Promoted Podcast
Thoughts & Prayers
Does Prayer Work?
In this first episode of Thoughts & Prayers, host Jessica Fisher explores one of the oldest and most unsettling questions in Jewish life: Does prayer work?
Jews praying for forgiveness (Selichot), at the Western Wall in the Old City of Jerusalem, early on October 1, 2025, on the eve of the Jewish holiday of Yom Kippur. (Chaim Goldberg/Flash90)
In this first episode of Thoughts & Prayers, host Jessica Fisher explores one of the oldest and most unsettling questions in Jewish life: Does prayer work?
Through deeply personal reflection and conversation with Sara Labaton, Josh Warshawsky, and Akiva Mattenson, the episode traces how ancient mystics, modern rationalists, and everyday seekers wrestle with the meaning and purpose of prayer — whether it changes the world, transforms us, or simply helps us keep knocking on a locked gate.
Thoughtful, searching, and grounded in lived experience, this opening chapter invites listeners to reconsider what it really means to pray.
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