Can Prayer Change G-d's Mind? Yes & No - Philosophy vs. Kabbalah

[music] The unique part about this talk is what we're going to do. We're going to bring up a philosophical question asked over the ages, but we're going to answer it from a few different perspectives. One of them, which adds a nice dimension to this talk, is going to be Kabbalah. Now, early Jewish philosophers, really not all of them learned Kabbalah because the Kabbalah became hidden. So, when we speak about Jewish philosophers, sometimes they're discussing a topic, for example, like prayer without using anything from Kabbalah. Now, later, the Kabbalah became more revealed. And so, today we can take these same discussions and contrast the way Kabbalah addresses them and standard Jewish philosophy. So, the biggest question that comes up when discussing the idea of prayer. Prayer is full of amazing ideas. We talk to God. Obviously, it implies that God listens, God cares, God can answer. A a lot of fundamental of life and Judaism really are connected directly to the concept of prayer. But a huge question that is discussed from the early Jewish philosophers is how does prayer really work? How can it work, actually, for that matter? Um you know, God is all-knowing, perfect in everything he does, sees beginning and end, beyond time, within time, everything. God is unbelievable, omnipotent. Can prayer change God's mind? So, let's imagine a particular case. God has decided to give you something, either positive or negative. So, can your input, can your dialogue with God alter that? Can it affect that and bring about a different result? And the problem with that is this, God is seemingly untouchable. He's perfect, his calculations are perfect. So, let's say God decided a person deserves to be punished for whatever reason. And the punishment is going to the transcend and come manifest itself in the form of a sickness. Now, a person is sick, he's in pain, and he decides to pray, "Hashem, I'm suffering. This sickness is is hurting me. It's causing me to be depressed. Please God, send me a a refuah. Heal me." So, you're essentially asking God to change something that he has clearly decided to do to you. Now, a separate point which is important to understand, God doesn't punish for the sake of punishment. He's not trying to get even with you. And he doesn't want to see you hurting. The punishment is itself to your benefit. So, if we add that to the scenario, it becomes even more complicated. This sickness has been sent to you to cleanse your soul of whatever blemishes the sins you've done have caused. So, the the ultimate punishment of the sickness is for your benefit. It's going to help make you become the person that you need to be. And that's why it was sent to you. But now, you don't want it. So, you're asking God, "Please take it away." So, why would God take that away? If he takes it away, it might leave you with the blemishes that that the sickness itself came to to to fix and and and and remove. So, seemingly asking God to remove a negative experience that you're going through is counterproductive. It's wrong. So, why would we do that? And furthermore, how in the world would that end up working? Now, if we look at the positive side, it's less dramatic, but let's look at the positive side as well. God has decided uh not to We're going to go the not down. Not to grant you a particular positive thing. For example, let's say you would love a beautiful luxurious car. And the nice thing is it can get expensive, and of course, that's another issue. In order to have it, you it requires about $100,000, so you can buy it. And that's what you would love. And for some reason, in the deep recesses of your heart and your mind, there's a calling there. You're like, "I would love to have a nice uh luxury car, Mercedes, Lexus, whatever it is." Um now, God knows our thoughts and knows our feelings, so God's aware of this desire that you have. So, imagine we are somehow sending him this message, even if it's subconsciously, that God, I would love this car. Assuming you believe in God, so ultimately all your requests and desires are going to be directed towards him. So, you're asking for this car. Now, God has decided that you don't necessarily deserve or should have this car. But, as a result of you're now longing for it, wanting it, and even if you simply pray for it and say, "God, can I please have a luxury car?" Now, is that How is that going to change God's mind and grant you that luxury car? It's It seems to be beyond the ability and power of a human being to do such a thing. So, these are the questions and the perspectives that the Jewish philosophers bring up. Now, what I'd like to do is answer this question from a perspective of Jewish philosophy, and I'm in fact going to answer first by giving the very answer that the Sefer Ha-Ikarim, or Rabbi Joseph Albo himself, offers. But, we're going to extend this talk to include Jewish mysticism, mainly Kabbalah, to bring a new answer and a in some ways a deeper answer to this question. Now, it's interesting to point out the early Jewish philosophers, not all of them learned Kabbalah. And Kabbalah is an essential part of our Torah. So, ultimately one can actually say, without the the system of Kabbalah and its knowledge and the results that we take out from it, any type of discussion that you analyze and come to conclusions with on might be lacking in some way. And so, we will hopefully appreciate first of all, the philosophical answer, but see how the mystical Kabbalah answer comes and opens up a new dimension for us. So, let's start with the first answer. So, the answer of the Ikarim is this. It's true that you, John, uh Mr. So-and-so, it's true that God has decided for you, the way you are, who you exactly are right now, that you deserve to be sick in our first example, or you don't deserve to have this car you want. But, if you can change who you are, then perhaps the new person that you become requires a new decision from God. Right? So, so for example, with the sickness, you were sick because of some negative character trait in yourself. You were overly haughty or for a sin you did. So, the sickness came as a punishment or as a vehicle to help you to change. Now, let's say you take the message the right way and you decide, you know what? Cuz all