Last week we talked about the Amidah, and we talked about the Amidah because it is in some ways the perfect encapsulation of the tension between two instincts when it comes to prayer in Jewish tradition—one instinct in prayer is the spontaneous, the extemporaneous, the speaking purely from the heart; the other instinct is the communal, the institutional, the time tested—the recognition that only through fixed words of prayer can we become familiar with particular prayers and songs and come together in certain ways for a certain type of communal experience.
Last week, we talked about the latter. We talked about the fixed structure of the amidah, the amidah known alternatively simply as ha’tefilah, the prayer. The prayer of the most importance. We talked about how the amidah lays the groundwork through blessings of awe, then on weekdays, makes way for the pray-er, the prayer person to pour out a series of petitions, yearnings; while on Shabbat invites the prayer to make space for particular manifestations of Shabbat, the experience of creation in the evening—shabbat as a culmination of creation, rest as a part of creation; the experience of revelation in the morning, shabbat as part of revelation, as one of the mitzvot, the pathways were called upon to actively carry out to bring about holiness in the world; and the experience of redemption in the evening, imagining that sense of rest and peace and wholeness we experience on shabbat, but perpetually and with everyone, the actions, the mitzvot of revelation serving as a bridge between creation and redemption. So we begin with awe, we proceed with petitions or recognitions of shabbat, depending on whether it is a weekday or shabbat, and then in either case we close the amidah with blessings of thanks of gratitude.
So last week we focused on the fixed text of the amidah, and what it has to offer, but this week, I want to focus on something a little bit different, which we just sang, which is in a sense known as the postscript, the epilogue of the amidah, which includes the words oseh shalom on page 52.
Why is this page here? We talked last week and just now about this clean, tripartite structure of wow, please, thanks, these three distinct parts of the amidah, which wrapped up perfectly for us on page 51, and here we have this extra page 52 with some additional words?
Well, the ancient rabbis who codified our prayer book felt the same tension we sometimes do between prayer on the page and prayer of our hearts, and in the talmud, they taught the following:
רַבִּי אֱלִיעֶזֶר אוֹמֵר: הָעוֹשֶׂה תְּפִלָּתוֹ קֶבַע — אֵין תְּפִלָּתוֹ תַּחֲנוּנִים. Rabbi Eliezer taught הָעוֹשֶׂה תְּפִלָּתוֹ קֶבַע One whose prayer is fixed, אֵין תְּפִלָּתוֹ תַּחֲנוּנִים his prayer is not supplication; there is an earnestness missing from it; it is flawed.
מַאי ״קֶבַע״ the Talmud asks, what is keva? What is fixed?
They try out a couple of different answers but a pair of rabbis, rabba and rav yosef say, כֹּל שֶׁאֵינוֹ יָכוֹל לְחַדֵּשׁ בָּהּ דָּבָר. Fixed refers to anyone unable to bring some newness—l’chadesh bo davar—bring some newness to their prayers. This is missing something. Hence we have page 52.
A series of rabbis said, ah, the prayer needs something new, so they each composed something
In the talmud, we get pages of prayers offered by individual rabbis. I’ll offer you just a couple:
“After Rabbi Elazar concluded his prayer, concluded the traditional he said the following additional prayer:
May it be Your will, Lord our God,
to cause to dwell in our lot love and brotherhood, peace and friendship.
And may You make our borders rich in disciples
and cause us to ultimately succeed, that we will have a good end and hope.
And may You set our portion in the Garden of Eden,
and may You establish for us a good companion and a good inclination in Your world.
And may we rise early and find the aspiration of our hearts to be in awe of Your name,
and may the satisfaction of our souls come before You.
After Rabbi Yoḥanan concluded his prayer, he said the following additional prayer:
May it be Your will, Lord our God,
that You look upon our shame and behold our plight,
that You clothe Yourself in Your mercy,
and cover Yourself with Your might,
that You wrap Yourself in Your loving-kindness,
and gird Yourself with Your grace,
and may Your attributes of goodness and humility come before You.
We get a number like this until we get to the one that may be familiar to you.
When Mar, son of Ravina, would conclude his prayer, he said the following:
My God, guard my tongue from evil and my lips from speaking deceit.
To those who curse me let my soul be silent
and may my soul be like dust to all.
Open my heart to Your Torah,
and may my soul pursue your mitzvot.
And save me from a bad mishap, from the evil inclination,
and from all evils that suddenly come upon the world.
And all who plan evil against me,
swiftly thwart their counsel, and frustrate their plans.
May the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart find favor before You, Lord, my Rock and my Redeemer.
All these different examples of the rabbis pouring out whatever is on their heart and mind, complementing the fixed prayer with their spontaneous prayer.
Of course, what do we have now?
Now, we have this one prayer, offered as an example of what one individual rabbi did, as part of our fixed prayers, over time becoming just as entrenched as the words of the Amidah.
As Rabbi Lawrence Hoffman details, this particular version was popular in the yeshivahs of Babylonia in the 800s, and an influential rabbi then included it in his prayer book for people who didn’t have anything they wanted to say on their own. A later prayerbook author held this prayerbook author in high regard and told people this is the prayer we are supposed to say, and the rest was history. What once served as an example to prompt us to formulate our own prayer became a fixed version of a prayer we are supposed to say, getting us away from כֹּל שֶׁאֵינוֹ יָכוֹל לְחַדֵּשׁ בָּהּ דָּבָר Everyone who doesn’t add something of newness to their prayers isn’t getting to the core of what prayer is all about.
This is not meant to sound ominous or punitive; it’s meant to sound like an opportunity. As Jews we get so fixated on, am I doing it right?
It’s certainly nice in the arena of religion, when we’re dealing with something as potentially overwhelming as the arena of God and holiness, that we want to do something quote-un-quote right. And there is absolutely something to that; there is something to traveling the well tread tracks of our ancestors, going down a time worn path.
But our ancestors are also telling us that part of that time worn path, doing it the way our ancestors did it, is to innovate, is to create, is to speak from the heart in moments of prayer.
Of course, all of this brings up the bigger question we’ve addressed before, and won’t go too deeply into today, which is, what is prayer. How do we understand prayer in this day age? Is it a vending machine where we ask for something and hope to get it? Is it a journal or a diary, where only we and God witness what we put down? Is it, as some Jews have defined it before, self disclosure when we unfurl what what previously unbeknownst to us to ourselves, and to God? Is it, intercessional, in the sense that we seek to intercede between God and ourselves breaking down the barrier between what is within and what is beyond? What is prayer if we don’t believe in God?
Rather than “tell” tonight perhaps we’ll “show.” I’ll close with a personal prayer of my own, taking on what the rabbis have invited us to do, then we’ll hold a brief moment of quiet for anyone who wishes to do the same for themselves, and then we’’ll close with the kiddush.
Yehi ratzon milfaneichah Adonai Elohienu
May it be your will, adonai our God, that you allow us to discern your will for us. Help us understand how we are each called in this world. Help us understand the gateways of holiness we are called upon to open in this world, enabling light and holiness to shine through. Help us find where the slack is that we are each supposed to pick up and grant us the strength to do so. Help us find our part of the tapestry to weave and grant us the skill and discernment to do so with grace. If in the course of the shattering of the vessels individual sparks have been placed within each of our grasps, particular to each of us alone, grant us the capacity to find and redeem those sparks. May our combined efforts bring about holiness, and unity, and wholeness, shalom. May our prayers this shabbat bring us one step closer to realizing that sense of wholeness shalom with one another, and let us say amen.
I invite you, if you want to hold one more minute of silence for your own private prayers, in the way of the rabbis and then we’ll proceed with Kiddush.
