64
THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS
Friday, August 2, 1985
TORAH PORTION
Hearing Our Prayers
BY SHLOMO RISKIN
Special to The Jewish News
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Why do we pray? We praise granted the second, we learn
God but does He really need our that it may not always be possi-
praise? We petition Him but how ble to discern whether a prayer
often are our petitions really an- has been answered or not. Sim-
swered? Look at what Moses had ply because your prayer to pass
to say to the Children of Israel in the bar exam on the third time
the first three verses of this around is denied doesn't mean
that something else might not be
week's Torah reading:
"I pleaded with the Lord at going on. Practicing law may not
that time, saying, "0 Lord God, be what you should do.
The Talmud understands that
You who let Your servant see
the first works of Your greatness most people die with half their
and Your mighty hand, You desires unfulfilled. After all, we
whose powerful deeds no god in live in an imperfect and often
heaven or on earth can equal! unfair world where life is re-
Let me, I pray, cross over and see stricted and fragile, where per-
the good land on the other side of sonal tragedies over which one
the Jordan, that good hill coun- has no control is a forest all of us
try, and the Lebanon.' But the enter from time to time. But
Lord was wrathful with me on maturity is accepting limita-
your account and wouldn't listen tions, rejection and ultimate de-
to me. The Lord said to me,
'Enough! Never speak to Me of
this matter again!' Vaetchanan:
(Deuteronomy 3:23-26).
Moses prays to God to enter Deuteronomy
the Promised Land and the an-
swer is no. The man who did 3:23-7:11
more than anyone in human his- Isaiah 40:1-26
tory to get the Jews a homeland
will himself not be allowed to
enter, not even as an insect to feat. "Grasp the world, but with
crawl on the earth as the great open hands," wrote the late
Jewish leader requested as a last Rabbi Milton Steinberg — be-
resort. And yet, with this par- cause you always have to be
ticular give-and-take between ready to let go.
Moses and God, we can see the
Still, Moses did get a quick no,
subtle differences between unan- and as you can see, the Almighty
swered prayers, denied requests, was pretty definite. What kind of
and partial fulfillment.
message is He sending when all
To begin with, prayer, even if you seem to get is silence?
its intention is nothing but peti-
Perhaps it's the God within to
tion, must begin with praising whom you must turn.
God and His world. In this way
When God was silent for over
the petitioner is able to stand 2,500 years, for instance, when
back and gain some perspective Jews prayed three times a day
on the thick thorny branches of for the restoration of Israel,
his own problem. God is God and maybe He was saying that we
man is man, and somehwere in had better look to ourselves to
between they meet — usually seize the initiatve and begin the
within the world of creation. To process. Without an axe, a plow
fathom God's infinity is impossi-
and a shovel, there would still be
ble, but to fathom the finiteness swamps in Petach Tikva. And it
of the world is commendable, wouldn't be called Petadh Tikva.
necessary a giant step in prayer.
Indeed, sometimes this silence
Praise God by praising His may be the silence you've actu-
world, the glory of His nature, ally been looking for, the one
and if your words are poor in that will finally allow you to lis-
metaphor borrow the words of ten carefully to what your heart
David, the psalmist, the poet has been trying to tell you.
laureate of the Jews.
I'll. never forget the man who
Then, when the words of cried to me after his wife's death,
majesty penetrate your inner be- "I had so many opportunities to
ing, you're ready to make your tell her in the hospital, 'I love
request, whether you're Moses you,' and I never did, Rabbi."
praying for an entry visa or a And yet I know he had prayed
daughter praying that your every day.
father's operation will be a suc-
Was he able to hear the silence
cess.
that God may have provided?
But what if it doesn't work?
Shabbat Shalom.
There's the story of the mother
who, after seeing her child's doll
break, suggested to her daugh- New Post
ter, "Why don't you pray for its
recovery?" The girl followed the For Rackman
advice, but the doll's condition
Prof. Emanuel Rackman has
continued to remain the same. stepped down as president of
"It looks like God didn't listen to Bar-Ilan University to assume
your prayer," said the mother the post of Chancellor.
the following day. Responded the
Prof. Michael Albeck was
child, "He did, but He said 'no."
elected
as the new president.
Who among us is prepared to
hear "no"? Let's go back to Moses
for a moment — and his request, Correction
which really has two parts: to go
over and to see. From the, fact
The Rubin-Mihaly engage ,
that he was denied the first but ment announcement in the July
26 Jewish News should have
listed Jack Mihaly as receiving
Rabbi Riskin, formerly of the
his optometry degree from the II ,
Lincoln Square Synagogue in New
York, is now rabbi of Efrat, Israel.
linois College of Optometry.