Asking the clergy about prayers for revenge
There are probably few on the planet who haven't wanted to get back at someone who has wronged them. Sometimes, turning the other cheek (Matthew 5: 39) just doesn't seem to be enough. Our clergy share their thoughts about praying for revenge and retribution.
Rabbi Uri Goren, Temple Avodah, Oceanside:
To ask for revenge or retribution is to ask for divine intervention, which can be either good or bad. You can ask for revenge, but God decides whether or how he will reply.
The question is not whether we can ask for retribution, but whether it is good or bad to do so. I usually ask for good things to happen. If you ask for something bad to happen, who is to say that God won't agree with you?
The politically correct answer is that God only listens to requests for good retribution and ignores the bad? But, are we sure?
What is important is that we must live with the answer he gives. Everything has a consequence. Say, you get cut off in traffic and ask God for that person to have a car wreck. The driver does wreck, and he dies. You'd have to live with that. You also have to live with what his death would mean to those who loved and depended on him.
Sheikh Mohamed Hassan, imam, Islamic Center of Melville:
While the prayer of anyone who has been wronged or oppressed is a valid prayer, one should not pray for harm to another person -- or oneself.
In Islam, supplication, what some would understand as prayer, is a direct communication with Allah. There are general conditions that must be met for any supplication to be accepted: praying with sincerity to God alone; ensuring that your faith practices, behavior and financial wealth are obtained in a manner that is in accordance with Islamic laws; and avoiding any form of intercession or praying to any intermediary besides Allah.
In short, before you ask Allah for something, you need to make sure that you're conducting your life in a way that is pleasing to him. And, you personally must do whatever you can to right the wrong yourself. This doesn't mean taking vengeance. Rather, it means attempting to work the situation out yourself.
If these conditions are met and you still are not redressed, it is the right of the oppressed to make a request to Allah that he or she be freed from oppression or that a wrong that was committed against them be undone. It is acceptable to ask for redress when you are harmed, but you cannot ask that harm be bestowed upon another. For example, you may ask to restore balance to the scale, but cannot ask that the scales be tipped against another.
Jim Rose, center board member, Science of Spirituality Meditation Center, Amityville; and tristate regional coordinator covering New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania:
The way we think of meditation, it is a higher form of prayer where we have stopped talking to God and have begun listening to and experiencing the love of God that exists within each of us. If you look at the question in that context, if we connect with love and recognize that oneness, it moves us from a place of revenge and retribution to a place of forgiveness.
If you're asking God to revenge you or exact retribution, then that's not meditation. Asking God to bring revenge only works against us. It isn't our job to bring that karma to other people. If it comes to that person, karma will come as a lesson, something he or she can benefit from. Our job is to let go, and lose that sense of attachment to the hurt or slight. Our only attachment should be to God.
How does one get to that place of forgiveness? You must sit in silence and listen to what God needs you to hear. Doing something to another person is not what God needs.
