VAYEYRA 5785

Is it Kosher to pray for others?

Because of time constraints due to today’s Unity Community Kiddush, instead of a sermon I’d like to leave you with a Torah thought. If you want a more expanded version of this thought, please see my book, Dancing With God, chapter 23. Here’s my Torah thought.

Is it Kosher to pray for others? My wife Cheryl once showed me a column in the Atlanta Journal Constitution that began: “I used to think the fondest words in the whole world were, ‘I love you,’ but not anymore. Now the most special words of all are, ‘I’ll pray for you.’”

As our tradition teaches, “When you pray for someone else Gd will answer your prayer for yourself 1^st.” But if you think about it, why should we be allowed to pray for someone else? If a person is sick, obviously Gd knows and may have decreed it. Who are we to interfere?

In today’s Torah portion Gd tells Abraham that He plans to destroy the cities of Sodom and Gomorra. What does Abraham do? He argues with Gd. What chutzpa! The Torah is teaching us we have a right to ask and even to argue with Gd. What an incredible idea!

Let us ask, for whom was Abraham pleading? The righteous of Sodom and Gomorra or the wicked? If it was for both, then how could Abraham challenge Gd by asking (Gen. 18:25): “Would you still destroy it rather than spare the place for the sake of the 50 [Abraham bargains down to 45, 40, 30, 20, and 10] righteous people within it?” Abraham is asking Gd to save the wicked because of the righteous. Isn’t that magnificent?

It’s all summed up in Abraham’s immortal challenge to Gd: Hashofeyt kol haaretz lo yaaseh mishpat (will the Judge of the entire world not do justice)? But is it not justice to kill the wicked and save the righteous? This is exactly what Gd had said He was going to do—kill all the wicked people. Abraham then challenges Gd saying, “You can’t do that. If You are going to be just, You have got to save the wicked for the sake of the righteous.” But why?

Here comes the fundamental principle explaining the reason why it is Kosher to pray for someone else. The Torah (Deut. 32:4) teaches Gd’s justice must be total justice: ki kol d’rachav mishpat (for all His ways are just). Gd’s justice is different than that dispensed by human courts. This is beautifully illustrated in a passage in the Talmud (Yevamot 64a) regarding the Torah’s (Num. 3:4) listing of the descendants of Aaron and Moses that mentions the death of Aaron’s sons, Nadav and Avihu. In an unusual addendum it adds: uvanim lo hayu lahem (they did not have children). The Talmud comments, Hahayu lahem banim, lo meytu (If they would have had children, they would not have died).

But if they had committed a sin worthy of death, why would the fact they had children make any difference in their punishment? It is because if someone is put to death, his family also suffers. Even though Nadav and Avihu may have deserved the death penalty, the Talmud teaches it would have been unjust for their children in their case to become orphans.

If one commits a terrible crime he can be jailed for 10 years; he can even be put to death. Who else pays the price? His wife, his children, his family. They didn’t do anything wrong. We can only say that the human justice system can only look at the crime. It cannot take into account that innocent children will suffer, will not have a father, a wage earner, a provider.

But Gd must dispense total justice. Gd must take into account what a punishment will mean, not only for the sinner, but for all the people who are deeply connected to that person. So, when we pray for someone else we are saying to Gd, “Even if this person may deserve his present situation, we want You to know, Gd, it hurts us too. So put us on the scale of justice as You judge.”

Do you get what Abraham was saying? Even though Gd was only going to kill the wicked, the righteous may still have had strong feelings for them. It would have hurt the righteous to lose their homes, their neighborhood, their livelihood, their friends, their community. And so Abraham challenges Gd: “You can’t destroy an entire city if there are 50, 45, 40, 30, 20, or 10 righteous people … because the righteous would suffer.” And this is why it is Kosher to prayer for others. So, when you pray for someone who is ill that you love, you’re telling Gd that you’re in pain because of their suffering, and that He should add that to the calculation when administering His justice.

And so Rabbi David Feinstein wisely advises us: We should try to form as many connections as possible in our lives, for there might come a time when we could be spared from a punishment that had been decreed because others would suffer unfairly. And that is one reason we will celebrate Shabbat with a Unity Community Kiddush today with 1,000 other Jews—to help create and nurture our connections.

Amen!