Mar

8

Is God a Jerk?

March 8, 2006 |

Living in the (modern) Orthodox Jewish world, one is exposed to various strains of belief and levels of personal conviction. One of the most common is that prayer is an effective means of changing reality. “Pray for me to get this job,” one hears. “I pray that I’ll find a husband.” Often, one hears, “Pray for so-and-so, they are sick. They need Tehillim.”

I just read that on a message board today. “Please say Tehillim for my neice, she is sick and needs Tehillim.” Why do so many people actually believe that?

If one asks around, one gets many responses to the question, “Does prayer actually do anything?” Some say prayer is merely a form of meditation, not affecting an objective reality but merely helping the individual to center and focus his thoughts. Some say that prayer is simply a way to act in the face of overwhelming evidence that we are not in control of our own lives. But there are others, a great many it would seem, who honestly feel that by praying, by reciting psalms, by beseaching the almighty, the course of nature and the substance of reality will be shifted in the direction of a more desirable outcome.

This is so contrary to logical thinking that it defies understanding. If there is a God and God genuinely intercedes in the real world, is God so cruel and selfish that God would cause people to suffer simply to encourage people to sing His adorations and beseach Him for mercy? And if the suffering of the person in question is in fulfillment of an ultimate good, let’s imagine, then would God be so capricious that because enough people bugged Him, He would change His mind and change His plans for the universe? “My neice needs Tehillim” she said. And if your neice does not get well, God forbid, does it mean that God wasn’t listening or that we didn’t pray hard enough? And which is worse?

I hate thinking like this. So many people have said the same thing that it is meaningless at this point. But why are we so scared of life that we must rely on smoke and mirrors in order to feel at ease? Why are we so weak that we need this in our lives? Is it weakness? Or is it simply the natural reaction to a universe of whose nature, to achieve even the most basic level of understanding, requires immense study and eons of hard work?

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