the time you're sick in bed, you have a lot of time to think and at the end all of the thinking leads you to realizing that hey, I'm not the person I want to be. I did this that wasn't right. My attitude is off and you do sincere chuvah. You repent and you change and you resolve to be this better person. So, essentially in in in making that shift in who you are, you're a different person now. We'll call you instead of person A, we'll call you person B. Interestingly, God never decided on person B, this new person that you have become through this process of repentance, that you can't have what you want. That you can't that first of all that you can't have the car or that you need to be sick. So, essentially on this new person, person B, God reevaluates. It says, "You know what? You deserve the car or you don't deserve to be sick anymore." And guess what? Then the Mercedes dealer drops off a car in your parking lot or the sickness goes away. So, essentially his answer is to the question we started with can prayer change God's mind is a resounding no. Never. Absolutely not. It's an insane thing to think that. How can I change God's mind? It makes no sense. It's it's it's almost lunacy. So, what are we doing instead? We're changing ourself. So, the idea of praying to God is meant to change me. It's meant to help turn me into a different person with a different standing in God's eyes, more righteous, whatever the details are. And it's that new person that can receive the things he's asking for. So, prayer is not a guarantee to get what you're asking for, but it is it is it is a possibility to receive those things or to remove the negative things. And the answer is you don't change God's mind, it's you that changes. Now, it's interesting on this entire approach, I haven't found really in writing anyone that brings up a question on it. But in in my studies and I also included it in the book I wrote on prayer. There's actually a book out there anyone interested called The Power of a Whisper, which addresses the faith, philosophy, and mysticism involved in in the concept of prayer. And so, the question I bring there is this. If it's chuvah, if ultimately it's repentance that is causing you to change in God's eyes and to become able to receive the good or to remove the bad situation that you're in, then in in fact, it's not prayer but chuvah that's doing this. So, why is this all the question involved in prayer? Why do we ask how does prayer work? Can prayer change God's mind? And we say no, prayer changes the person and then he can get what he's asking for. But it's not prayer. We just explained that really the prayer is chuvah. So, if it's chuvah, repentance, so forget about prayer. Why do I need to sit there and talk to God? Furthermore, why am I asking him for what I want? I should just be saying God, give me what you think is best. But the real the point of the question is forget about prayer, just let's do chuvah and we'll get everything that that's best for us. Okay, you want to throw in a request here and there, fine. But it's not prayer that's doing it. It's chuvah. It's repentance. It's becoming that new person. So, what's the uniqueness to prayer that's connected with all this idea? So, for that I think in order to appreciate we have to go a little bit deeper into what prayer really is. What are we trying to accomplish when we pray? And of course, for this we have to appreciate we're not talking about the ritual prayer that we, you know, stand up, sit down, bow down, stand up, sit down. That's not what I'm talking about. We're not talking about reading a bunch of words that you don't even understand what they are because that's what you were told to do when you were a little boy. We're talking about prayer as a dialogue. It's a conversation with you and God where in fact you get to do most of the talking and God is doing the listening. Unbelievable. Imagine you can go to Donald Trump's popular today as a president. Actually, I think they want to kick him out. But imagine you go to a millionaire, billionaire and speak to him and he'll he's going to listen to you and he's going to care. And imagine that experience. Unbelievable. The opportunity. Now think about Hashem. Hashem is an eternal, all-knowing, perfect being that it is knows you better than you know yourself. And you're going to now try to have a dialogue with God talking to God. You know, talking to God, which is what prayer really is, is is really why in fact God gave us the power of speech in the first place. Let's go back to the first person. Adam. You know who's the first What's the first thing Adam did when he was created? He spoke. To who? To God. There was no one else around to talk to. So we can see in Adam's first action this essential idea of a dialogue and a connection between us and our creator. Prayer is something that is embedded in the core of our being. To turn to God with the power of speech he gave us and use it to communicate and talk to him. This can also be done in thought, but speech adds an added dimension and a power because the audible speech is more real to us. It helps us in a in a different way as well. So the idea is this. When I know that I'm talking to someone, so I relate my ideas and what I I'm going to say to that person I'm talking to. So if I know I'm talking to a smart person or someone who's a judge or someone who's going to be let's say, you know, be be wanting to decide things for me. So I'm going to gauge what I say based on the circumstances and the person I'm talking to. So once I know that I'm talking to God, so then obviously I'm going to relate to that God that I'm talking to as much as I understand of him. So when I think of God being eternal, creator, giving, loving, powerful, It's going to cause me to look through a lens in order to speak to God properly. It's going to make me think about reality more, eternality more, purpose, morality, because that's the being I'm I'm I'm approaching. So, prayer is an opportunity to really go deeper inside yourself and reevaluate and and change your perspectives. Talking to God is like therapy. It's like talking to someone that's going to help almost fix and straighten out your perspectives. So, what happens when I talk to God in prayer is I become a different person because of the talking, because