On Prayer

 "God will support him on the bed of illness ..." Ps. 41:4

Rav Dimi taught, “All who visit the sick infuse them with life.  Ana all those who refrain from visiting the sick bring about death.”  Nedarim 40a

Does Rav Dimi’s teaching mean that prayers contain the power of healing to make people well?  When we offer our prayers on behalf of the ailing do they shoot straight up to God and cause the Hand of the Universe to move saving them from their affliction?  

Are prayers that powerful?  Do they also prop up the living to the extent that people die from lack of people praying for them?

Perhaps those who are so unfortunate to have no one pray for them are forgotten by God?  Or maybe if they are too ill to pray for themselves and no one will pray for them they will die a silent spiritual death?  The universe will not note their passing.

Rav Dimi may also mean that prayer galvanizes the dwindling spiritual energies of the sick.  With our added words and focused prayers they become stronger as their prayers ride on the backs of ours.  Could this be true?

It may be that our prayers reinforce their waning strength.  The real power of prayer would then be that it sends to the weak an invisible message of hope that enables them to surmount the obstacle of illness.  Prayer is almost a tactile weapon that directly impacts the person prayed for.

So which one is it?  One of the above?  All of them?  None?

 

I suggest it does not matter.  The only thing that counts is it changes both the one who prays and the one who is prayed for.  What else matters when prayers said for another are enough to change lives?