’s Friday night Shabbat service, which you are always encouraged to attend — a peaceful conclusion to the week and initiation of Shabbat, celebrated through song, community, reflection, and prayer, and then, of course, food:

I’ve shared a lot about my own personal prayer practice before. It has evolved a lot over time: ebbed and flowed; sometimes, over the years, being very strictly bound to the tradition, sometimes going long periods of being left on the shelf. Lately I’ve aspired for those three daily times that tradition calls for — Shaharit, Minhah, Ma’ariv; morning, noon, and night — but rather than chanting the full matbe’a, the full prayer blueprint from beginning to end, I do several of core prayers; the Sh’ma and its blessings, the Amidah, maybe a psalm or two, and then I just hold space for silence with God.

Sometimes, my mind is racing in a bunch of directions, and the silence is essentially: my mind racing, then wandering, then, sometimes, settling down. Or sometimes it’s still distracted, and I’m hoping that the fact that I have set aside this time for prayer means that I have invited God in to be present to my thoughts, and that that presence and connection is fostering the good will I am hoping to bring to the world in service to the Divine, whether or not I am conscious of that intent throughout my prayer experience. I hope that because I have set aside this time for prayer, that even when, in doing so, my mind is wandering to how I am going to get to and from the Eagles game on Sunday (Go Birds), that setting aside that time facilitates the connection and nourishment and realignment with what is good and true that I am seeking.

Sometimes, instead, I am able to pray more conscientiously, with specific questions for, or appeals to, God: God, help me understand how best to show up for my family; help me understand how best to do my job in service to this community; help me understand how I am called in this world. Oftentimes, entering a prayer space and time takes the form like this of seeking to discern a pathway forward, recognizing that the autopilot I am otherwise on in the world is not always taking me where I want to go.

It’s what we sometimes refer to as “surrender:” saying in effect, I’ve reached the limits of my conscious self being able to work through this issue; I’ve recognized the limits of my day-to-day habits in getting me through this chapter: help me, God, help me to align with You. What I noticed this week, because I almost broke my normal pattern, is that, while I often pray for guidance or discernment, I rarely pray for specific outcomes.

I used to pray for specific outcomes a lot, albeit self consciously and a little sheepishly. I would pray for good grades, I would pray for an Eagles win, I would pray to get the job I interviewed for or to get into the school I applied to. I would pray that the right candidate would win whatever election I happened to be focused on in that moment.

But over time, I stopped praying for outcomes. History seemed too tragic, in my view, to suggest a God who, if someone would just pray in the proper way for the proper result, would change course and bring that outcome to fruition.

I can very much believe in God, believe in a God from whom we can draw strength and inspiration, and whose will we can aspire to align ourselves with, without believing in a God who responds to prayer like a vending machine, where if we would but input the right combination, we would get the result we want.

And yet, this week, I found myself praying for certain outcomes, (outcomes that were hopefully a little less self-involved than an “A” on my contracts exam).

I found myself praying for a more protected planet, for protection for the rights of people in our communities under duress, like immigrants and people who are trans; for a peaceful and secure existence for Israelis and Palestinians and their neighbors; for a broader experience of justice in our society.

I found myself praying in this way even though my theology still doesn’t necessarily imagine a God who would fulfill these prayers just because I prayed them.

I found myself thinking about Sefer Sh’mot, the Book of Exodus, which we began in Jewish communities around the world last week, where it says (Exodus 2:23-24):

Vaye’anhu v’nei Yisra’el… vayizaku vata’al shavatam el-ha’Elohim

וַיֵּאָנְחוּ בְנֵי־יִשְׂרָאֵל… וַיִזְעָקוּ וַתַעַל שַׁוְעָתָם אֶל־הָאֱלֹהִים

The Israelites were groaning… and cried out; and their cry for help rose up to God.