of the praying. Praying is a is is a is a is a process that transforms me. It makes me into this new me that is this better me. So, now we can appreciate it is prayer that's at working. Why? Cuz it's specifically prayer that helps create and and and and affect this chuva on you. It's specifically the repentance and the new you that is the result of praying. That's the what we were speaking about before that you change. It isn't just simple repentance, I regret my sins and I'm not going to do it anymore. That's that's a separate thing. The chuva of prayer is this inner dialogue within you, this this this this analysis within you, and this new you that is the result of all of that. So, talking to God really helps you become this new and better person, and that's why it's specifically through prayer that you can receive now this better life, the things that you've been missing, the things that have been blocking you can be removed. That's specifically through prayer. Okay. So, I think with with Hashem's help, we are hopefully understanding now of this first approach. Prayer is a powerful, unbelievable gift from Hashem, and when we use it properly, it helps us to grow and to draw close to Hashem and to receive all the good he wants to give us. Unbelievable. Let's shift now to a different perspective like I said. Let's now look at what Jewish mysticism masters say about prayer. Kabbalah and the different ideas that have really been hidden for so long, but today they're available to us Baruch Hashem to understand. So, again, addressing the same question, can prayer change God's mind? The answer to that unbelievably almost insane question is, yes. Prayer can change God's mind. How? Let's appreciate really who God is. When we pray to God, who are we really praying to? What are we praying to? What is God? Who is God? So, if we look in one of the Hebrew books of prayer, we'll find actually there are a lot of different names for God. God doesn't have one name. God has many names. Now, what does that mean? Why? Why do we say one time this name, one time another name? And it's all the same God. If he's one God, let him have just one name. So, the answer is that really when we're talking to God, we're talking about the different ways that God is manifest in this world, the different ways he reveals himself to us. Sometimes God reveals himself as a loving father, sometimes as a king that is judging his people, and sometimes that judgment can be harsh. So, in general we divide these two main characteristics of divine revelation and divine manifestation into two categories. One is judgment and punishment, and the other is love, loving kindness and giving. So, really when you think about it like this, what your life will be, what you will receive from God whether good or bad, will depend on which mode of judgment you are experiencing from God. And so, here's the trick. Prayer has within it the power to help change God's attribute of judgment and punishment and transform it into the attribute of love and kindness, which can result in beneficence, good things. Hashem being kind and giving. This in fact is an unbelievable thing because it's mentioned in the prayers we actually say in the morning. And it's brought in the Gemara a few places. God himself actually prays. A very fascinating idea, God prays. And for that we have also confusing questions. What does God pray for? Who does he Who's he praying to? He's God. How can He's How can he pray to anybody? So, the answer is God prays to himself. It's this inner dialogue within God, the two attributes, the attribute of kindness and judgment that work together. And when God's praying is really a dialogue between these two modes of judgment and and how God reacts and treats us. Uh the question we also want to ask is what does God pray for? So, fascinatingly enough, God prays really for us, so to speak. He prays that his kindness should overpower his punishment, his judgment, and that he should be kind to his creations. That's what God wants to be. So, the In this approach, the unbelievable power of prayer is also something that God put in creation. It's It's It's a It's a part of the process that God created where he relates to us and he gives to us. We just have to do our part in this process in talking to Hashem, trusting in Hashem, and that creates that two-way street, so to speak, where we can then arouse God's love for us, which bypasses the judgment. So, that's that's the deeper appreciation according to a more mystical Kabbalah approach to the power of prayer. Prayer has the power to change God's mode of judgment from judgment and punishment to kindness and love. And so, are we changing God's mind? So, maybe yes, maybe not, but we're changing his mode of judgment, which I in the original said is like changing Hashem's mind. And it is in some ways almost like changing Hashem's mind because again, if someone is in between two decisions, whether I should do this or shouldn't do this, so, in a if we can have some input there to push it in one direction, so we're having an effect. We're We're causing some change there. So the unbelievable reality is that the power that we have that Hashem gave us to pray is in fact a power that can change what we're going to get from Hashem and and change his mind on some level. Now the trick is this, we're not really changing his mind. This is all what Hashem wants. Hashem said, "I'm going to create something called prayer. When you utilize it and you pray to me, then I'm going to be nice. I'm going to then give." It's what Hashem wants in the first place. So it's really because Hashem really wants this is why it works. And again, it's not a guarantee. If Hashem absolutely doesn't want to change, then he's not going to change. So really God's ultimately in full control and it's out of this control that he gave us this power to pray and to soften the treatment we get. You know, cuz we knew that we're not going to always be perfect. We're not going to always be deserving. Even if we're not deserving, so we have the the the special beauty of prayer, the power of prayer to come and ask and as a loving father still get things we want, the things we need. Because Hashem loves us. So that's the ultimate really the power of prayer is that Hashem loves us and Hashem wants to give. [music]