When Prayers Go Unanswered

Passages in the Siddur read like they were written after October 7. How does that make us feel?

Ancient tradition, new awareness: In the last five months have we come to realize, again, just how precious and precarious the State of Israel is, and how fragile our own sense of security is, living as proud Jews in America.

Many of us are praying fervently these days for the safety of Israel, its soldiers on the frontlines and the hostages whose fate is unknown and unimaginable. In doing so, we have become increasingly aware of passages in our prayer books from centuries past that resonate with the dark events of our present. 

“How long shall the wicked triumph?” we read in Psalm 94. “They pour out insolent words… they kill the widow and the stranger. They murder the orphaned. They say, ‘the Lord does not see. The God of Jacob pays no heed.

“But the Lord is my stronghold,” we read, “my God is the rock of my refuge. God will bring back on them their wickedness and destroy them for their evil deeds.”

Are we comforted in recognizing the long tradition of such prayers in our history or dismayed that in the 21st century, we are still facing those who hate and seek to destroy us? No doubt there are elements of both sentiments in our hearts.

Concern about fellow Jews held captive runs through the Siddur, reminding us of the dangers Jewish communities have faced since ancient days.

One of the first blessings recited each day in the morning service praises God “who sets captives free.” Just before the Amidah, the silent, central prayer of every service, we read of God who “humbles the haughty and raises the lowly, freeing hostages and those in need.” And in the Amidah itself, recited three times a day, we praise God who “supports the fallen, heals the sick and sets captives free.”

But how are we to react when the ill we are praying for, die, and those who were kidnapped, remain captive? (One of the most difficult elements of prayer for me is getting used to no longer saying the name of a loved one or friend whose healing I have been praying for and who has died.)

We sometimes think that if only we had proof that God engages with mankind – hears and answers our prayers – we would be forever grateful and faithful. The Haftorah we will read in the synagogue this Shabbat (Parshat Ki Tissa) offers a dramatic example of such an encounter worth exploring. On the surface, its resolution is faith-affirming. But read a bit further and more questions arise. 

The Haftorah describes a dramatic confrontation between the Prophet Elijah and hundreds of false prophets of the idol, Baal. (I Kings, Ch. 18 v. 1-39)

With “all Israel” gathered at Mount Carmel, Elijah challenges the people, many of whom had resorted back to idol worship, to make up their minds: “If the Lord be God, follow God; but if Baal, follow him.” The prophet then instructs the idol worshippers to prepare an animal sacrifice on a stack of wood and pray to their god to set it aflame. They do so for hours and hours, to no avail. Elijah mocks them, asking if their god is away or sleeping. This goes on into the evening, with the idol worshippers, in anguish,wailing and cutting themselves with their swords.

At this point, Elijah gathers the people and makes elaborate efforts to make sure his sacrificial offering is soaking wet after three rounds of pouring buckets of water on it. 

“Hear me, O Lord, hear me,” he calls out, “that this people may know that Thou, Lord, art God, for thou didst turn their heart backward.” With that, the “fire of the Lord fell and consumed the burnt offering and the wood and the stones and the dust and licked up the water in the trench.” 

The final sentence of the Haftorah reads: “And when the people saw it, they fell on their faces, and they said: ‘The Lord, He is God; the Lord, He is God.’”

A miracle. Who would not have believed in God after witnessing that fire come down from heaven? 

Yet a dozen sentences later we learn that Elijah asks God to take his life, feeling himself a failure because “the Isrelites have forsaken your covenant, torn down your altars and put your prophets to the sword.” (I Kings, Ch. 19 v. 11)

Many of us believe in miracles. But for some, even seeing isn’t necessarily believing.

The most famous example takes place after God’s only direct encounter with the nation of Israel, when God descends on Mount Sinai in fire, smoke and thunder, and speaks the words of the Ten Commandments as the frightened nation trembles.

These are the same people who soon defy God’s laws and build a golden calf.

A Lesson From Terezin

How much more difficult it is to maintain belief in a God who no longer interacts with us directly. And yet, throughout our history, Jews have clung to their faith even in the darkest of times. Perhaps the most poignant example of such faith that I have seen was at a tiny, forbidden room used as a secret synagogue among the barracks of Terezin (or Theresienstadt), the infamous transit ghetto near Prague. It was from Terezin that most of the 150,000 Jews housed there were “sent East” – to Auschwitz, never to return. 

Visiting the 12-by-15-foot room about 15 years ago, I could see the faded but still legible symbolic drawings and Hebrew letters on its walls. The largest and most wrenching inscription was from the Tachnun prayer: “We beg You, turn back from Your anger and have mercy on the treasured nation that You have chosen.”

Underneath those words was the passage from the morning prayers that has been recited and sung in synagogues around the world since October 7. It calls on God to deliver Jews from distress and captivity, wherever they may be, and bring them “from darkness to light, from subjugation to redemption, now, speedily and soon.”

That little-known, nameless room in Terezin seemed suffused with abiding faith, holiness and sadness, its writings reflecting both trust in – and a challenge to – God’s compassion. One can only imagine the range of thoughts of those who prayed there, a few feet from their persecutors.

Visiting that humble room reminded me that a spark of tradition still flickered in the hellholes of the Holocaust. But for far too many, their fervent prayers remain unanswered and the redemption they yearned and pleaded for did not come “speedily and soon,” indeed, at all. 

Today we are blessed to live in freedom at a moment in history when Jews have a state of their own, dedicated to protecting its inhabitants. 

But in the last five months we have come to realize, again, just how precious and precarious that state is, and how fragile our own sense of security is, living as proud Jews in this land of freedom. 

As we continue to pray for those in need, wherever they are, we recognize that faith, by its definition, is about belief rather than proof. We will never have all the answers to “why?” But we can take a measure of comfort in seeing ourselves as part of an eternal people, responsible to preserve the memories, traditions and dreams of those who came before and committed to paving the way for those who will follow.

Note: a section of this piece about Terezin first appeared in The Jewish Week in 2009.