Does Praying for Someone Make Them Better?

Does Praying for Someone Make Them Better?
April 21, 2006
Rabbi Gary S. Creditor

There are two words that some people say very quickly and only those who really know, understand to what is being referred. The words are: Mi Shebarrach. They mean: "He who blessed…" and are the opening words to prayers that have several different texts that follow the opening salutation. After just having an aliyah the Torah for no particular reason, we ask God to bless that person and recite "Mi Shebarrach…" Similarly, there is a text for Bar and Bat Mitzvah, Chatan and Kallah, for blessing the community, and even for blessing the Czar, when there was one. This is the opening formula when we name a baby girl in synagogue and for the boy after his bris. It is a very ancient formula. My research failed to discover how old it is, but it is more than a thousand years, at least. There is one more formula that Cantor recites during every Torah reading, Shabbat, Yom Tov and daily, which has a parallel in the blessings of the daily Amidah, namely, to pray for the healing of others.

For that purpose, I compose a list, separated by gender so that we can use feminine gender when praying of women and not the all-inclusive masculine, of people who are sick. And we "pray for them from a distance." They are often not here in shul. They may not even be in Virginia. Yet we invoke God to heal them. In the daily Amidah there is a generic, all-inclusive prayer for God to heal the sick, which one may personalize and add specific names. Since we do not repeat the daily Amidah this is said silently. I always insert names there. Who I insert is between me and God. In order to respect people's confidentiality, we don't publicize our prayer list. Those who ask to be on the list know that they are. Relatives who request members of their mishpacha to be on the list also know. And usually, the people on the list know that they are on it and that we are praying for their healing. When I see them, even if it has been a long time, yet they are still in need of healing, I remind them that we keep them in mind and in our prayers to God.

So I ask a question that has recently been the subject of great dispute:

Does it help?

Does long distance praying for healing for people I don't even know help them?

Does our Mi Shebarrach list work?

Or, maybe we ought to scrap the whole think and not waste our time?

At the end of March, Time Magazine and the CBS News reported on a study financed by the Templeton Foundation and will appear in full in the American Heart Journal. The work followed 1,800 patients at six medical centers. Dr. Herbert Benson of Harvard Medical School is the co-principal investigator. As we say, this is no small potatoes. They tested the effect of having three Christian groups pray for particular patients, starting the night before surgery and continuing for two weeks. The volunteers prayed for "a successful surgery with a quick, healthy recovery and no complications" for specific patients, for whom they were given the first name and first initial of the last name. The patients, meanwhile, were split into three groups of about 600 apiece: those who knew they were being prayed for, those who were prayed for but only knew it was a possibility and those who weren't prayed for but were told it was a possibility.

The study looked for any complications within 30 days of the surgery. Results showed no effect of prayer on complication-free recovery. But 59 percent of the patients who knew they were being prayed for developed a complication; versus 52 percent of those we were told it was just a possibility. The headline for the article read: Study finds no effect of praying for health of heart surgery patients.  The first line of the article read: In the largest scientific test of its kind, heart surgery patients showed no benefit when strangers prayed for their recovery.

In July, 2004 Time Magazine reported on a study published in 2001 by a trio of researchers from Columbia University and the Journal of Reproductive Medicine. In their report, the Columbia researchers claimed that women who received in-vitro fertilization at a South Korean hospital were twice as likely as others to conceive, if, unknown to them, prayers were uttered in their behalf…by strangers thousands of miles away…who were shown only unidentified photographs of the Korean women in question…This so called intercessory prayer supposedly resulted in a pregnancy rate of 50% for those who received it, compared with only 26% for those who did not. This study has been called into question and as yet, not resolved one way or the other. 

Given our long history of prayers on behalf of others, what are we to say about all of this?

Does prayer help?

Is it sap for the masses?

Does God care if we are sick, ill or dying?

Should we pray for others?

