The Art of the Unanswered Prayer
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The Art of the Unanswered Prayer
There’s a question most people are too embarrassed to say out loud. Why doesn’t my davening seem to do anything? Rav Saadia Gaon answered it a thousand years ago with a list of seven reasons a prayer is not heard. Six of them are about you.
1.Kavana: A heart that stayed behind while the mouth kept moving. Only in a Minyan, a prayer without kavana is accepted. But when you pray alone, you need Kavana for your prayers to work. 2. Torah: An ear closed to Torah. You don’t listen to G-d, so G-d does not listen to you. 3. Tzedaka: An ear sealed against a poor man, causes G-d to seal off His “Ear” from that person’s prayer. 4. Theft: Praying while you have in your hands what belongs to someone else. 5: Purity: Praying with hands or a body that aren’t clean. 6. Teshuva. Do Teshuva before you pray.
Six problems, and every one of the six is fixable. If you want your prayers to be answered, make sure you first fix these six. But there is a seventh reason your prayers are not answered, and that reason is not fixable. It is when the decree was already sealed. The example of this is the prayer of Moshe Rabbeinu. He prayed 515 times to be allowed into Eretz Yisrael the numerical value of ואתחנן — and the answer came back: רַב לָךְ, אַל תּוֹסֶף דַּבֵּר אֵלַי עוֹד בַּדָּבָר הַזֶּה. Enough. Do not speak to Me about this again.
Moshe’s heart was in every word. His ears were open to Torah and to the poor. His hand and body were clean. He did Teshuva if he ever did anything wrong. Not one of the six reasons that prayers are not answered applied to him. And he was refused anyway. Which raises the only question that matters here: why?
The Ohr HaChaim gives an answer why Moshe was refused that changes everything. Had Moshe entered the Land, he would have built the Beit HaMikdash. And a Beit HaMikdash built by Moshe Rabbeinu could never have been destroyed. After all, Moshe is Midat Netzach, eternity. Nothing Moshe made is destructible. No enemy could have touched it. Now follow that to its conclusion. The Jewish people would still have sinned over there years in the Holy Land. And when they did, G-d’s anger would have had to land somewhere. With the Temple standing untouchable, there would have been only one place left for it to go. Us! So, Moshe was kept out of the Holy Land. Not as a punishment. As a shield. The Temple had to be breakable, because as long as it can break, it can absorb what would otherwise fall on people. And the astonishing thing is that the pasuk says this outright. Moshe himself tells us why he was refused.וַיִּתְעַבֵּר ה’ בִּי לְמַעַנְכֶם G-d was angry with me — for your sake. The greatest unanswered prayer in history was an act of mercy toward the entire Jewish Nation for all time!
There’s a chapter of Tehillim that opens מִזְמוֹר לְאָסָף — a song of Asaf — and then describes the nations storming into G-d’s inheritance and defiling His Temple. The Midrash asks the obvious question. A song? This should have been a lament.
And it answers with a parable. A king had a son. The son did something terrible, and the king went into a rage — and instead of turning on his son, he went and overturned the boy’s wedding canopy and tore it to pieces. The king’s servant watched and started to smile. What?! The king has destroyed his son’s chuppah and you’re standing there smiling? And he said: Yes. Because he took it out on the canopy and not on the child. That is what the Churban was. G-d spent His anger on wood and stone rather than on His children. Which is why Asaf calls it a song. And it is only possible because Moshe never built it.
If G-d can leave the greatest prayer in history unanswered for the sake of the future of the entire nation — then the silence from Heaven you’re hearing after your prayers, may not be what it looks like either. It is not that your prayer was not heard. G-d said No, because He knows what is best for you.
Ask yourself honestly: what would happen if everything you davened for landed? If the parnassah came in, the situation resolved, the worry lifted, the life smoothed out — what exactly would you be asking for tomorrow? If only I had a few million dollars in my account, then I could solve almost all my life’s problems, and then life would be much better! Not! That would be the life, that you don’t need G-d in it! This was the sin of Adam, when he wanted to eat from the forbidden fruit, he wanted to be like G-d, where he could create his own Worlds, and not need G-d! Adam did not want to be dependent! And we all deserve his punishment of death, because we all strive for a life, that we don’t need G-d! A life with no problems, no worries, no stress… basically a life that has nothing left to pray to G-d for! One thing for sure! If you had all your prayers answered, you would almost certainly not be praying for the Beit HaMikdash!
A person who is comfortable does not want the Temple back. He may say the words of the prayers of returning to the Land, the Temple, and Mashiach… But he will not mean them. Nobody aches for a home while they’re happy where they are.
There’s a parable that makes this concrete. Stick through till the end, so you can really understand where this is going. Its deep, but it is the story of the Jewish People for the last 2000 years! A tailor needed money. He borrowed it, and left his tools with the lender as collateral. The lender wasn’t worried for a moment — without those tools the man can’t earn a thing. He’ll be back.
Years passed. The tailor gave up the trade and opened a shop instead. And now the lender lost hope. “He doesn’t need a needle anymore. He’s never coming back for them!”
