Why Are Our Prayers Not Answered? - Rabbi Yaakov Altman

[Music] people speak about making prayer more effective they say say well prayer doesn't work it doesn't work so let's talk about a few different reasons even before we get to making it more effective why prayer seems to not be answered I didn't used to start here is to start with the effectiveness of prayer all kinds of stories and examples how you see how effective prayer is but I think before we get to that it's important realize sometimes looks like prayer doesn't work why is that okay now the fundamental answer is this very important not what you think is a very very important idea is that prayer has many functions only one function of prayer is to actually get something there are many mitzvahs in the Torah many Commandments you wouldn't say let's say there's a commandment of putting a living in a Sukkah during the circus during a Sukkot you sit in a certain heart the facts taught with that's covering whatever that means right so you wouldn't say my suka is not working or my Shabbos candles aren't working it's not working right there's admits gonna put them in zoos on the door this is not working what do mean is that work you did it it's a mitzvah you did it it's nothing to do with effectiveness prayer this there's a mitzvah to pray it's a commandment so you wouldn't say well if you didn't miss you say what's not working the result getting what I asked for what is that to do with anything it sounds kind of funny right cuz we're used to thinking of prayer that's we said before if you think of the relationship with God is what I get well then you think prayer doesn't work you think the Missoula doesn't work either it's not supposed to do anything it's a commandment I do I put on I mean whatever is for of course there's a lot I'm saying but putting on the door you don't see it effect because you think about what you receive if you're thinking about doing what God wants you nothing now looking for the effect same idea but that's very not satisfying right still we do pray for a lot of things and we should pray for a lot of things so why is this why does it seem that sometimes you pray for things you don't get answered okay so let's talk about some of these things first of all the assumption is every single prayer is effective every single one is effective not a small thing so why is seem to be not answered because even if prayer is not answered right now right here maybe it's answered in some other form it's almost always the case that it's answered in some other form it's just not in the way that you recognize I'll give you a classic example this a few examples a very very famous story in the Torah you have very to stir all the land of Israel in the middle of the land of Israel is a pocket of evil called Saddam Sodom and Gomorrah everyone knows anything about Saddam a pocket of evil yeah now if Israel is destined to be the place where there's gonna be a Jewish people there and there's going to be a whole nation that's dedicated to serve God and do the right thing you can't have a pocket of evil right in the middle it's self-defeating so you know it almost given many chances to actually get their acts together that's a whole discussion by itself but they continually refused and refused interviews they didn't want to do with it when they know we don't want to do what we want now so God said ok threshold we've hit the top I've had it I'm so to speak right it's not good for them anymore they've had it not couldn't so I shall destroy them but he says I have to tell a ravine oh can I cover this up can I hide this from Avram Aveeno from Abraham I can't hide it from him he's gonna be a great and mighty nation how can I hide it from him now that's a strange thing to say what they should say with what the book this is what it says in the in the verse the verse says should I cover up from Avram I hide from him what I'm going to do meaning destroy Saddam he's gonna be a great and mighty nation in the future how can I hide it from him so then he tells him God tells ah from an album presents and the prayer I mean he prayed for about a week it'll be 12 hours straight incredible prayer on and on and on and on and on intense prayer now did it work no next day he wakes up goes back to the same place not a we come in with a closed thing about the motional minister excuse me yeah he praised her about 12 hours straight he wakes up the next morning he looks to the place where Saddam is he sees a mushroom cloud or the equivalent didn't work right so there's a tremendous prayer that seems to not work what's going on here I thought prayer always works what's going on yeah and also a bigger question why in the world would God tell Avram Aveeno tell Abraham that he's gonna to tell him so he prays when he knows it's not gonna work what's the point it's good question right so listen to this amazing idea the verse says the posix says the verse says can I hide from Avram what I'm gonna do he's gonna be a great and mighty nation I'm not hiding it from because he didn't have many children come out from him what's the connection it should say I'm not hiding for him because he lives in Israel and he's gonna be he's gonna be the one who's in charge of this whole place so to speak where his children will be don't say should I hide from because he's gonna have many children say I'm gonna hide from because they're gonna take over the country they have to know or he's gonna pray for them don't what do you mean cuz there's no connection yeah so the answer is the following is a beautiful thing all the prayers of the awe boasts of opera musical Yaakov Abraham Isaac and Jacob all of them even for their own personal issues they were all a projection into the future they use their personal experiences as an emotional goat fancy word yeah as an inspiration a goat is like some jabs you live it gets you to move a little bit right we get these words we can read certain things yet good old