Letters to Malcom, Letter 4, Introduction

In Letter 4, Lewis addresses two questions concerning prayer. The first, which he characterizes as the question of an unbeliever but would not bother a believer, is why are we telling God things (such as what we want or need). God is omniscient, why do we need to tell Him. The second, which is practical for believers, is when is something important enough to offer it as a prayer before God. 

However, before looking at the answers to these questions, I would like to take a quick detour to look at what prayer means. The Hebrew word to pray comes from the root p.l.l. which is found in various forms throughout the bible. Even Shoshan gives three explanations of the root. (1) believe, foresee, or consider, for example Jacob after his reunion with Joseph says (Genesis 48:11) , "I had not thought to see thy face.." (2) beg, request, or stand in prayer, (3) judge. 

Sometime the midrashim will merge these translations. So for example, when the Psalmist (106:30) records, "Then stood up Pinehas, and p.l.l.: and so the plague was stayed." The Talmud (Berachos 26b) translates, "the verb 'standing' means prayer, 'And Pinehas stood up and prayed and the plague ended.' ” However, Pirkei d'Rabbi Eliezer (47) reads the same verse as follows, "He arose as a great spiritual leader and he judged Israel, as it says, "Then stood up Pinehas, and he executed judgment." This seems to be the more straightforward reading of the verse, because in the Torah we do not see that Pinehas prayed, but we do see that he killed the sinner. 

OK, so to this point we see that pray, has infused meanings of belief and judgement. But there's another piece we need to pay attention to. Despite the biblical verses, in almost all Jewish literature the verb 'to pray' is conjugated using the reflexive - doing something to yourself. Meaning when one prays, they are effecting themselves. To pray then means, to make oneself believe or to judge oneself. 

If all that is true, it would obviously incorrect to say that prayer does something to God. Rather, we must say prayer effects the person praying.

And I think this very much mirrors Lewis' answer to the first question. We'll look at that more closely next time.