April 16, 2026
I cannot tell you how many people – youngsters and adults – have told me that they have stopped praying, or have even stopped being observant, because they prayed for something and did not get what they wanted. This is a challenge that everyone faces at some point – and often many times over the course of life – and it has, unfortunately, led many people to give up on tefillah or on mitzvot generally. But this challenge is based on a fundamentally mistaken approach to prayer. People believe that prayer is about getting what we want. When we have some kind of problem, or when there is something that we're lacking, we pray to Hashem so He will solve the problem or give us what we need. But this is not what tefillah is about. The Gemara tells us this explicitly. In a passage that I wish was more famous, the Gemara in Masechet Berachot (55a) teaches: כל המאריך בתפלתו ומעיין בה סוף בא לידי כאב לב – if a person prolongs his tefillah and he "looks into it," then he will suffer heartache. Rashi explains this to mean that if a person prays for a long time with the expectation that his lengthy prayers assure that his wishes will be granted, he is setting himself up for terrible disappointment, because there is never any guarantee that one's tefillot will be answered. The Gemara then makes an even more dramatic statement, listing עיון תפילה – praying with the expectation that one's requests will be granted – among the things that cause Hashem to be especially mindful of a person's sins,