English anyway so it gets you moving somewhere it's a motivation it's inspiration right if I told you somewhere on the navei campus here there's a gorilla he's on the loose now they're big and then a little bit dangerous not all of them but some of them are definitely not you know yeah wouldn't let a baby play with a gorilla put it that way let's not get political we get the idea right so if that happens you say okay one thing let's say I tell you now that the gorillas on this floor different feelings yeah and then all of a sudden god forbid the gorilla rips off that door and says Robbie all my just start class without me yeah come on in mr. gorilla yeah the feeling of seeing the gorilla with your eyes is a totally different story than just knowing someplace with your mind that it exists correct yeah now here Hashem wants Avram to pray for his nation in the future but they don't exist yet they're not real so what God does is he shows someone else with a foregone conclusion a done deal it's already over the case is closed but Avram doesn't know that in a terrible situation it shows them they're in danger they're gonna die so he prays for them and God uses the prayer for that nation for Avram's children here I'm saying well have the old right not the same thing there was a there was a book I read I read this book action when it came out I heard they made a movie about it but it's after my time Ender's Game there's a genius kid he was an orphan and he was in a military school and he was it's in the future so these different levels of working up the military school was the show on a computer screen a different simulations of battle and he had adhere to direct all the all the battles so he could win so what happened was he gets it gets more and more and more complicated till it's almost an impossible battle like it's the alien race fighting against the humanity and tried to take over the earth and all things right eventually does we have to duel and he wins it's a whole thing turns out that each one of these battles is not actually a game was actually real and whatever heap whatever he did is what they did out there in the battlefield interesting thing yeah because they knew he's such a creative genius a military strategist so that's the same thing with us that's what sailing without Ravina why Shem says I'm gonna show you this case it's really a done deal there's nothing you can do about it but all that prayer that used for them is gonna be used for your people your future offspring it makes it much more real so it's true and then throughout the generations even though this group of people died generations of Jewish people got saved because of that one prayer alone so his prayer was answered just not in the form that he wanted it now you could say well it doesn't work no no Hashem showed him in a place that was impossible to work that's number one second one sometimes you think it doesn't help but it does help you didn't realize I'll give you a few examples sometimes what has to happen is you have to you have to hit threshold you have to pray again and again and again you all stare you pray one more time the whole thing opens up or the marshal once they said people that are stone cutters the old time is the cut stone so then we do is there a banging and banging and banging and banging nothing would happen after many many hits on the and then at one time you hit a bang and the whole bunch of stone comes off what happens so what happens it just you got really lucky know when you're hitting every single time it's making little micro fissures in the stone little splits in the stone and eventually they you can't see them eventually that last hit it just opens up all the splits and the whole thing falls off that's what happens but if you stop it might be this close but you never find out right that's the same thing over here sometimes the let's say praying for someone who's sick it's not working many people are praying for this not working they're still sick maybe just a little more be surprised that's one example another example is many many examples here sometimes it happens that you pray for somebody and eventually they still die they die anyway so it looks like it didn't work maybe the extended their life they had some more time to spend with family more time to arrange their affairs to get their own personal growth in a different way you can't tell we don't know that of course but that well they're supposed to live to a certain point now they live much longer just because of the prayers how about another example sometimes it happens that the person dies and maybe they would have died at the same time but now those prayers just like AB marina was used to save the community that often happens to Hashem says this person needed to die at a certain point they could have just died in their sleep but God says I want to use their being sick as a as an impetus as an inspiration for people to pray in general that community is praise in general it saved them from all kinds all the difficulties even though it wasn't exactly what they were praying for ok now sometimes it happens also which you can't tell as well that the person was meant to suffer much more but now the suffering lasts it actually made it easier it's a lot of different ways that you can tell so that actually did help now the last thing and this is probably the most important one about this particular point is this world is like a gym yeah let's say a person goes on a vacation and they want to go to the they want to go the spa right so this Way's the spot this Way's the gym and they got it reversed so they think they going to the spa they walk in they see it's not a pleasant place at all yeah it's the gym heavy weights right people sweating and grunting and yelling exhausted right the dummy it doesn't smell so nice who knows why I guess they allowed air conditioning but a little bit less there whatever this deal is they like this looks like a head room it's