Q: If Hashem always does what’s best for us, how does tefillah help m’mo nafshach? If what we’re mispalel for is good for us, Hashem should do it anyway. If it’s not good for us, Hashem won’t do it.
A: Question: What’s the sense of praying for Hashem to change our status? If He sent something upon us, it certainly is for our benefit?
So briefly it’s like this: When we pray, we say to Hakodosh Boruch Hu as follows. “Ribono Shel Olam, o Master of the World, we know why You sent upon us, this-and-this, let’s say a toothache or a headache. It’s because we ignored you all the time, when we didn’t have a toothache or didn’t have a headache, we should have thanked You all the time,” because it’s a miracle that you don’t have a headache.
The head is full of circuits and the smallest circuit gets confused, there’s a mistake in the routing of the electric messages, you get a headache. Small things can cause big headaches. Sometimes allergies disturb the function of the brain, the function of the nerves and they send messages of pain. So many causes. Why we don’t have headaches all the time is a miracle. Why we don’t have toothaches all the time is a miracle. And why do we forget Hashem during all these days and months that the things are working perfectly, He’s doing the miracle for us?
So we say, “Hashem, we know the reason you sent us the headache today. It’s to remind us that you’re around.” So therefore, we say to Hakodosh Boruch Hu, “Now we acknowledge, we recognize that You’re around and from now on, if You’re going to heal us, we’re going to see to it that we’ll recognize You by thanking You constantly. That’s all You want. So why should we be aware of You by headaches? We’ll be aware of You by lack of headaches.”
So Hakodosh Boruch Hu says, “Well, if you really mean it, I’ll give you a try and let Me see if lack of headaches will cause you to thank Me as much as headaches will cause you to think about Me. Let Me see if lack of tzaros, if things go quietly and peacefully with you, when you’ll say, ‘ברוך אתה ה at the end of shemoneh esrei, המברך את עמו ישראל בשלום,” it’s peace. Peace means there’s no war. There’s no civil war, no invasions. Nobody’s gunning for you right now.
Once a man called me up late at night, an ex-yeshiva boy, he can’t leave the house because he borrowed a lot of money from loan sharks, gangsters. He was on narcotics, nebach and he couldn’t pay. It was 12:00 at night and he needed a few hundred dollars in emergency, otherwise he’ll be gunned down. What I did for him I can’t tell you. I didn’t do anything for him. But that fellow was in terror.
But tonight when you go home, nobody’s gunning for you. That’s shalom. Are you thanking Hakodosh Boruch Hu? There’s so many reasons why there shouldn’t be shalom, so many bad people in the world. Nobody’s bothering you.
You know at night when you go to sleep, you leave your telephone on, it’s a miracle why it doesn’t ring in the middle of the night, a drunkard, is calling up Mamie… It happens rarely. Our telephones are silent during the night. Bums don’t pound on our door. Accidents could happen, they need an emergency telephone. They’d pound on your door, “Open up quickly, you have to save a life.” What could you do? Run down in your pajamas. And so you live in peace. Do you appreciate peace? Are you thanking Hashem for peace?
So if you do, you always are thinking of Hakodosh Boruch Hu, no toothache, ah, boruch Hashem. Get up in the morning, no headache, boruch Hashem! If you get up with a headache, thank you for not having a toothache. There are worse things than headaches. Thank you for not having arthritis. People ache in many bones. Thank you for a lot of other things.
And this fellow who is being pursued by the loan shark gang, if he could get up in the morning with a good headache but know that his pursuers are all gone, he wouldn’t mind the headache. He’d be singing. He’d be humming in the bathroom.
And so, Hakodosh Boruch Hu says to us, “If you are sincere, then I’ll see that you don’t have to be reminded by headaches, because you’ll remind yourself by lack of headaches.”
And that’s the purpose of praying. Praying means, we know that You want us to think about You, that’s why You send the trouble on us. We promise You that instead of that, we’ll thank You all the time. And so Hakodosh Boruch Hu is willing to take your word for it, and He’ll exchange one reminder for the other reminder.