July 30, 2009
Did you ever really pray for something you wanted? Desperately pray for something that was vitally important to you?
If you did — and I think we all pray this way at moments of urgency — you violated an anonymous piece of wisdom:
“Be careful what you pray for, because you just might get it.”
I don’t know who said that, but I know what it means. I have looked back on more than one occasion at answered prayers, which achieved what turned out to be trivial objectives.
We think we know what is good for us and what we need, but we really don’t. Often, we are much the better for having certain prayers rebuffed; we frequently discover that the things we thought were important are not important at all.
In the Torah portion Va’et’hanan, Moses confides to us how he beseeched the Almighty, begging him to reverse the decision to frustrate Moses’ greatest dream of entering the Promised Land. Moses uses a synonym for prayer, hanan, which connotes imploring, pleading for the undeserved favor, matnat hinam.
But Moses is denied his dream; his is the archetypal unanswered prayer.
Joel Cohen, in his book Moses, a Memoir, puts these poignant words in the mouth of Moses:
“I lowered my knees and begged Him once again. I could muster no tears this time…. I needed badly to reach and walk about the land He promised to Abraham for us, so long ago…. My work is incomplete. My prophecy has achieved no reality for me in my lifetime…. There will be no future for me. My staff, the instrumentality of miracles against His enemies, is powerless against His will.”
What are we to learn from the story of the unanswered prayer of the humblest but greatest of men?
We learn the gates of prayer are not always open and not to be relied upon exclusively.
Judaism insists upon a balance between faith in the divine and the exercise of practical human effort. It acknowledges that while there must be “bitahon,” trust, in the Lord, there must also be “hishtadlut,” old-fashioned hard work on our part. As the rabbis have it, never rely upon miracles.
We can never allow prayer to become a substitute for our doing all we can do. We must not simply expect the Almighty to achieve Jewish sovereignty for us, but must do our parts politically and militarily. We cannot expect manna from heaven, but must earn our livelihoods by dint of the sweat of our brow. And when we are ill, yes, we must pray, but we must also diligently seek out competent medical assistance.
There are other lessons to be learned from Moses’ un-answered prayer. His grave remains a secret, so that it not become a shrine and that he not be idolized or, heaven forbid, deified. We learn that we are to pray only to the One above, not to saints and holy men, be they alive or be they dead.
By not granting Moses his request, the Master of the Universe was in effect telling him that he did all that he could, and that no more should be expected. It’s the same for humans: “It is not necessary for you to complete the task, but neither are you exempt from doing all that you can.”
Moses is being told, “You did all you could, even if you did not achieve all your personal ambitions.” No human is complete, no person perfect.
The final lesson we learn from the very fact that Moses persisted in his prayer, although he knew well it would be spurned. He modeled the importance of hope in the face of impossible odds.
Jewish history contains a long list of Moses-like figures, whose vision it was to enter the Holy Land. They include men like the Gaon Elijah of Vilna, who longed to spend the last years of his life in Eretz Yisrael. The great sage Yisrael Meir Kagan, the Chofetz Chaim, prayed and planned to live out his life in Israel.
Ironically, they, like Moses, had their dreams frustrated by providence. Like Moses, they were ready to try almost anything to realize their ambitions. And like Moses, who was told that his disciple Joshua would enter the Land, various leaders of Jewish history, however reluctantly, took comfort in the fact that their disciples would realize their dream in their stead.
This is possibly the most important lesson of all: When our prayers go unanswered for ourselves, they may yet be answered for our children and grandchildren.
Rabbi Dr. Tzvi Hersh Weinreb is executive vice president emeritus of the Orthodox Union.
Comment: comments@njjewishnews.com
--TOP--