Our Gemara on Amud Aleph outlines the framework for personal supplication during the Amidah:
“The Halacha is that one may request personal needs during the blessing of Shomeah Tefilah. However, if he desires, he may include personal requests in each blessing that matches its theme.”
Implicit in this ruling is a theological tension: What gives us the right to bring our petty, personal concerns into an encounter with the Divine? Shouldn’t prayer focus solely on praise, awe, and reflection?
The Gemara in Chullin 60b helps resolve this:
“The vegetation lay dormant in the earth until Adam prayed for rain… God desires the prayers of the righteous.”
Still, Rav Chaim Volozhin in Nefesh HaChaim (II:11) offers a sobering caveat. Though it is halachically permissible to pray for our needs, that should not be the primary purpose of prayer—especially for a person of integrity and and a proper heart.
Rav Chaim offers a powerful mashal: If a surgeon needs to amputate a limb to save your life, would it be appropriate—or respectful—to beg him not to? Similarly, if we believe Hashem engineers our circumstances for our ultimate good, what does it mean to ask Him to undo them?
Yet this is not a rejection of personal supplication, only a reframing. Before praying, one must internalize that all events are divinely orchestrated for our benefit. Only then can a person sincerely say, “I accept Your plan, but I beg You to help me better serve You within it.” Rav Chaim even hints at the mystical idea that when Klal Yisrael suffers, the Shekhinah suffers too. Thus, our pain becomes a cosmic concern.
This perspective transforms prayer from a wishlist into a mission statement: “Please help me, not because I deserve it, but because I want to serve You more effectively.”
And this brings us full circle to the insight from Rav Kook in Olas Re’iyah that we quoted yesterday in blogpost Psychology of the Daf Avodah Zara 7. Only after we have praised and meditated upon the greatness of Hashem, can our prayers become meaningful. Petty concerns, if left in their undeveloped state, are like poorly aimed arrows. But when refracted through the lens of Divine wisdom, they take on deeper meaning—and may even change the decree.
Translations Courtesy of Sefaria, except when, sometimes, I disagree with the translation
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Rabbi Simcha Feuerman, Rabbi Simcha Feuerman, LCSW-R, LMFT, DHL is a psychotherapist who works with high conflict couples and families. He can be reached via email at simchafeuerman@gmail.com