The reason for getting married? Because you can't do it on your own. The reason for having kids? Because you can't do it on your own. The reason for having a community? Because you can't do it on your own.
Do what on your own? Make your dreams come true!
Huh?
Why do I need to get married, have kids or community in order for Gd to answer my prayers (making my dreams come true)? Don't listen to my opinion, look at Moses's example in the Torah:
We learn in Midrash Rabbah that Moses prayed 515 times - based on the gematriya of vaetchanan, which means "I pleaded" - for God to let him enter Israel. Each time, God rejected Moses' prayer.
In an essay published some years ago in Tradition, Rabbi Joseph Soloveitchik suggests that the problem lay with the people, who did not join Moses in prayer.
"The Midrash states that had the community joined Moses in his prayer, God would have granted Moses his request. He [God] would not have rejected the prayer of the many," writes the rabbi. "Unfortunately, the community did not understand the secret of the prayer by the many. As a consequence of their ignorance, Moses died in the desert."
He teaches a powerful lesson. Our tradition encourages and even demands personal prayer. But communal prayer and the act of praying for each other remain even more powerful.
It's fine to pray for individual needs, hopes and dreams. These prayers, however, only reach the gates of heaven when they're joined with the hopes and dreams of others in the community.
"I can't make my dreams come true by myself; according to God"
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