Rabbi Nachum Shatkhin
“And when they had brought them outside, (one of them) said: Escape for your life, do not look back, and do not stop anywhere in the surrounding area; escape to the mountain, lest you perish. But Lot said to them: Oh no, L-rd! Behold, Your servant has found favor in Your eyes, and great is the kindness You have shown me by saving my life; but I cannot escape to the mountain, for disaster may overtake me, and I will die. Here is a nearby city to flee to, and it is small; let me escape there—it is small, after all—and my life will be saved” (Bereishit, 19:17-20).
Why was the city of Zoar spared destruction? Rashi offers two explanations. First, the city had been built shortly before these recent events, so its inhabitants' sins had not yet exhausted the Almighty's patience. Second, the city was small, and therefore it was not included in the destruction.
According to Ramban, however, Zoar was originally destined for destruction. The city was spared only because Lot could not climb the mountain and was forced to stop in Zoar.
Ramban's explanation implies that Lot's prayer for deliverance also helped the inhabitants of the wicked city of Zoar survive, which is astonishing.
After all, we have just witnessed Abraham's failure to secure the salvation of numerous cities and their inhabitants through prayer! Yet suddenly Lot's prayer was heard, even though, while he was not as wicked as the inhabitants of Sodom, he was far from being considered righteous!?
Perhaps the explanation lies in the fact that Abraham did not need to pray for himself. His life did not depend on the inhabitants of that region being saved. Lot, however, was far from certain that he would survive this punishment unharmed. This is evident from his own words: “...and my life will be saved.” Fearing for his life, Lot prayed with all his strength. It was precisely this prayer of Lot's that was accepted and brought salvation to him, his family, and all the inhabitants of Zoar.
When a person feels that there is no way to survive except through prayer, such a prayer cannot remain unanswered. And the prayer of someone who was doomed was able to overturn even the heavenly verdict passed against the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah.
What do we learn from this example? When a person feels that prayer is the only means left to escape disaster, such a prayer has the power to bring deliverance or overturn a verdict issued from Above. King David spoke of this phenomenon: “The L-rd is near to all who call upon Him, to all who call upon Him in truth” (Tehillim 145:18). The verse contains no conjunction “and” joining its two parts. One might understand the verse as follows: the Almighty is near to all who call upon Him, and also near to those who truly call upon Him. No! The verse implies that the Almighty is near only to those who truly put their strength into their prayer. Always feeling that we cannot escape our troubles without Heaven's help is an essential condition of every prayer we offer.
Examples of a Doomed Person's Prayer Being Answered
Tractate Ketubot (62b) relates that Rabbi arranged for his son to marry the daughter of Rabbi Yosei ben Zimra. After the wedding, the young husband went to a yeshiva to study Torah, and during the twelve years he was away, his wife became infertile. What could be done? Rabbi thought there was no way out of the situation. If their children divorced, people would say that such self-sacrifice on the young wife's part was not worth it. Taking another wife was also an unacceptable option. People would then say that the second wife was his real wife, and that he had married the first only for his own pleasure. What did Rabbi do? He began praying fervently for his daughter-in-law, and she regained the ability to bear children.
The commentators explain that the introduction describing just how hopeless the situation was was not included without reason.
It is meant to emphasize that Rabbi's prayer was accepted when it was offered wholeheartedly—when the situation was hopeless and no other acceptable solutions remained.
Tractate Megillah (12b) records Rabbi Nehemiah's view that Esther had a reason for inviting Ahasuerus and Haman to the banquet she arranged. Her aim was to convince the Jews that they needed to pray more earnestly to the Almighty for salvation, rather than rely on having “one of their own” at court who would solve all their problems.
