what does God pray for?

[cellio]

(Because someone asked:)

According to the talmud (B'rachot 7a), God prays. The qeustion of "to whom?" does not appear to be addressed (at least here). As for "what", the gemara says that God prays for mercy over judgement: "May it be My will that My mercy conquer My anger, and that My mercy overcome My [sterner] attributes, and that I behave toward My children with the attribute of mercy, and that for their sake I go beyond the boundary of judgement".

(In a baraita [1], God is said to have also asked a certain rabbi for a blessing.)

Because God is omnipotent, clearly he can apply mercy over judgement at will. So I guess he's explicitly asking himself to will it? (I know we're going to discuss this more when we next meet in two weeks.)

[1] A baraita is a teaching contemporary with the mishna that was not written down as part of the mishna.

Comments

Speculation (goody, more research threads!)

[tangerinpenguin.livejournal.com]

There's a bit of litany in the Methodist church (which a quick google check superficially suggests is a holdover from the Anglican/Episcopal church) where the specific language is "[...] God, whose property is always to have mercy [...]" (For those who are curious, it's in the context of throwing ourselves upon said mercy.)

I'm not sure what the provenance of this language is (the wording always struck me as odd because, with contemporary use, it sounds like you're describing a chemical) but this may have been an intentional counter to whatever school of thought inspired it, arguing that (as onthechin observes), mercy is a very intentional choice.

Re: Speculation (goody, more research threads!)

[cellio]

"[...] God, whose property is always to have mercy [...]"

That's similar to something in Jewish liturgy. The prayer "Eil malei rachamim" [1], said in the context of mourning [2], begins: "Oh God, full of mercy, who dwells on high, grant proper rest...". ("Rachamim" means "mercy".) I think this phrase frequents the Yom Kippur liturgy too, though I can't cite specifics from memory.

In general, Judaism asserts that God has several sometimes-contradictory attributes, including mercy. (There's a list in Torah, when Moshe asks to see God and God says "stand behind this rock and I'll walk by but you can't see my face".) Different parts of the liturgy cite these attributes, or sometimes just the ones we want God to especially remember during that point in the prayers. :-)

[1] If you go googling for it, you will encounter some spelling/transliteration variation: "eil" or "el", "malei" or "molei" or "maley" or "moley". The last word should be stable. :-)

[2] At funerals (I think), during shiva minyan, during Yizkor. Yizkor is a memorial prayer recited communally four times a year.