In the largest study of its kind, researchers found that having people pray for heart bypass surgery patients had no effect on their recovery. In fact, patients who knew they were being prayed for had a slightly higher rate of complications.The doctors seem to have made two mistakes:
Researchers emphasized that their work can't address whether God exists or answers prayers made on another's behalf. The study can only look for an effect from prayers offered as part of the research, they said.
1. They confused prayer with magic. Prayer is a request--and 'no' is also an answer.
2. They are not familiar with Rabbi Yisroel Salanter--
The story is told about Rabbi Salanter that he was at an inn he frequented. He noticed that unlike previously, the innkeeper was serving treif. He asked the innkeeper why.
The innkeeper responded that a guest had come in and say he could prove that G_d did not exist--the guest took a piece of treif meat and said that if he eats it and G_d strikes him down dead, that proves that He exists; if however the guest could eat the treif with impunity, that would prove that G_d did not exist.
The guest ate the treif, and nothing happened--and the innkeeper said he had concluded that G_d did not exist and there was no reason not to serve treif.
As he was speaking, innkeeper's daughter ran into the room telling him that she had just received a certificat in recognition of her achievements as a pianist. Rabbi Salanter called the girl over, saying that a certificate was nice, but he would like for her to prove to him how good she was.
The girl refused, saying that the certificate was proof of her expertise and she did not have to prove anything to anybody. She had already established her abilities and it was unfair to require her to demonstrate her expertise for just anyone who asks.
Rabbi Salanter replied to the innkeeper that his daughter was right--and G-d could well answer him the same way. After He redeemed us from slavery, split the sea for us, performed countless miracles for us day in and day out, is it necessary for G_d to prove Himself for every ignoramus like that guest who wanted to eat treif?
So too, Hashem does not need to prove Himself, or anything, to the doctors for their study. As Jews, we know that--unlike doctors--Hashem still makes housecalls.
True, "no" is an answer, and a perfectly valid one, but if praying does not increase the occurence of "yes" as an answer, it's hard to call it effective.
ReplyDeleteBut like you said, perhaps Hashem was deliberately not proving himself here for the principle of it. This could be by flatly not answering prayers, or, by arranging the patients into groups in such a way (not randomly as the researchers intended) that the ones who turned out the worst on the surface were in fact the most improved from how they would have turned out otherwise.
(Haven't there been previous studies though that claimed that prayer was effective?)
I don't know for sure how to define prayer, but I'm not sure that we have to pray for things--or people--and get those things, in order for prayer to be effective. I think there is more to prayer than that.
ReplyDeleteI don't think the purpose of the story is to imply that Hashem deliberately does not "prove Himself" either--Hashem is simply not tested, analyzed or studied: in the scientific sense. Rather, we study the middos of Hashem to strive to have a closeness to Him and be like Him.
And that's about the best I can do at 2AM in the morning.
I agree that there are multiple reasons for prayer, and many ways for it to be effective. Having our requests granted may even be the least significant of them. But it still is one of them, and it certainly seems to me that the outcome should be amenable to testing. This is not the same as testing Hashem Himself, who cannot be understood or described at all; it's only testing for the presence or absence of certain physical phenomena in the world that He would be the cause of. I'm only addressing whether it's possible; whether one ought to perform such a test is another matter.
ReplyDeleteBut what are we testing for? If we agree that "'No' is also an answer," then what do we gain by the test, especially when we have no way of knowing the zechuyot--or the lack thereof--of the person offering the prayer? The variables are many and unknown
ReplyDelete