Why God “Desires” Our Prayers: The Power of Heartfelt Prayer

In the Torah portion of Lech Lecha we read about one of the greatest events in the life of Avraham Avinu. He returns as a victorious commander from the war of the four kings, after rescuing his nephew Lot. He pursued them from the southern Land of Israel all the way to Dan in the north, where he attacked them, fought them, and defeated them. Now he is returning from battle with all the spoils and the captives. All the kings greeted him with honor and praise: “And Malki Tzedek king of Shalem brought out bread and wine…” (Bereishit 14:18).

In addition to the great honor he received from the kings of Canaan, which was a tremendous sanctification of God’s Name, God also appeared to him and said: “Do not fear, Avram. I am a shield to you. Your reward is very great.” Words like these from God carry enormous meaning. Even if God had said only, “You have reward,” it would have been astonishing news, and all the more so if He had said, “Your reward is great.” But here God tells him, “Your reward is very great.”

Yet what did Avraham say when he heard this wonderful promise? “My Lord God, what will You give me, seeing that I go childless?” These sharp words of Avraham Avinu were clearly spoken from deep sorrow and intense pain. We have no idea how great the anguish of Avraham and Sarah was during all the years they waited for salvation.

Life Was Good

It is important to note at the outset that Avraham and Sarah were happy people. They were among the most successful and fulfilled couples in history. First of all, they were very wealthy: “And Avram was very rich in livestock, in silver, and in gold” (Bereishit 13:2). Avraham was also highly respected and honored even among the Canaanites who lived around him: “You are a prince of God among us” (Bereishit 23:6).

The Rambam writes that tens of thousands gathered around Avraham, crowds that would be considered large even in our times. Ancient Greek historians claimed that Avraham Avinu taught mathematics and astronomy to the Egyptian sages, and earlier sources state that Avraham Avinu authored books. He was successful by every standard, and Sarah was his full partner in that success.

But despite everything, they longed for a child. This longing was not merely to have a son to amuse them like a toy. Their aspirations were far higher. The Rambam in Moreh Nevuchim says that the greatest ambition of the Patriarchs was “to establish a nation that serves God.” If they were unable to establish armies of servants of God in the world, they felt there was no justification for their existence. If they would have no child to whom they could pass on their Torah and faith, and it would all die with them, then what was life for? “My Lord God, what will You give me, seeing that I go childless?”

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Why Were the Patriarchs Childless?

Why, truly, did they have no children? This question troubled our Sages deeply: “Why were our forefathers barren?” they asked in the Talmud (Yevamot 64). It was not only Avraham and Sarah. The same pattern repeated with Yitzchak and Rivkah, Yaakov and Leah. For years they waited, prayed, and waited. Everyone around them had children quickly: Terach, Lot, Hagar, Lavan. But only “Avraham My beloved” and his righteous wife had to wait year after year.

Our Sages understood that there was a plan here, a purpose. These giants of the world were not at the mercy of nature and chance. There was intention. Everything here was the hand of God. And of course it demands explanation. Who was more deserving of the joy and merit of children than these righteous ones?

Let Me Hear Your Voice

The Sages answered: “Because the Holy One, blessed be He, desires the prayers of the righteous.” We find an even fuller expression of this in the Yalkut Shimoni: “Why were the Matriarchs barren? Because the Holy One, blessed be He, desires their conversation, as it says: ‘My dove in the clefts of the rock… Let Me hear your voice, for your voice is sweet.’”

Throughout all the years that our forefathers waited for a child, God, so to speak, longed for the sound of their prayers. Here a great secret is revealed to the people of Israel: the explanation for many of the hardships we go through is that God wants to hear our prayers.

What does it mean that God desires prayer? God created the world not to receive something, but to bestow goodness upon His creations. The explanation is that God desires the prayers of the righteous for the sake of the righteous. They are the ones who truly need the prayers. God wants those He loves to rise, to grow, and to become complete in every proper trait, and therefore He draws prayers out of them. Because through prayer from the depths of the heart to the Creator, a person rises and becomes greatly refined.

