Parashat Toledot

Student Rabbi Sari Laufer

One Friday afternoon while I was in college, I received a phone call from a close friend in New York. Quite calmly, he informed me that he had been diagnosed with non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. He proceeded to tell me all of the information he had about his condition, remaining calm and collected throughout. As we were getting off the phone, I blurted the only thing that came to my head: “Mike, you’ll be in my prayers tonight.” I meant it—I was on my way to Hillel for services, and it seemed logical that I would include his name in the prayers for healing. There was a pause on the phone, and he said: “Okay. But you must realize that is for you, not for me.” A staunch disbeliever in organized religion, the thought of being prayed for held no appeal for my friend. Over the course of his illness, as I mentioned him and prayed on his behalf time and again, I kept coming back to his comment. When we add a person to our personal or communal prayers, what are we doing? Who are we doing it for?  What are we hoping for?

For most people, the first reaction to receiving bad news is to look for a way to make it better. How often have you said to someone on the phone, or in person: “I am so sorry to hear your news. Is there anything I can do to help?.” Sometimes, you will get a response. You can cook a meal, watch a child for the afternoon, go visit and just be present. We are in fact commanded to do the latter; the mitzvah of visiting the sick is among the most important of the mitzvoth.

Unfortunately, all too often, that power to DO SOMETHING is not in our hands. Living in Chicago, there was little I could do for Mike, who was living in New York. But I knew I could pray for him. Whether or not he believed, I could add him to my prayers. I could pray on his behalf.

In our <I style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal">parsha this week, we see that “<I style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal">va-yetar Yitzchak l’Adonai l’no-chach ishto, ki akarah hee.” While in literal translation, this means that Isaac prayed across from his wife, because she was barren, most translations now use the meaning that “Isaac pleaded with G-d on behalf of his wife, because she was barren.” There is more than one sermon’s worth of material in this one line—one could reasonably ask why  Rebecca didn’t pray on her own behalf-- but, I am willing to leave that aside now, to look at what this means: Isaac prayed on behalf of his wife. What was he doing? Who was he doing it for?  What was he hoping for?

The Torah is known for its terseness of phrase, for its lack of emotional commentary. But it does not take genius like that of the great commentators to imagine the emotional situation behind the scenes with Isaac and Rebecca. In fact, I’ll give a quick sketch as to what I imagine was going on here. Isaac meets this wonderful woman, and they get married. Isaac knows that his family carries a unique destiny, so he wants to have children. What about Rebekah’s desire? Well, Anita Diamant’s book The Red Tent paints a fascinating picture of Rebekah, but I will stick with a more traditional imaging of a Biblical wife. As a Biblical wife, like it or not, Rebekah’s primary purpose was to bear children. Yet, this couple is unable to bear children, because, according to the text, Rebekah is barren.  Isaac, seeing his wife in crisis, does not know what to do. He feels helpless, hurt, perhaps angry at the world. Why is this happening? What can I do?

And then he prays to G-d on her behalf.

Now, we know that Abraham and G-d had a pretty special relationship—talking and tests and whatnot. But we don’t know Isaac’s relationship with G-d. In fact, the only time Isaac and G-d truly interact, up until this point, is when Isaac is lying on the altar. And it is an interaction with Abraham. I would argue that Isaac does not, at this point, have a special relationship with G-d. I am not sure that Isaac expects anything in return for his prayers.

Many people, particularly those who do not believe in the power of prayer, take the stance that nothing we can do can change fate. Whether that fate is determined by G-d or the randomness of life, they argue, nothing we do or say or pray can change that. Yosef Albo, a Spanish philosopher in the 14th and 15th centuries, argued back at those detractors. He wrote:

This premise is not true. The supernal effluence affects a person according to the level that he is and able to receive it….This was, in fact, the will of G-d originally (to create a world in which G-d’s will would be affected by the prayer of individuals).

His is an opinion I agree with, which has taken on a more modern reading in the expression we as Reform Jews often use: “Pray as if everything depended on G-d, act as if everything depended on you.” Prayer, in its truest essence, is a call to action. It is a reminder of the power that we have in OUR hands to change a situation.

We don’t actually know what Isaac prayed to G-d for. All it says is that he prayed to G-d on her behalf, because she was barren. I would assume, and it is probably safe to do so, that he prayed for her to have a child. But maybe he was praying to G-d to help him find some way to ease her pain. We will never know. But I do know that when I placed Mike in my prayers for healing, I was really saying: “I need to take some sort of action to help my friend.” Including him in my prayers over the course of his illness served as a reminder—I would realize upon speaking his name that I had not spoken to him in a while, and I would give him a call.

This is true of other prayers, not just the prayers of healing. Rav Joseph Soleveitchik, of blessed memory, wrote that:

G-d needs neither thanks nor hymns. He wants to hear the outcry of man, confronted with a ruthless reality. He expects prayer to rise from a suffering world cognizant of its genuine needs. In short, through prayer man finds himself. Prayer enlightens man about his needs. It tells man the story of his hidden hopes and expectations. It teaches him how to behold this vision, and how to strive in order to realize this vision.

Pray as if everything depending on G-d. Act as if everything depended on you. May you find in prayer an answer to your questions of powerlessness, of helplessness. May prayer become a method of action in times of need. Prayer can, and should, be comforting for the one praying. But let it not stop there, for prayer alone cannot and will not change a situation. Let prayer, then, because a clarion call. Let it open a vision of what needs to be done. And let our prayers inspire us to do. Ken Yehi Ratzon. Shabbat Shalom.