How did it all unfold? Even before arranging the second banquet, Esther orders the Jews to fast for three days. At the first banquet, King Ahasuerus, in good spirits, offers Esther half his kingdom. But Esther does not take advantage of the king's favor or try to reveal her identity now and plead for mercy for herself and her people. This is strange. The tyrannical king's mood is fickle, and who can say that he will attend the second banquet tomorrow? Perhaps this is the last opportunity? Yet Esther pauses and continues to wait until tomorrow. What is she planning? Alshich explains that Esther was not certain of the strength of the Jews' prayers at that moment. After all, besides the Almighty, they had someone else to “rely on.” Their Jewish queen, Esther, would not allow a catastrophe and would surely solve all their problems.
To strip the people of Israel of their illusions about who could truly solve their problems, Esther did not reveal her identity until the day of the second banquet.
For Haman left the first banquet very pleased, as everyone could see. The Jews then thought that perhaps Esther did not care about them at all. Perhaps she was certain that, as queen, she could escape their terrible fate. Seeing this and suspecting that Esther was in league with Ahasuerus and Haman, the Jews began praying fervently to the Almighty for salvation. It was the third day of the fast, when their physical strength was almost exhausted. Queen Esther knew that the Almighty would be ready to overturn His verdict when the Jews wholeheartedly repented of their sins and turned in desperate prayer to their Father in Heaven.
The commentators explain that the verse in Tehillim (107:6), “They cried out to the L-rd in their distress—He saved them from their troubles,” speaks of those sailing the seas and traveling through deserts. Another verse—“They called to the L-rd in their distress, and He delivered them from their troubles” (107:13)—speaks of the sick and those in captivity. Malbim explains that the prayer of someone crying out is stronger than the prayer of someone calling. Why, then, should the sick and the imprisoned not also use the stronger form of prayer? Because they simply cannot pray on that level. Someone whose illness is not hopeless has a doctor in whom to place his hopes. A prisoner has the hope of an amnesty. As soon as a person places his hopes in other powers besides the Creator, his prayer loses its strength. And who but the Almighty can save sailors from a storm or a caravan in the desert from robbers? That is why their prayers have greater power.
Rabbi Shimon ben Gamliel said (Ta'anit 32b): “There were no days as joyful in Israel as the 15th of Av and Yom Kippur.”
The Talmud asks: while Yom Kippur, the day of atonement for our sins, is clear enough, what made the 15th of Av so remarkable? The Gemara offers several explanations, including Rabbi Yochanan's view that on that day, those who had left Egypt stopped dying.
After the sin of the spies, the Almighty punished all the men of that generation (except Joshua and Caleb) by decreeing that they would not enter the Holy Land and would die in the desert. On every 9th of Av (the day of the sin of the spies), 15 thousand Jews did not wake from their sleep (if 600 000 Jews are divided by 40 years, the result is 15 thousand per year).
Then came the 9th of Av in the fortieth year of their stay in the desert. The last 15 thousand Jews prepared for the final night of their lives. But in the morning, they all woke up alive. There were no calendars then, and at first they thought they had miscalculated the new moon. However, when the 15th of Av arrived and a full moon appeared in the night sky, they realized that there had been no mistake.
It remains only to understand why that particular final group of Jews was able to survive.
It is also unclear why the 15th of Av became a day that, though only a minor holiday, was no less joyful than Yom Kippur. After all, that miracle concerned only a relatively small group of Jews, rather than the entire nation?
Here is one way to resolve this question. Every time the Jews lay down to sleep on the night of the 9th of Av, each person hoped that his time had not yet come. But when the turn of the last 15 thousand arrived, there was no longer any doubt about who would not rise tomorrow from the grave dug in advance. This “final” prayer was offered with the ferocity and fervor of the doomed. Their whole hearts and all their inner strength went into it. Such a prayer was able to annul the Almighty's terrible verdict (Rashbam and Tosafot, Bava Batra, 121a).
The 15th of Av became a very joyful day for the entire nation because it was then that the whole nation learned this crucial principle: when a person relinquishes all other hopes and places his trust solely in the Creator, such a prayer does not remain unanswered.
The Sages of the Talmud linked the seemingly very different days of the 15th of Av and Yom Kippur so that Jews would approach prayer on the Day of Atonement as though it were the last prayer of their lives.