Vayishma Elohim et-na’akatam

וַיּשְׁמַע אֱלֹהִים אֶת־נַאֲקָתָם

God heard their moaning

Vayizkor Elohim et-brito et-Avraham et-Yitzhak v’et Ya’akov

וַיִזְכֹּר אֱלֹהִים אֶת־בְּרִיתוֹ אֶת־אַבְרָהָם אֶת־יִצְחָק וְאֶת־יַעֲקֹב׃

and God remembered the covenant with Abraham and Isaac and Jacob.

Even if we don’t have a literal understanding of our prayer leading immediately to God’s action, what I hear in this biblical exchange is relationship — a covenantal relationship with a history and a memory. To me, this text says: God would want to know. Even if God is not going to solve all of our problems for us, God would want to know — what we are going through, with whom, and why. God wants to know.

Most of the time when we reach out to someone about a problem we’re facing, we’re not reaching out because we expect that person to intervene and fix everything. Usually they couldn’t even if they wanted to.

That’s not why we reach out, though. We reach out because their helpful, listening presence helps us feel not so alone. All of a sudden, when we’ve taken that problem that’s been knotted up inside of us, all tied up, and we’ve slowly but carefully started to unspool it in the presence of another, it doesn’t feel so tangled. So big. So scary. We find that there are threads we can pull on that either make a difference in the result, or that allow us to chart a pathway forward in response to the new reality.

If people can do that — can be there for you to listen like that — so, tradition says, can God. God wants to do that, tradition says: God in search of man, pining for man, pining for us.

By opening ourselves up to God, even with the understanding that doing so may not mean everything is solved for us, we’ve made a step to strengthen the relationship. Think about when others reach out to ask for help or to share something with you. How good does this typically feel that this person sought you out for help? Even if you don’t give them the exact help they specifically ask for, my guess is, if you’ve responded with tenderness and love, they’re doing a lot better than before they reached out.

My belief is that as with fellow human beings, so, too, in a sense, with God. Even if God is not going to solve the problem for us, my belief is that the reaching out opens or strengthens a line of connection between you, between us, and God. Strengthens it to serve as a path of nourishment from here going forward. Building on the covenant that has been our foundation ever thus.

There’s another reason I believe praying for something is valuable even if doing so doesn’t guarantee its fulfillment: It helps us clarify for ourselves what is sacred to us. If we’re praying for someone’s recovery, it’s a reminder that this person is dear to us, and that we’re called upon to foster a relationship with them. If we’re praying for an outcome in an election, it’s a reminder, if we needed it, how sacred this democracy, this country, is to us. If we’re praying for our planet, it’s a reminder of how precious it is to us. Holding space for ourselves to feel that love that we have, to distill our values, can open up a pathway forward.

A final example: this week, we saw a prayer leader, a clergy person, put forward a plea. The odds of that plea being received in such a way that the recipient, the addressee, would change their ways were slim to none. In fact, if anything, the plea was received with contempt. Still, the plea was not without merit: the intended audience was not the only actual audience. Others heard the plea, too, and were inspired by it: saw in it a signal of hope, a signal of belief — a signal that all was not lost. Prayer can have reverberations that go well beyond any intended effect.

I like to cite Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi’s reflection about whether or not prayer helps: Does it help? “We know some parents pray with all their hearts for a child to be cured of a life-threatening disease, and yet the little one dies,” he says. “We pray daily for peace, yet we are still at war. Prayer is not a switch with which we can control the universe. But I do believe that we can, with our prayers, reach dimensions of existence that we do not otherwise have access to, and that the openings in those higher worlds bring blessings down to us. And don’t forget the more immediate benefits at home. Prayer waters thirsty souls like rain on flowers.

Prayer may not bring world peace, but it gives my heart peace. Prayer may not cure the sick, but it helps us find healing. Prayer may not guarantee me a job, but it helps me rise up with renewed energy and purpose to address the obstacles before me. A prayer truly prayed is the beginning of its own answer. So yes, prayer helps.”

May it be so. Shabbat Shalom,

Rabbi K.