This series is dedicated to the memory of Dorina Kalaty, Esther bat Eliyahou A”H, a beloved Torah teacher in our community who left us too soon.
In this week’s post, I would like to address one of the most common questions raised about prayer: If tefillah is really about transforming oneself, how is it meaningful, or even possible, to pray for someone else? After all, since the other person is not party to my process of introspection, how can they benefit from it, or become worthy of Hashem’s blessing because of it?
In the Torah, we find two classic incidents in which Avraham intercedes with Hashem on someone else’s behalf. The first and most famous case is when Avraham prays for the residents of Sedom and Amorah to be spared the fate that God has decreed upon them. However, it is possible to interpret the exchange about Sedom not as a prayer, but as a prophetic learning experience. At face value, it seems like Hashem informs Avraham of His plan to destroy the inhabitants of Sedom, after which Avraham poses a series of follow-up questions to the Almighty – “if there were fifty righteous people in the place, would You still destroy it? What if there were forty-five, etc.?” Hashem responds to each query, helping Avraham gain a better understanding of the system of Divine justice.
Obviously, Hashem already knows how many righteous people there are (or are not) in the cities of Sedom and Amorah, and Avraham realizes that he does not know how many righteous citizens actually live there. The whole discussion is hypothetical, with Hashem gradually revealing to Avraham how He operates, or would operate, in His judgment of human beings. According to this reading of the story, there is no prayer offered on behalf of Sedom at all. The destruction of Sedom just provided a “teachable moment” for Hashem to educate and enlighten Avraham.
A clearer case of intercessional prayer is found in the story of Avimelekh, the King of Gerar. On the assumption that Sarah is Avraham’s sister, not his wife, Avimelekh takes her to his palace with the intention of marrying her. He is visited by God in a dream and informed that Sarah is, in fact, married to Avraham, and that he must return her to her husband immediately “because he is a prophet, and he will pray for you and you will live.”
There are many difficulties with God’s admonition of Avimelekh. First of all, why would his fate be determined by the prayer of Avraham, rather than his own personal soul-searching and repentance? Second, why is it important to mention that Avraham is a prophet? Isn’t the main issue the fact that Avimelekh wronged someone in taking his lawfully wedded wife? What difference does his title as a prophet make?
Avimelekh awakens from the dream and shares its ominous message with his subjects. He returns Sarah to Avraham and Avraham indeed prays for Avimelekh, after which we hear that “God healed Avimelekh, and his household and his maidservants, and they could again give birth. For Hashem had stopped up every womb in the house of Avimelekh on account of Sarah, the wife of Avraham.”
Prior to this, however, there is a fascinating exchange between Avimelekh and Avraham, during which Avimelekh sincerely seeks to understand why Avraham lied and claimed that Sarah was his sister. Once this matter is settled, Avimelekh not only apologizes to Avraham and Sarah, but also takes steps to make amends for his offensive behavior. Moreover, just a couple of chapters later in the Book of Beresheet, we find Avimelekh again reaching out to connect with Avraham – ultimately being rebuked by Avraham, sealing a treaty with him, and hosting the “outreach center” Avraham wishes to establish in his territory.
Clearly, Avraham’s relationship with Avimelekh runs deeper and extends further than the single exchange over Sarah’s “mistaken identity.” What can we learn from this, and how might it help us solve the problems raised above about intercessional prayer?
I would like to suggest that what we see from the various interactions between Avraham and Avimelekh is that Avimelekh became a kind of disciple of Avraham Avinu. He saw the uniqueness of Avraham and his relationship with God, was concerned with Avraham’s assessment and opinion of him, and genuinely wanted to be involved with Avraham and his mission of spreading knowledge of Hashem in the world.
Precisely because they had a special connection with one another, and because Avimelekh had the potential to partner with Avraham in his divinely mandated project, the fate of Avimelekh became significant to Avraham. Therefore, when Avraham offered a prayer for Avimelekh, he was reflecting upon the role Avimelekh could play in his own sacred mission, a role to which the Almighty’s punishment – preventing members of Avimelekh’s family from having children – would be an impediment.
Avraham saw the ability of Avimelekh and his household to procreate as an opportunity, another channel through which knowledge of Hashem could be conveyed from generation to generation, and therefore asked God to restore their fertility. This is why Hashem tells Avimelekh, “return the wife of the man, for he is a prophet and he will pray for you” – it is by virtue of the fact that you, Avimelekh, recognize Avraham as a prophet, and become his student, that he will see your destiny as related to his own, and will pray for you. Through your acceptance of Avraham as your teacher and mentor, your capacity to have children will now take on a totally new meaning. Your instinct to reproduce, rather than leading you toward unethical behavior like the taking of Avraham’s wife, will become an asset to you as you join with Avraham in promoting awareness of God in the world and passing the values he teaches you down to your descendants.
(We now see why, when Avimelekh proposes a covenant with Avraham, he asks for it on behalf of himself, his children and his grandchildren. He understood that Avraham saw him and his descendants as students who could continue their relationship with the Jewish people – Avraham’s descendants – for generations to come. Through the treaty he offered Avraham, he intended to make that bond “official.”)
Simply stated, Avimelekh’s inner transformation paved the way for Avraham’s change in perspective. Avraham’s new insight into his relationship with Avimelekh, formulated in his tefillah, made them worthy of Divine blessing in the form of restored fertility in the household of Avimelekh, which was now understood as a benefit for BOTH of them.
From this story, we gain a better sense of how praying for other people really works. It is easy to become selfish and self-absorbed when we engage in tefillah, only concentrating on our personal needs, challenges and objectives in the service of God. When we pray for others, however, we are encouraged to see how their welfare, health, and success are linked to our own.
Our “self-judgment” reaches a new level of depth and clarity when it includes not only our immediate circumstances and concerns, but those of our fellow men and women with whom we share a common existence and a common purpose in this world. This helps us appreciate the value of every human being and puts our own existence in broader context as well, reminding us that “we are all in this together” – every one of us is a creature of God, striving to fulfill His will in our lives, to the extent of our ability.
In fact, the Rabbis teach us that “one who prays for someone else will himself be answered first” because, immediately after Avraham prayed for Avimelekh’s fertility, his own wife Sarah became pregnant with Yitzchaq. When we expand our sense of what OUR needs are – realizing that the poverty, pain, ignorance, ill health, childlessness, etc. of our neighbors is just as significant, from God’s perspective, as our own – we have engaged in the highest level of introspection.
Rather than attaching special importance to our subjective interests because they are OURS, we should see our struggles, desires, hopes and dreams as having the same value as anyone else’s. Our needs are important because they are the needs of one of God’s creations, a human being fashioned in His image and called to serve Him, and they should be no more or less urgent than the needs of any other human being on this planet with the same fate and the same destiny.
This was the prism through which Avraham began to view Avimelekh and as a result of which they both were blessed. One who has achieved this degree of selflessness exemplifies the goal toward which all tefillah is geared – authentic and unbiased awareness of where we truly stand in the eyes of our Creator.
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