Does God Hear Our Prayers? Traditional Judaism answers with an
emphatic The following article looks at the traditional ways in
which Judaism explains the communication of Jews with God
through prayer. At the end, the author raises some questions
that many modern Jews have asked about prayer and God's answer
to it. Reprinted with permission from The Way Into Jewish Prayer
(Jewish Lights). The traditional view of prayer is relatively
straightforward. The Bible, for instance, takes it for granted
that people have conversations with God the same way they do
with each other. To take but one example, Moses pleads with God
to pardon Israel's sins, and God duly responds, "I have
pardoned, just as you say" (Numbers 14:20). Sometimes God
initiates the conversation; sometimes human beings do. But
either way, God appears here as an all-knowing and all-powerful
being who welcomes our praise and, if we are deserving, acts
positively on our requests. By the second half of the second
century B.C.E., the leaders whom we call