Then word came that the shop was failing, month after month. And the lender was glad. Not out of cruelty — out of certainty. When the shop goes under, he’ll go back to his needle. He’ll need his tools. He’ll come back to pay me my loan, because he needs his tools!
Now notice something in the Hebrew. The word for the Temple is מִשְׁכָּן — Mishkan. The word for something pawned, left as collateral, is מַשְׁכּוֹן — mashkon. The same letters. And the Midrash says it outright: the Mishkan wasn’t only destroyed. It was pawned. Hashem took the Two Temples, as collateral, that we do Teshuva!
This is so deep about the mourning over the Temple. Mourning over the Temple is different than all other types of mourning. Usually, you mourn something destroyed. You don’t mourn collateral. Collateral is something you go back for. But only if you still want what you put down. So the “shop“ is never quite allowed to succeed.
All the restlessness of your life, all the prayers that are not answered after you took care of all the six conditions of prayers being answered, are all because of one thing. G-d wants you to be homesick, until the Temple is rebuilt! All the things that cause your restlessness in life, are so that you should have a Temple to cry for! That restlessness of life you can’t account for — the sense that you’ve built a decent life and something still isn’t sitting right — is not a flaw in your life. It’s the tailor noticing his hands are empty. You tried setting up a shop, so that you don’t need your tools, your needle, thread and measuring tools,… but for no explainable reason, your shop never makes it. You never get it off the ground! You need to come back, and pay the loan, to do Teshuva, to learn Torah, to Pray, to Give Tzedakah, and then, G-d will give you back the Temple!!!
You know where I got that Mashal from? It is in our prayers!!! Our Rabbis even set up a special Viduy, just for the Destruction of the Temple. Here’s the full vidui, of Ashamnu mikol am, said in Selichot and on public fast days: אָשַׁמְנוּ מִכָּל עָם, בֹּשְׁנוּ מִכָּל דּוֹר. We are guiltier than any people, more shamed than any generation. גָּלָה מִמֶּנּוּ מָשׂוֹשׂ, דָּוָה לִבֵּנוּ בַּחֲטָאֵינוּ. Joy has gone into exile from us; our heart is sick with our sins.הֻחְבַּל אִוּוּיֵנוּ, וְנִפְרַע פְּאֵרֵנוּ. Our desire (Temple) was seized as collateral, and our glory stripped away for what we owe. זְבוּל בֵּית מִקְדָּשֵׁנוּ חָרַב בַּעֲוֹנֵינוּ. The dwelling of our Temple lies ruined through our sins. טִירָתֵנוּ הָיְתָה לְשַׁמָּה. Our palace became a desolation. יֳפִי אַדְמָתֵנוּ לְזָרִים, כֹּחֵנוּ לְנָכְרִים. The beauty of our soil to strangers, our strength to foreigners. לְעֵינֵינוּ עָשְׁקוּ עֲמָלֵנוּ, מָמֻשָּׁךְ וּמְמֹרָט מִמֶּנּוּ. Before our eyes they robbed our labor, our children; what was drawn out and refined was taken from us. נָתְנוּ עֻלָּם עָלֵינוּ, סָבַלְנוּ עַל שִׁכְמֵנוּ. They placed their yoke on us; we bore it on our shoulder. עֲבָדִים מָשְׁלוּ בָנוּ, פֹּרֵק אֵין מִיָּדָם. Slaves ruled over us; there is none to pull us free of their hand. צָרוֹת רַבּוֹת סְבָבוּנוּ, קְרָאנוּךָ ה’ אֱלֹהֵינוּ. Many troubles surrounded us; we called out to You, Hashem our G-d.רָחַקְתָּ מִמֶּנּוּ בַּעֲוֹנֵינוּ, שַׁבְנוּ מֵאַחֲרֶיךָ. You went far from us because of our sins; we turned away from following You. תָּעִינוּ וְאָבָדְנוּ. We strayed and were lost. וַעֲדַיִן לֹא שַׁבְנוּ מִטָּעוּתֵנוּ. And still — we have not turned back from our error.
When your having problems with your kids, when you feel that your are being ruled by your Evil Inclination, when you feel like you have no place you can call Home, and all the other suffering in life, and you call out and G-d does not answer, it is because the Temple was taken as a collateral! If you had all your prayers answered, you would not yearn and do everything you can to bring the Temple back!
None of this means your pain is deserved, and none of it is a reason to stop asking. Moshe didn’t stop. He asked 515 times. It means the silence may be facing a different direction than it feels like from where you’re standing. Some prayers go unanswered because of something you can fix — and Rav Saadia listed six of them so that you could go and fix them. Some go unanswered for your sake. Because an answer would settle you, and a settled person stops reaching for anything.
It is so interesting. The same 515 prayers of Moshe, that are the numerical value of ואתחנן are also the numerical value of שירה. In the end, all those prayers that G-d did not answer, you will turn G-d’s NO, into a song, and thank Him for it!