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The Greatness of Prayer

We must know that of all the roles and achievements a person is meant to fulfill in this world, the most important is fear of Heaven. “The beginning of wisdom” means that the head, the most important part of wisdom, is “fear of God.” We say these words every day, but we often do not pay attention to what we are saying. And what is fear of Heaven? It is awareness of the presence of God, living and existing. The highest level of wisdom and the main purpose of our lives is that awareness.

Even though we live under the banner of “faith,” we may live in a way where it has almost no practical impact on our lives, without faith and awe penetrating our thoughts, heart, and soul. But when a person enters a difficult situation and turns to God with real urgency and a sense of having nowhere else to turn, that is when the presence of God becomes etched into consciousness. There is no doubt that prayer from the depths of the heart makes a person feel God’s presence more strongly. And since nothing in the world is more important than fear of Heaven, a situation that pushes a person to cry out to God from need and longing is, in truth, a very positive and beneficial situation for him.

Another Thirty Years of Prayer

During all those years that Avraham and Sarah pleaded for a child, they felt God more and more and rose level after level in fear of Heaven. Avraham Avinu was seventy when he said to God, “What will You give me, seeing that I go childless,” but God wanted them to reach even higher peaks. Thirty more years passed until Yitzchak was finally born. The goal was to draw out from Avraham and Sarah another thirty years of prayer.

God, so to speak, pressed them more and more. And Avraham and Sarah responded with more prayer, more closeness to God. They poured out their hearts before Him day after day. For close to a hundred years they never stopped drawing near to Him and ascending higher and higher on the ladder of awe.

Avraham, the Great Believer

We must understand that even before all this, Avraham and Sarah were already great in faith. Avraham was the most original thinker in history. He discovered the Creator of the world on his own and recognized Him more than anyone else of his generation. The Rambam says that Avraham reached God through contemplating the wonders of creation. He looked at the world around him and saw in the heavenly bodies and in every flower, animal, plant, and phenomenon intention, design, plan, and purpose. He saw that God filled the world with wisdom in order to teach human beings to recognize Him.

“At the age of three, Avraham recognized his Creator,” and later, “At the age of forty, Avraham recognized his Creator,” meaning he reached such a level of awareness that it was as if he recognized Him anew. That tells us that through all the years between three and forty, he never stopped thinking about God. He never paused his growth.

Unlike people who attend an inspiring talk, are convinced, and then leave and forget, Avraham Avinu did not stop for a moment. With every level of faith he achieved, he built another level. No one recognized God more than Avraham Avinu.

(Illustration photo: Yossi Aloni / Flash 90)

Under the Millstones

It would seem that Avraham did not need additional pressure to recognize God. He had already done so on his own. However, we see that God wanted even more from him.

Like a person who has a vineyard that produces exceptionally high quality grapes. He places them in a press under heavy stones and squeezes them, extracting the finest and most precious wine. But it is a waste to throw away the grapes after one squeeze, because more excellent wine can still be extracted. So he presses again, and a bit more comes out. Another press, and a bit more. And even that is not enough. Every drop that can be extracted matters. He tightens the stones and squeezes with greater force to draw out every last drop.

God wanted to draw from Avraham and Sarah the maximum prayers and the maximum fear of Heaven that was possible. The more valuable the wine, the more it matters to use every drop. Therefore He withheld from these righteous ones the fruit of the womb and compelled them to plead again and again with a broken heart, to cry and shed tears of deep pain and intense longing, turning to Him with the knowledge that He alone could help them and that there was no other hope.

In this way Avraham and Sarah climbed to such high peaks of living, tangible faith that it would have been impossible to reach without the sorrow and pain God brought upon them for so long. Their great hardship became a ladder to the great purpose of their lives, a living recognition of God. A test is called a “nes,” a banner raised high.

The Vineyard of Israel

We must know that we, the children of Israel, are also compared to a fine vineyard. Not the unique variety of Avraham and Sarah, but still the best that can be found. Therefore God also wants to draw from us all the fear of Heaven possible, so that we reach our purpose. The goal of life is not merely to continue existing for a few years and then disappear. God presses us and pushes us toward completion and purpose. He waits to hear us. Therefore, whenever we find ourselves in distress or trouble, we must understand what is truly happening.

