Parashat Vayera: To Pray for Another

“One who prays for another when one is also in need of the very same thing – he is answered first.” (Rashi on Breishit 21:1) So if you are looking for a job and you have a friend in the same predicament – you should pray for that other person to find one.

This principle emerges out of this week’s parsha: After King Avimelech mistakenly takes the “sister” Sarah, Avraham prays for him and his household to be healed and they all start having children. Ah – but a child is what Avraham himself is in need of! And he prayed for others to have children?! Indeed, immediately after this incident the Torah says that Sarah, too, had a child. It is as if Avraham’s prayer for Avimelech’s household somehow opened up the gates of blessing for his own. By desiring blessing for another, we bring blessing upon ourselves.

We often think of the nature of blessing as being limited and finite so that if another person gets the job or the honor it means that we won’t. This sets up a feeling of tightness and stress, of competitiveness and envy. We don’t desire another’s good fortune because in some deep way we feel it would take away from our own, especially in areas where we are very much in need ourselves. It is as if we are thirsty for water and so we don’t desire that water be given to another person – we feel that there is a draught and if another person drinks the water, there won’t be enough for us.

Avraham shows us that that’s not how blessing works. By desiring good for another, we actually turn the key that opens up the floodgates of blessing and lets it all rain down upon everyone – ourselves first of all. It is as if, by opening our hearts to desire good for another, we create a space of openness, a funnel through which divine blessing can flow into the world. And once blessing comes, there is no limit. It is not tight and limited, but open and never-ending.

Can we step into that mind-frame? When we pray, can we think of someone who we know is in the same state we are in, desiring and yearning and needing some of the same things we need, and can we truly pray for that person – really desire their good fortune without holding back? Whatever else happens, we will have elevated ourselves in the process, removed ourselves from the narrow window-frame of our own personal concerns and entered an expansive world of shared blessings.