Prayer

 https://etzion.org.il/en/philosophy/issues-jewish-thought/issues-mussar-and-faith/prayer

In this chapter, we will discuss the age-old philosophical problem of how prayer works. The question of the efficacy of prayer has plagued philosophers throughout the ages. The philosophical question is often posed as such: if God is perfectly wise and omnipotent, then He knows, in His divine wisdom, what is best. If so, then how can we, when we pray, ask God to change His mind and do something else?

 If we are asking Him to do something He was planning to do anyway, then the prayer is in vain. And if we are asking Him to do something which is the opposite of His will, then why would He change His mind?[1]  If He has already, with His perfect divine wisdom, willed to do what is most perfect, wise and just, why would He do something less wise or less perfect or less just, simply because we have asked Him to? And if everything God does is for the good,[2] why would we want Him to change His mind?[3]