not the spot it's like hell over here excuse me what's going on right so that's what this world is this world is basically a big gym it's not a spa people think of it as a spa so they suffer unnecessarily if you go to the gym you could really ask them can you please do me a favor I'll give you five bucks can you lift these weights for me you can do that if you want that's at the point school there's a gym right the next world is a spot depending on what you look like here you can show off in the spot basically whatever what if that's important to you now it's very important when a person goes through this world he wants to leave she wants to leave with maximum development maximum spiritual growth an emotional growth and intellectual growth right so there's different ways to grow you can grow personally but what way you can grow also is because you helped other people grow that's part of the test that we spoke about before the kindness if you help other people grow that's also a merit for you so when a person dies or the sick and then they die right so if other people were aware of that sickness and they prayed for that person then that's a tremendous source of merit for the sick person so when the person leaves the world they have an enormous source of merit now that they didn't have before simply because all the people praying for them so you can't say the prayers were not effective they were effective all their people praying for a sick person makes those other people better it makes their world more complete like we said the world stands on three things it makes them better and because they became better as a result of this person being sick that's a merit for that sick person that sick person now leaves the world at the same time anyway with a tremendous merit that they would never have had good now another idea not related sometimes it happens that you pray for something and you don't get answered for the classic reason because the thing that you're asking for is not good for you you don't realize that but it's not good for you so it's a whole discussion about this I'm not gonna be too technical but one way of saying it's a cute quote is that some of God's greatest gifts are unanswered prayers very important you don't know exactly when you know sometimes you ask for something you think it's good now the problem is like this it's hard to know what's good for us long term there's an old Yiddish Ajoke they say that a man comes to the rabbi rabbi rabbi it's the worst thing my son my son what happened your son he broke his leg isn't that the worst thing rabbi maybe it is maybe it isn't same joke right how my rabbi it's the greatest thing because he in a broken leg wasn't playing outside and when the Russians came and rounded him up for for the army they rounded up all the kids my kid wasn't outside so he didn't get thrown into the Army for 25 years isn't that great maybe it is maybe it isn't and it goes on run you can't exactly tell it could flip back both back and forth right now when you pray how are you supposed to pray if you know that sometimes you're praying for something that's not good might not be good for you how you supposed to pray that way good believe it guys your father's gonna give it to you if it's good and if it's not good he won't give it to you but you don't always want to take that chance sometimes it could happen you might get something that's not good for you sometimes it happens so simply speaking you pray you say God by the way all of the above only give it to me if it's good for me the way they said in Hebrew is if it had ty bayonetta I say that which is good in your eyes please do always add that little caveat at the end right God whatever as long as it's good whatever is good in your eyes please do that it's not good in your eyes I don't want it okay good that's very important now let's come back to that story about Ivan Raveena this is quite amazing now this a little spiritual but it's okay because we're in a day now I'm not gonna explain what I mean what I'm gonna say right now I'm just gonna give you the facts as it is it's not it's it's way beyond the club this class to really explain to you how we know this is true when it comes from so I'm assuming these things are true okay that's whole discussion by itself but I want to illustrate the point in the same case with Avram Avenal very strange thing happened over here the farm the old cabbalistic farm tell us that closer to the creation of the universe the souls were bigger and more powerful whatever that means they were bigger than a Shabbos bigger Souls now there was a it was a very difficult time when something is right at the beginning there's a lot of confusion there's a lot of power going in different directions whatever that means but some of these great souls were lost to the negative side the dark side as they say in Star Wars terms yeah the dark started force that's everything right so God doesn't want God does want any neshama get lost get stuck the problem is some of these souls get stuck in the negative side it takes a long time to try to get them out they can't always get out whatever that means it's not a discussion right now it's gonna being kind of vague but they get stuck so God does what he can to try to bring them back so what he does is he gives them a new chance of life at a certain point people get many times too many chances to come back as a reincarnation it's not like that anymore now and then it happens but it's not these to be ten times twenty times nothing like that anymore now there's a limit let's say there's three times and that's it okay now those days those the shamans those souls that were lost to that negative side God was trying as much as he can so to speak give me many opportunities to come back and get it right so eventually he brought them back again and again and again first generation was the generation that was destroyed in the flood still didn't work he brought them back to the