1. Home
  2. Sources
  3. R' Shlomo Farhi
  4. Concession

Concession

As intelligent people, we understand that working towards a goal requires determination, effort, and investment to get what we want. As religious people, we understand that it includes prayer as well.

A recurring theme in the stories of our ancestors is that they do not have children easily or naturally. They are often infertile and repeatedly have to beg, fight, pray, and struggle to have the children God had promised.

When it was Yitzchak and Rivka trying for a long time, they prayed together:

‘וַיֶּעְתַּר יִצְחָק לַה’ לְנֹכַח אִשְׁתּוֹ, כִּי עֲקָרָה הִוא וַיֵּעָתֶר לוֹ ה –  Yitzchak begged the Lord on behalf of his wife because she was barren; and God conceded. (21:25)

The Torah narrates this story with unusually heavy language – ויעתר. Rather than a word like “pray,” “request,” or something similar, he “begs,” an intensely emotive verb connoting earnest desperation; and the Torah uses another construct of the same word to indicate God’s almost reluctant acquiescence -‘ וַיֵּעָתֶר לוֹ ה.

We probably think that God desires our prayers, and the ebbs and flows of our lives present opportunities for us to reach out. This is actually an aspect of why our ancestors were frequently barren!

Yet, in this instance, God “concedes” to the prayer, as though defeated by this unwelcome request to give Yitzchak and Rivka the family they so desperately want! It doesn’t quite align with the classical understanding of prayer or even our own basic expectations of what prayer looks like.

Why was this prayer so unwelcome?

R’ Shlomo Farhi suggests that this is a prime example of the right thing at the wrong time.

Rashi suggests that Avraham died five years sooner than he might have otherwise, as a kindness to spare him from watching his grandson Esau become a murderer. It follows that the sooner Esau was to be born, the sooner Avraham would die. This might help explain God’s difficulty in accepting this prayer – it’s the right thing, but it’s not yet the right time. While Gematria might not be the most serious analytical tool, R’ Yosef Chaim Sonnenfeld noted that the value of ‘וַיֵּעָתֶר לוֹ ה is 748, equivalent to חמש שנים, the five years Avraham died too soon.

As far as Yitzchak’s desperate prayer, God wasn’t quite ready to bless them with children at the expense of letting Avraham go. But God allowed Himself to be persuaded and convinced, seduced by the tears of Yitzchak’s prayer, even though it wasn’t quite time yet.

The Gemara tells a similar story of how the people of King David’s day would mock his inability to build the Beis HaMikdash, wondering when he’d die, and David, thinking he was channeling what God wanted, wistfully hoped the joke would come true, quite literally wishing his life away. God corrected him and explained that David’s good deeds were worth more than any sacrifices; that what David had wanted for God wasn’t what God wanted at all.

We don’t always want the consequences of what we think we want, and they’re not always good.

We might find it disturbing to learn that our prayers can hurt us. If we can sabotage ourselves by wanting and asking for the wrong thing, then maybe we shouldn’t ask for anything at all and let destiny and fate play out! It’s a moot point because, in reality, we chase the wrong things all the time; but unsurprisingly then, hedging our ability to self-sabotage features prominently in our prayers. Sometimes the thing we need saving from is ourselves!

For example, you think you want something, but you’d much rather what’s good for you – ימלא כל משאלות ליבך לטובה. We ask for a good and sweet New Year – שָׁנָה טוֹבָה וּמְתוּקָה – because not everything sweet is good, and not everything good is sweet. God can grant our desires, and save us from them when they are the very thing that ends up hurting us – רְצוֹן-יְרֵאָיו יַעֲשֶׂה; וְאֶת-שַׁוְעָתָם יִשְׁמַע, וְיוֹשִׁיעֵם.

Yitzchak’s defining feature is seriousness – גבורה – he was someone who took things seriously. When God had asked for his life at the Akeida, he took it seriously and was at peace. So if God didn’t want him to have children, he could take it seriously and be at ease as well. R’ Shlomo Farhi sharply notes that Yitzchak prays opposite his wife, facing her – לְנֹכַח אִשְׁתּוֹ – rather than with her, together, suggesting that he wasn’t doing it for himself, but for her.

Facing her, seeing her pain and anguish, he could do for her what he would not do for himself and grapple with Heaven on her behalf, explaining the force of the prayer. Yitzchak removed himself from a position he was comfortable with for a position he was not, mirroring the position he asked God to take, to upend a reality where Avraham lives his full life, in favor of a reality where Rivka has her children sooner, but Avraham dies early. The mirroring is literal – וַיֶּעְתַּר / וַיֵּעָתֶר.

It also highlights an essential component of prayer – meaning what you’re saying. Only exposure to Rivka’s anguish could make the words real enough for Yitzchak.

Generalities don’t move us; how could they? There is a chasm between hoping your career works out, in contrast with needing a sale to go through so you can put food on the table. What drives us is being specific; the purest prayers come from the heart.

We have to pray. It is possible that something would happen if we only put in the effort, and if we fail to pray, we could end up preventing something that was coming our way. But if we’re nervous about praying for the wrong thing, we might pray in generalities; but then we wouldn’t mean it! So we pray with precision and heart, hedging it with a hope for the best.

Most of the time, the things we want don’t end up cutting our parents’ lives short. But for most of what we want, it would be healthier to cultivate an attitude of outcome independence. We are often stuck on something because we mistakenly think what we want is scarce when the universe is actually abundant.

It’s also worth introspecting if what we are so desperate for isn’t a specific thing but rather an unmet underlying need. In which case, your headspace ought to be that if not this deal, this house, this job, or this relationship, help me find what I’m really looking for – dignity, fulfillment, happiness, and security.

We don’t really know how prayer works. It’s a key tool in our arsenal and features prominently in our heritage. We pray, and sometimes things work out just the way we hope – and sometimes not.

And that has to be okay too.