Prayer: Is anyone listening?

In last Saturday’s pre-Super Bowl edition of the Providence Journal, various local clergy responded to the question, “Does praying for victory in a football game help?” The Catholic bishop said it probably does no harm, but he assumes that God has more important things to worry about. (This is true only if God is not a New Yorker or a New Englander, because obviously to us there’s nothing more important!) True to his heritage the pastor of the First Baptist Church in America said he believed in separation of sports and religion. But then he added that he doesn’t pray about sports as it’s not fair to the other team. A local imam of my acquaintance advised against praying for frivolous things. Nevertheless, if his team (The Giants) is losing late in the fourth quarter, he might, deep down in his heart, offer up a prayer—and then ask for forgiveness. And what said the rabbi? He offered this gem: “It’s not right to pray for one group and cause distress to others…[but] “based on Biblical teachings, the side that has the most spiritual effort is the one that will win out. Sometimes the spiritual forces are stronger on one side than the other.”

What do all these have in common? Incredibly enough they all think that prayer can affect the outcome of a game (but that we shouldn’t stoop to that). Holy Moley! Are these guys kidding? Haven’t we as a species yet grown out of the idea that magic works? Here’s the Religious Studies 101 distinction between magic and religion. The latter implores the spirit world, the former commands it. According to the rabbi, God weighs the spiritual strength of those who pray and grants victory to their team? Did I read that right? Sir James Frazer, in his classic The Golden Bough argued that mankind goes through three stages of contact with the unknown world—first magic, then religion and finally, the stage we are entering (he wrote in 1900) the scientific. But apparently when it comes to football, monotheists among us have taken a giant step backwards. Only the Hindu swami began to approach the question with the mindset of a rationalist: “Whoever plays better wins.” (At this point, if I knew how to spell Homer Simpson’s famous ejaculation, I would insert it. “Dough!” Does that capture it?)

The older I get, the closer to death I come, the more I realize the futility of prayer. God or nature is self-evidently indifferent to what happens to us. We exist, we die and someone else is born and the cycle goes on and on and on and on. I don’t pray. In schul I sit, I stand, I sing, I meditate, I make a minyan. Prayer itself? Much of it is in praise of God, but I figure He knows how great He is; He doesn’t need me to tell Him. Prayer for the sick? Better to see an AMA approved physician. The eighteenth century deists said that God made the world and then merely observes. Sometimes it’s hard to disagree. And on Saturday, the death of a friend caught in a fire fresh in my mind, I didn’t. On Sunday I attended a shivah minyan and then went to friends’ house and rooted for the Pats. Life goes on, and there is no evidence at all that God cares.

When my mother died, I attended daily morning and evening minyans. I donned a talis, wrapped my arm with tephelin, and stood to say kaddish at the appropriate moments. Those who attend the services on a regular basis read Hebrew faster than I can think in English. So I tried various tricks. I read only the first half of each line. And still fell behind. Then I switched to reading every second or third line. No good. All this left me with the obvious question: Why do I do this each day, twice a day. In the end I concluded that as my mother was always there for me when she was alive I would be there for her, fulfilling the obligation imposed on me centuries before either of us was born. And so, for her, and not for me, I went to schul. It’s what dutiful sons do.

This newspaper loves to receive letters from readers. Let’s start something. Flood the editor with your opinion on the value of prayer. We can begin a dialogue.

Oh, and my friend the imam, Allah may forgive him, but I don’t.