generation that got dispersed across the world when they built the Tower of Babel about a Babel the same thing that still didn't work eventually brought them back as the people that lived in Sodoma in this area that we talked about being destroyed so then comes a Praveena and he prays to have them saved his prayer didn't save them from death but it did somehow again I don't claim to even know what I'm saying right now but this is the idea is true right it's somehow got them away from the negative side that they're now in the in the neutral zone yeah they're now they're no longer connected to the negativity to the evil on that side now they can come back in a blank ground-level way and when they came back they came back again and they were able to get their acts together now so his prayer didn't help them to save their bodies but it did save their souls which is totally different story now who were they that's us we that was the generation that came back as the Jewish people in Egypt so when it says should I hide from Iowa Avenue I said I hide from Avram from Abraham what I'm gonna do him destroy Saddam that's his future kids if he prays for them he can get them away from that negative side and I can bring them back on a ground level now and they can start over and a lot of them will actually make it which is exactly what happened but I had no idea that was the case he didn't know that it didn't look that way what's the connection these evil people in Saddam and the people that came back in the generation of Egypt didn't look like the same but they were the souls were the same it's amazing thing okay sometimes what you actually praying for you said no over there it did help you in some other form exactly the way you wanted it much better much better okay good now here's another thing also but quite interesting sometimes God doesn't answer your prayer right away because he wants you to keep on praying it's a very important concept the idea is that there's a relationship in prayer if the only time I come to you is when I need something and you instantly grant what I need well that won't come to you for a while after that afterwards so sometimes God will say listen I'm gonna hold off because I finally got you to talk to me it's good for you to talk to me it's good for you to have relationship me like we talked before we said before sometimes what it is is God says you're talking to me I know you're gonna keep on talking to me but I'd like you to speak to me in a deeper way a more intimate a closer way make it more real so that's why this delay also in answering the prayers wants to make it more real you can get deeper we get more of a more of a connection now another reason why prayer is not answered there's a long list of requirements to make prayer proper now that sounds kind of funny why should that be so I heard a story a long time ago from I think Rob a friend who said an ambassador of Israel once had to have audience with the Queen of England now the Queen of England already had no power but you had to learn how to approach the Queen you walk forward and you bow a few times then she nods so you take a few more steps whatever the details are and you say it is my honor to be something the effect there's a whole language that you say a whole speech we say to present the the the statement or to to greet the majesty of the court of st. James something like that I don't know how it works a whole long speech right if the memorise do it right is she back with you and then you wait till she finishes and you back backwards if a whole thing he said it's sweating profusely he practiced many times and she had no power no power but still a queen right so people get affected by it so in order to approach God for our per our own purposes you can always ask him in the most simple way it's always the case but then the more effective it's much more effective when we realize we're entering into the palace now we're answering the into four inner chambers and inner inner chamber so we finally get to the throne room and now I'm staying before the actual throne and the king himself when we approach it that way it's much more effective that's what the laws have to do with that the laws of davin in a prayer have to do with that idea of making it set up so that we feel that it's real then we have given its proper honor now if we're missing some of those things you're missing critical ingredients it doesn't come out the same I'll give you a muscle lay a metaphor there was a peasant man many years ago who lived in a not true story who lived in a vast Kingdom and he was not a very fancy man but he said you know one time he says to his wife I'd like to eat the meal that the Kings eat just once I want you to Kings meal this is great honey you get the ingredients I'll make it for you no problem right okay turns out he knows somebody who works in the kitchen of the king he finds it get me a recipe for anything that the King needs no problem gets a recipe for some delicious meal maybe it's a cake right okay says triple filtered flower exposed to only the right sunlight at the right time the right atmospheric conditions she goes to the store local you know convenience store whatever it is with a 24-hour supermarket and says like can you had you have any miss sorry we're gonna have that she looks online can't find it yeah she finally says this she Google's it as he finds that up there's no Google them you get the idea she 500 yeah you can get it from the from the from the Royal houses in the Royal House in Romania they have if you order six months in advance and you're a country they'll they'll consider your request okay so she goes to the store supplies regular flour good flour of a regular phone good now I need I need Belgian chocolate not just any Belgian chocolate etc etc services now I need a Himalayan salt that was carried without being shocked by the pressure of gravity it was carried on on special llamas down from the Himalayan