The trouble with answered prayers

For 20 years, Rebecca wanted a child. When she finally became pregnant, she asked a question that sounds remarkably like regret. It’s one of the more unsettling moments in the Torah.

After years of infertility, Isaac prays on behalf of his wife, and God answers. We might expect the story to describe their joy, relief, or gratitude. Instead, the Torah tells us that the children struggled violently inside Rebecca, prompting her to cry out:

אִם־כֵּן לָמָּה זֶּה אָנֹכִי

Im ken, lamah zeh anochi?

Why is this happening to me? The Hebrew is strange. Literally, something like, “If so, why this, I?” It’s almost an unfinished sentence. If so, what? Why what? 

Rashi understands Rebecca as asking why she ever desired pregnancy if this was what it would involve. Ibn Ezra suggests she was alarmed by a pregnancy unlike anything other women had experienced. Nachmanides hears something even more disturbing: anguish about her very existence. Regret, fear, despair. The commentators disagree because the Torah leaves Rebecca’s question open.

Perhaps that’s precisely what makes it so human. Sometimes we don’t know exactly what we’re feeling. We wanted something desperately, worked toward it, imagined how wonderful life would be when it finally happened. And then it happens, and it’s hard.

Consider the parent awake at three in the morning with a crying baby. They love their child more than anything in the world, but they’re exhausted and wondering when they’ll sleep again. Then comes the guilt: I wanted this. What kind of parent thinks that?

Or someone who finally gets the job they’ve pursued for years, only to discover that the pressure and responsibility are overwhelming. These aren’t necessarily people who made the wrong choices. They’re discovering that getting what we want and living with what we want are two different experiences.

We tend to imagine happiness waiting for us on the other side of achievement. Once I get married. Once we have children. Once I find the right job. But life doesn’t stop being complicated when we reach those milestones. Sometimes it becomes more complicated precisely because we’ve reached them.

That’s what makes Rebecca’s question so provocative. Her suffering isn’t an obstacle standing between her and her dream. It comes from within the dream itself.

Our usual response to this kind of discomfort is to remind ourselves how fortunate we are. Count your blessings. Focus on the positive. Practice gratitude. There’s genuine wisdom in that advice. Gratitude can protect us from becoming consumed by disappointment and remind us that much remains worthy of appreciation.

But gratitude can also become a way of silencing ourselves. You wanted children. You have no right to complain. You have a good marriage. Stop focusing on what’s wrong. The message is familiar: If something is a blessing, we should experience it as one.

Yet what if the things that make our lives meaningful are also the things that make them difficult? Parenthood brings love, but also vulnerability. Marriage brings companionship, but also the challenge of living with another person’s needs and imperfections. Even belonging to a people carries this tension. We can cherish Jewish tradition while struggling with aspects of Jewish communal life, or feel deeply grateful for Israel’s existence while experiencing anguish about aspects of its reality. These tensions don’t necessarily diminish our commitments. Sometimes they arise because of how deeply we care.

Rebecca’s next action is just as interesting as her question. The Torah tells us:

וַתֵּלֶךְ לִדְרֹשׁ אֶת־יְהוָה

“She went to inquire of God.”

She doesn’t pretend everything is wonderful because her prayers have been answered, nor does she conclude that the pregnancy must have been a mistake. She brings her confusion to God. And God’s answer is hardly reassuring.

“Two nations are in your womb,” God tells her. Two peoples will emerge from her, and their relationship will be marked by struggle. Consider the mismatch. Rebecca asks a deeply personal question: What is happening to me? God gives her a historical answer: Your children will become two nations.

She wants to understand her immediate suffering. God describes a conflict that will extend far beyond her lifetime, echoing through generations and resonating even today as the Jewish people confront antisemitism and anti-Zionism.

But does knowing that our suffering belongs to a larger story actually make it easier to endure? The Torah doesn’t say. We aren’t told that Rebecca’s pain disappears, that she feels reassured, or that she suddenly understands why she had to suffer.

We should resist the temptation to supply the happy ending the text withholds. Not every struggle has a hidden purpose. Not every painful experience makes us stronger. Sometimes suffering is simply suffering, and no explanation makes it right.

But the Torah does show us something remarkable. Rebecca’s question is not treated as a failure of faith. The woman who has just received what she wanted most is allowed to wonder what it all means. She doesn’t have to resolve her feelings before approaching God. Her confusion is part of the encounter.

Perhaps that’s what we misunderstand about a meaningful life. We imagine that meaning will make life easier, that finding the right person, raising a family, or committing ourselves to something larger will finally bring contentment. But meaning doesn’t necessarily remove difficulty. Often, it gives us something important enough to struggle with.

That doesn’t make every struggle worthwhile, nor does it mean we should endure harmful situations simply because we once wanted them. It means that difficulty alone cannot tell us whether something is a blessing.

Rebecca wanted a child. She received one of life’s greatest blessings, and with it came fear, pain, and uncertainty. The Torah makes room for all of it. Perhaps we should, too.