Checking Mezuzot

A person thinks, “What has God done to me? What does He want from me? Why is He bringing this trouble upon me? Maybe I should check my mezuzot, my tefillin, my tzitzit. Maybe I should give more charity.” All of that is certainly very good. God desires your tefillin, your mezuzot, and your charity, but more than all of those, He wants you to cry out to Him. Not once and not twice, but to pour out your heart before Him continuously with all your strength.

This is the success God wants for you. And if and when God hears your prayers and saves you, and you return to a calm and happy life, know that your greatest success is not the salvation that arrived. The greatest success was earlier, in the hour of distress, when you turned to Him, thought about Him, and felt His presence. To the degree that you truly called out to God, thought about Him, and drew close to Him, that is the measure of your success.

Using Opportunities for Closeness to God Through Prayer

You might ask why God must bring a person to his purpose through such an unpleasant path. Is it not possible to bring a person to recognition of God through kindness and goodness? The answer is that we must notice that this method of pressing the grapes is only a small part of human life.

Most of our lives are filled with goodness and joy. Most of the time we do not have headaches or other pains. Most of the time the body works without malfunction and we function perfectly. There are so many systems in the body that must work precisely to prevent problems, and almost always they do. Most people have countless opportunities to recognize the Creator through joy and gratitude for His gifts, to recognize Him through His goodness. But sadly, we hardly use those opportunities. Who is to blame for that?

If grapes do not release their juice easily, they must be pressed. Even good people sometimes need pressure, a bit of suffering that pushes them to strengthen faith and recognition of God.

God presses us in many ways: livelihood, lack of children, the pain of raising children, and delayed matches. Many people live in small and crowded homes. When we cry out to God over these troubles, that is the fine wine that finally comes from the grapes. Those tears themselves are our great success, even before the salvation arrives. Sometimes God presses again and again to draw out more fine wine, more good tears. That is what He desires, for our sake.

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A Crisis as a Push to Grow

When trouble comes upon a person, he loses his job, becomes sick, or finds himself in danger, he must understand that he is receiving a push from Heaven to grow. No matter how it ends, with salvation or without it, he can draw enormous achievements from the trouble. He can grow in “the beginning of wisdom is fear of God.”

One does not need to wait for major crises in order to ask. A person can ask God for everything. “Open your mouth wide and I will fill it,” God says (Tehillim 81:11). Ask for what you want. There is nothing I cannot give you. The more a person opens his mouth in prayer, the more he succeeds in the purpose of life, fear of Heaven.

This is not talking about prayers said by habit, praying three times a day because that is what one is used to doing, without heart or thought. If prayer is only that, it is a tragedy. We are speaking about prayer pressed from the depths of the heart, like wine pressed from grapes in a winepress.

The Jewish People Are a People of Prayer

No one in the world prays like we do. If it seems that prayer among us is dormant, it is because our relationship with God is dormant. A large part of life is wasted on mumbling words, and that is a disaster of enormous scale. Anyone who has seen Jews of two generations ago praying knows what prayer is. In the synagogues of the past, even in America, they knew how to pray. There were tears and cries every day.

More modern Jews no longer understand what prayer is. There was once a poor emissary from Poland who happened to be in a small German town called Heidelberg on Rosh Hashanah. He prayed the Rosh Hashanah prayers as he was used to, with tears, deep feeling, and cries, without embarrassment. The synagogue caretaker approached him and said, “Do not make a scandal.” You are making a scandal in the synagogue. Many Jews were influenced by the ways of the nations in their emptiness and lost all connection to the Jewish concept of prayer.

A Jew prays because he believes in God. He recognizes that Someone is listening and deeply cares on the other side of the conversation, Someone real and present. He cries and pleads before Him, and the more he prays, the more he believes.

Prayer at Every Step

If a matchmaker calls with a suggestion for you or for your son, before you begin making phone calls, plead with God. He is waiting for it. Before the first meeting, turn to Him in prayer that if this is the destined match, He should grant success.

