There’s a Jewish quip about prayer that I have always disliked, not because it isn’t true, but rather because it’s irritating in its smug self-satisfaction. 

A person complained that he prayed and prayed and God didn’t listen. His rabbi answered, “Who says God didn’t listen? He listened, and the answer was ’No.’” While this might be true, it is cold comfort to one who needed a miracle.

Our Gemara on Amud Aleph tells us the story of how the sages mounted an intense prayer campaign to miraculously cure Rabbi Yehuda Hanasi’s mortal illness. Eventually, his suffering was too great (from not being able to wear Tefilin!) and it was better for him to die, so his wise servant made a distraction, distracting the rabbis from their prayers. Then and there, the miraculous sustaining of his life was interrupted and he “died”. 

The Gemara tells us that Rabbi Yehuda Hanasi would still come back, dressed in Shabbos clothes, every Friday night. While we might understand that somehow his spirit was felt or present, Sefer Chasidim (1129) takes it literally, saying that he even was motzi his family members in Kiddush!

There has been much halakhic and aggadic discussion about every aspect of this story but I’ll just focus on an observation by Ben Yehoyada:

Ben Yehoyada wonders what specific merit allowed for this rarest of miracles? He says, since the rabbis prayed so intensively, some aspect of their prayer must have been granted. This is why Rabbi Yehuda Hanasi came back to life, or was allowed to live on Shabbos. It was a partial fulfillment of their prayers.

Reflecting on this, I realize that the truer idea about prayer is that we are answered to varying degrees. Prayers for an ill person might alleviate suffering or offer temporary healing and extension of life. After all, with much less rational evidence, we take it on faith from big Pharma that “Covid would have been much, much worse, if not for the vaccine.” Whether or not you buy that, I think we can all buy that our prayers help, sometimes in big ways and sometimes in small ways.

Translations Courtesy of Sefaria, except when, sometimes, I disagree with the translation

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