The Purpose of Prayer

At this week's Latte and Learning, Mrs. Perl led a discussion about the purpose of remote prayer. She started by telling us about how she was running on the treadmill while watching The West Wing season 4, where there was a right-wing religious group that wanted to do a double-blind study on the effectiveness of remote prayer on patients who don't know they're being prayed for. On the show, the findings were that the people who didn't know they were being prayed for tended to get better more often than those who weren't being prayed for. We were then forced to think about the idea on a more personal level: we do a lot of remote prayer in Judaism, right? Isn't this "remote prayer" thing the same as saying Tehillim for someone who's sick? This segued into a discussion about the purpose of prayer.

In the group, there were two distinct opinions: either our prayers literally have the power to change G-d's verdict about the fate of a person or they don't. Proponents of the former position brought Torah sources about when the matriarchs prayed for children. In this sense, they changed what G-d had decreed for them. They also mentioned King Chizkiyahu, who prayed to G-d once and had 15 years added to his life as a result. Proponents of the latter position said that prayer is more of an opportunity to better yourself and improve your relationship with G-d rather than a chance to change your or anyone else's fate. They (and when I say "they", I mean "I") brought up the fact that prayers and tehillim don't always change a person's fate; in many cases, the person being davened for ultimately passes away. However, they can still leave behind a huge amount of inspiration and strength for the people that davened for their recovery. Although we didn't actually reach a consensus at the end of the session, I find that each different approach can be applied at a different time and for different reasons.

So how on Earth does this apply to Megillat Esther? Let's go back to Perek 4, when Mordechai is reasoning with Esther about whether or not she should risk her life and go before the king. What did he tell her? He told her that G-d would bring the salvation of the Jewish people through someone else if she didn't take the initiative. From here, it would seem that G-d decreed that the Jewish people would be saved, so their fasting would not actually change G-d's decree. Fast forward to the part where the Jews fast for three days. What were they fasting for and why did Esther ask them to fast? According to the Pesukim, the Jews were fasting in Esther's merit so that when she went before the king, he would raise his scepter to her and allow her to violate Da'at Hamelech. Taken literally, the Jews were trying to change or influence the decree that G-d had already made about Esther's fate.

I'd like to suggest that there was more to this fast. In the Latte and Learning discussion, I suggested that the purpose of prayer is introspection and strengthening one's relationship with G-d and, in the case of remote prayer, using one person's illness as fuel for your own prayer and connection to G-d. More than anything, I think that's what was happening here. Although we haven't discussed Esther's religious development too much in class, I feel like this was her purpose in getting the Jews to pray. On the one hand, she was scared for her life because she would have to violate the king's precious laws to do what Mordechai wanted her to. On the other hand, the Jewish people desperately needed to reconnect with G-d and introspect. While asking for their remote prayers, she got them to reach out to G-d and start rebuilding the connection that was lost when the Beit Hamikdash was destroyed. Isn't that dandy?