If you begin a new tractate, a new semester in yeshiva, or even just a new chapter, do not act as if you rely on your talent, your study partners, or your diligence. Ask God for help. Say, “May it be Your will, Master of the World, that You help me succeed in this tractate,” or “in this time period.”

People far greater than you in talent, age, and diligence asked God for help constantly, even in the middle of learning. Rabbi Yehoshua Leib Diskin would ask God for help whenever he struggled and before every difficult topic. Of course one cannot say a full prayer on every line of Talmud, but one can ask God for help many times a day. “The Lord is near to all who call upon Him, to all who call upon Him in truth” (Tehillim 145:18). These ideas can be applied to every area of life.

When a woman begins baking a cake, she should show that she does not rely only on her own strength and skills. She should recognize that the success of the cake depends on God. She knows how many things can go wrong in baking, and she needs help from Heaven more than she realizes. She should ask God for success in preparing it.

When we travel, we say the traveler’s prayer. In earlier times, dangers were mostly outside the city. Today, even within the city, every car ride and even walking near roads involves danger. Even if one does not say the blessing because of the original rabbinic enactment, asking God to reach one’s destination safely is something one must do.

It is very worthwhile to ask God for help in everything, small or great. If you have a test, do not be embarrassed, turn to God. If you have a minor injury and you apply ointment and a bandage, do not rely only on natural remedies. Say, “May it be Your will that this be for my healing.” Show that you rely on Him and not on anything else. Of course God wants you to treat yourself, “and he shall surely heal,” but first, turn to Him.

This is how one lives a successful life. Before buying an apartment, a car, a refrigerator, or an air conditioner, say a small prayer: “Master of the World, do not let me make a mistake. Do not let me decide wrongly. Please help me succeed.” We must include God in every detail of our lives, because that is what He wants. The more we keep turning to Him, the more He loves us.

Success Even if the Prayer Is Not Answered

The truth is that God does not always answer our prayers. A Jew once called me and asked, crying, that he begs God again and again for salvation, but the salvation is delayed. God is not answering him, and he asked what he should think.

I told him he should think that God wants him to cry out more and to weep more. And then, whether salvation finally comes or not, it does not matter. He spoke with God, and in doing so he fulfilled the purpose of his life.

Prayer belongs in every situation. Even an elderly man on his sickbed, one hundred and nineteen years old, who is close to death, does not want to die. He cries and pleads, “Heal me, I want to live.” Those around him do not understand. They think, how long do you think you will live already? Are one hundred and nineteen years not enough? But for someone who is dying, nothing is enough. He wants to live a thousand years. He is allowed to want it, and allowed to ask. Why not? The chance that his request will be fulfilled is tiny, but that is not the point. The very asking and pleading is the great achievement. It is possible that in his final moments he reaches more completeness than he reached his entire life. No prayer returns empty, because prayer itself is the farthest thing in the world from empty.

“I thank You for You have answered me, and You have become my salvation” (Tehillim 118:21). We thank God even for the suffering, because through it we prayed to Him.

The Years of Loneliness and True Success

When Avraham and Sarah were finally blessed with a son, the joy was immense. But was that child their greatest success? No. Their greatest success was specifically the years of loneliness and pain, the years of fear that all their life’s work would collapse and no one would continue their path in the world. Those long years in which they turned to God and only to God were their greatest success. Years of growth and ascent, of tremendous refinement in closeness to God and awe of Him. Only after those years were they ready to become the father and mother of the nation of God.

Lfe is worth living precisely because of the hard times. If we do not endure troubles like an inanimate object, but respond to suffering by crying out to God, pouring out the heart before Him, that is the best use of our life in this world. “God desires the prayers of the righteous,” for the sake of the righteous.

If you turned to God for even one minute a day, that is already great success. If you did more than that, you are a special person, one in a thousand. Let us begin now and not delay. Let us make this part of our daily routine, and begin a new journey of drawing close to God. There is no greater success in the world than closeness to God.