mountains I don't know a whole long story right she's okay we'll just get regular table salt on and on and on eventually she makes this thing without any of the real ingredients and another see so the guy tastes that he tastes the food he says oh this is disgusting those Kings must be crazy to eat this stuff now you see what's going on they assume he assumes right away I'm doing it right all the ingredients are correct but it doesn't taste good if something's missing from the treeless because the ingredients are missing that's using what's going on here yeah you have to take it seriously the proper honor that's it coordinates feel at the prayer there's a term that's mentioned in the Talmud about prayer to make prayer effective that term is called feel ashame a-- a complete prayer Felix Lima the Gemara says that Felix laymen all complete prayer is answered what does that mean there's a lot of discussion here but there's one meaning of the word that what I want to talk about today what's Fela Slama complete prayer is that you understand the only one that can help you is God if he wants it's gonna happen if he doesn't want it's not gonna happen a fundraiser he's building a school he wants to raise money he travels far away through many wealthy communities he said please help us out we're a poor community back home we don't have enough money to build a school for our children please help us out so he's in a particular town with many wealthy people and he says to him this one and this one because everyone says no finally goes the last wealthy person and he says to her please give me money for my school and she says well did you try everybody else what did you try them and he says I tried them they all said no you're the only one that could do it for me now that's a different type of request then please help me other people can help also when you approach God you say god you're the only one that can do it for me if you don't want it's not gonna happen if you do it will that's a different level of Prayer that's called a foolish claim a complete prayer now together with that is last thing we'll stop of this you have to believe in the power of prayer now that sounds very religious you must believe I'm not making fun I'm making fun of myself now it what I mean to say is when you approach somebody who loves you and cares about you is very very kind and very very giving like your grandmother or maybe your mother or somebody like that yeah usually the mothers a little more strict but the grandmother like you know they can spoil the grandchildren yeah my wife said to me great peace advice she said why should only grandparents be the one to spoil the kids well let's spoil them all so it's a good idea like now and then you say okay abba says daddy says mommy says you have to eat this chocolate ice cream now let's go you want another one okay you know now and then it's good the spoiled kids say it was no story let's say you go to your grandmother she says you say you're really hungry so what happens when you go to grandmother you hungry whatever you want whatever you want to let mama know you want to eat something here have some food plenty take more more and more the worst thing to do grandma is to show up totally full yeah never do that yeah it's paid for right so you say to your mmm okay grandma I'm really hungry but before it I got a list here here's a note from my teacher that says I was a good girl today this week you know everything was great and my editor note for my mother and here's my report card you know and the local police report I'm not in it right everything's fantastic so you say can I please have a cookie so look at you like it's grandma I don't care if you're in jail that's the color guide forbid you know like I I'll give you cookies wherever you are you're always gonna be my little tattoo love me a little baby it's always like that yeah when you approach God for something like this anything that you want a cookie or something bigger than to go get a lot of cookies or a Lamborghini whatever it is that you want yeah you say God I believe in your kindness I believe in your love and your giving so therefore I don't believe in the power of the effectiveness of my prayer because I'm praying but because of who you are when you pray that way everything's different if you're walk-in there going listen God you know I've been a good boy I've been a good girl recently and I really think you should give me this then God will look at your merits and very often the answer may be no but if you say God look at who you are you're like Bobby you're softer your grandma you're like a motherly love unconditional that's a different story an example of that at one point hug are and you smile I say hug earning goes Hagar Hagar Hagar Hagar Hagar Hagar and you small would be Ishmael that's funny Ishmael ya hugger and Ishmael we're going someplace and they were lost in the desert he was sick the boy was sick he was 13 years old and he was sick he's well and his mother prayed for him and he prayed for himself and the first says that God answered the prayer of the boy Ishmael not the mother Hager now mother's prayers are very very effective so the question is why were her prayers not answered but his prayers were he's very sick he was gonna die so one answer is a lot of answers one answer is because when he prayed he prayed from a say a sense of hope and she prayed in a sense of despair she actually placed him further away and she said I don't want to see him die I don't want to see him die she thought he's gonna die might as well pray but his name is smile your song is dis ma kale God will hear that's his essence his essence is when I pray God answers when people break God answers not just him he believed that God answers prayers because he prayed from a sense of hope and his mother prayed from a sense of despair his prayers were answered in his Bosworth make sense okay it's more to talk about here post-op all the best I see