1. We don't believe that our Mi Shebarrach prayer is some special chain around God's throat that I can yank on and to which He will automatically respond. If that would be true my father and so many others that I have personally prayed for by name, with and without their knowledge would still be alive. I would also be worth a mint and could retire immediately! Ancient peoples in their paganism thought that was an immediate connection between a ritual on earth and the reaction of the gods. Perhaps early Israelites had a similar view of the sacrificial cult. But Judaism has long developed past that. Even in the Bible already we have texts that indicate that there is no necessarily correlation between our wellness or illness and ritual correctness. The Torah forbids divination, sorcerers and other pagan forms to supposed divine manipulation. I truly, with all my heart and soul, wish that everyone I prayed for was healed. My words are not magical. God is not some idol on a leash. And yet I say Mi Shebarrach prayers very religiously.
   
   
2. I believe in the metaphysical, the realm beyond the science and microscopes and telescopes. I believe in the unseeable and the unknowable. I believe that my words have power, even if I don't control that power. My faith, our faith of Judaism is predicated on belief in the existence of a God who does hear our cries, our prayers, as well as our laughter, even if I don't know how that works. I pray fervently, not in the responsive readings nor in the congregational singing, but in the prayers that I say privately when I am not leading you. Even if they are totally silent, even if I intone music without the words that remain in my heart, the foundation of my faith is that somehow God knows that I am praying and takes account of my prayers. I don't control His response. And I don't know what will happen. I have no assurance of anything. Yet, nonetheless, I believe, that there is some divine antenna in the unseen universe that detects and receives my prayers, in any language that I may pray. And so I say Mi Shebarrach prayers very religiously.
   
   
3. There is a wonderful cartoon of two children walking out of church, one holding a broken doll. The boy, of course, asks the girl "What did God say?" Clearly, she has been praying for God to fix her doll. The girl answers, "God said 'No.'" This sophisticated cartoon caught in its simplicity the essence of the matter. Not every prayer we pray, not every thing we ask for will be granted. I believe that God can say "no." And that does not undermine nor deter me from asking. Some things will not be. As hard it was for me to accept, as many times as I recited Mi Shebarrach for my father and Ruby's mother, the answer was 'No" and I had to accept that. Sometimes the answer was yes. That is not very scientific. But as the Rabbis taught, even when a sword is perched on your neck you should not desist from praying. I haven't. And sometimes, beyond all expectation, the person heals and is restored to health. And so I am encouraged to recite Mi Shebarrach prayers very religiously. 
   
   
4. While I began college as a psychology major, I switched very early in my academic career. So I cannot speak with any authority on that subject. Yet it seems to me, from that which I have read and observed, even if my prayers don't go 'upwards' people are spiritually uplifted when they know that someone cares for them and is concerned with their welfare. I believe that there is therapy in a smile, in a kind word, in a simple get-well card, in a bunch of handpicked flowers. Doctors might tell us that that releases certain chemicals in our bodies which does this and that. That's fine. I am not focused on the chemical but the spiritual. Maybe it gives them the spark to live, the will to fight the pain, the motivation to walk the floor. Maybe they will fight for life because they know that we want them to live. And embedded in my prayers are those for doctors, who face human mortality, our weaknesses and illnesses, sometimes with veritably one hand tied behind their back. I pray that they should not despair, that the researcher will prevail and discover another cure for someone, somewhere, and that the nurse will continue to show tender loving care. For all of them I say Mi Shebarrach exceedingly religiously.

I do it without studies or despite them. I do it because our faith leads me to believe in the realm beyond this one, because I believe in the God of Egypt, of Passover, who heard their cries and saved them, even if it took a long time. I pray with faith in God not knowing when, if or how my prayers will be answered, even if the answer is 'No.' 

Let me close with a simple question: 

What do you do when an ambulance goes screaming down the street? 

Do you turn away? 

Do you say 'thank God it's not me?' 

Do you worry that it is someone you know? 

I was once taught, and I do this ever since. I repeat the shortest prayer in the whole Bible. It is the one that Moses said, comprised of five words, when he saw his sister Miriam stricken with leprosy. He said: "Ayl na, r'fah, nah lah" - "Please God heal her."

Shabbat Shalom.