Abraham's Prayers Helped Abraham

G-d’s mind was made up. He was all set to destroy Sodom. In fact, He had already ‘descended’ (a Biblical metaphor for Heavenly investigation), heard the city’s outcry, and passed judgment. Nonetheless, G-d thought to Himself that He would not hide from Abraham that the neighborhood, so to speak, was about to become an undesirable slum.

At first glance, one would imagine that Abraham, upon hearing that Divine Justice was about to be served, would rise to his feet and sing Hallelujah!  But that is not what transpired. Abraham quickly adopted the role of merciful advocate, begging for a stay of execution. After all, Abraham asks of G-d, there must be some righteous folks in the vicinity of Sodom who can turn around the picture. Perhaps there are 50 Tzaddikim (holy people) scattered throughout the five towns? Well, how about 40? Surely there must be at least this amount, and could you please check it out, Abraham begs. Soon Abraham is down to 30, then 20, and soon he is told there isn’t even a minyan (10). With that depressing news, Abraham closes out the prayer session and goes back home.

This narrative is quite difficult to understand. Surely, G-d is omniscient, and thus He undoubtedly knew that ultimately He was going to destroy Sodom. Furthermore, the Almighty might have saved Abraham some time and effort, had He deigned to inform the Patriarch up front that Sodom did not possess any righteous people. So what was G-d doing? Was He playing games? Was He was dangling a little prize called Sodom in front of Abraham, challenging him to save the city. G-d forbid (pun intended) that G-d was teasing Abraham, allowing him to pray in hope for something that was truly hopeless!

Actually, G-d was doing a tremendous service to Abraham. This exercise helped the first Jew to become the pillar of Chessed (altruistic kindness) that he would ultimately epitomize. What we fail to realize is that when we pray for something or for someone, those prayers have an effect on us, regardless of whether those prayers are answered or not. How many times have we come together as individuals or as a community and poured out our hearts and prayed for somebody? And were there not times unfortunately when “it did not work” and the effort was seemingly to no avail. We ask ourselves, “What did we do? We fasted. We cried. We gave charity. But it did not help! Did we waste our time?”

To think this way is a tremendous mistake. It did help. Maybe not the person we were praying for, but at least it helped us! We became better people because we were concerned about somebody else; a neighbor, a friend, a member of the community. We prayed and we gave our hearts. We did something. We became better.

This is what G-d told Abraham. “Pray! I will not destroy Sodom until you pray. Why? I know your prayers will not be effective. I know Sodom is doomed. But that is irrelevant. You, Abraham, will become a different person as a result of those prayers. You will perfect your attribute of caring and compassion. That is, at least, half of what prayer is all about.”

This is important when we pray for something or someone. We shouldn’t think that the prayers are for naught. We don’t know what the prayers accomplished: and I mean, even for the person for whom we are praying. Tue, they did not see the results they were hoping for, but perhaps they lightened the load (and they are not aware, that it was because of the prayers).    But on a completely different track, prayers always help: They help those who are offering the prayers, the opportunity to become a better human being.