CLAL Rabbinic Community On Line

Our initial questions for conversation cover both installments.

1. Can the first three blessings really be squeezed into any overarching thesis?

2. Does realizing that the opening strophe of the Amidah refers back to Exodus 3 and its image of a redeeming God at all affect the suggestion of interpolating the matriarchs into this blessing?

3. Can the Amidah's argument for resurrection which culls its various intimations in our lives enhance its viability and cogency for our own day?

5. Do you agree that the conlcuding blessing of peace is more a function of prayer in general than the Amidah in particular.

6. Does the explanation of the Amidah as an argument for redemption help explain how it got welded to the Shema liturgy?

5. The Last Three Blessings

Blessings 17 and 18 also advance the drama of redemption, the former through God's return to Zion and the latter through His universal acknowledgement. Blessing 17 concludes: "May our eyes behold Your merciful return to Zion. Blessed are You, O Lord, who restores His presence to Zion." It is followed by blessing 18's theme of God's universal acceptance. Together they conform to a motif that recurs throughout the Prophets and the liturgy, especially on the High Holidays, namely, that the precursor of the universal recognition of divine sovereignty is God's return to Zion.

The argument of blessing 18 on the subject of God's universal recognition deserves special attention. It begins: "We praise [modim] You," followed by a listing of examples of divine beneficence that are worthy of eliciting thrice daily praise. The central part of the blessing goes as follows:

1. We will thank You

2. and tell of Your praise

3. for our lives which are in Your hand

4. and for our souls which are entrusted to You

5. and for Your miracles which are daily with us

6. and for Your wonders and kindnesses at all times.

Strophes 1 and 2 lay out our intention; strophes 3-6 state why. The whys are divided into two categories: strophes 3 and 4 express gratitude to God for our lives and souls; strophes 5 and 6 enunciate praise for God's miracles and wonders. Thus 1 is to 3-4 as 2 is to 5-6, making for an a b a b structure. According to this construction, the blessing says: We will thank You for our lives that are in Your hand and for our souls that are entrusted to You. And tell of Your praise for Your miracles which are daily with us and for Your wonders and kindnesses at all times.

The blessing concludes, saying: "For all of these [i.e., strophes 3-6] may Your name be blessed, exalted, and extolled, O our King, continually and forever," followed by the expectation that "all the living shall worship You." What began as "we praise/acknowledge You" culminates in "all the living shall praise/acknowledge You." The envelope structure of the blessing has the ending echo the beginning chiastically. The bridge between the two is the recognition of how the divine margin impinges on human life continually [i.e., every moment of the day] and forever. God is exalted threefold: at all times, for all time, and by all. As a bridge between the particular and the universal, the blessing pointedly lacks any reference to distinctively Jewish grounds for thanks and praise of the divine. Its inclusive perspective invites all to share in recognizing the divine margin common to all human life.

As noted, the shift from our acknowledgement of God to His universal recognition frames much of the eschatological core of the rest of the liturgy. The best-known example is the linking up of the Aleynu-Al Kain sections of the Rosh Hashanah Malkhuyot liturgy which, as the Modim of the Amidah, begins with Israel alone bowing in worship (modim) and concludes with all humanity following suit upon realizing the sovereignty of God. The shift from us to everyone is reflected also in the rabbinic gloss of the Shema` verse:

The significance of the movement from the particular to the universal, which characterizes eschatological liturgies, is best appreciated by contrasting them with those liturgies that reverse the movement from the universal to the particular and are devoid of eschatological aspirations.

In sum, the latter sections of the Amidah advance from personal (4-7) through national (10-15) to universal redemption (18), each stage involving the progressive realization of divine sovereignty from self to community/people to humanity. This process of progressing from self to humanity through the people/community to humanity is a liturgical staple. It frames the structure of some of the most prominent elements of the liturgy such as Psalm 145, the Shema` verse, and the benedictory formulary.

With its climax of the universal acknowledgement of God, blessing 18 marks the end of the Amidah. The appending of the priestly benediction to the Amidah was intended to enhance the correlation between the synagogue and the Temple service, both ending with the same priestly benediction. The tannaitic treatments of the Amidah that end with either Modim or the priestly benediction, and the tradition of a seventeen-blessing Amidah likely reflect an Amidah that once concluded with blessing 18.

As the erstwhile conclusion, Modim (our 18th) is, as the first blessing, framed with a double genuflection at beginning and end. First and last blessings were choreographed identically apparently on the model of royal entrance and exit etiquette. Even were the final double genuflection only a vestige of Temple practice, where the people prostrated themselves as the priests sounded the trumpets after the sacrifice and again as the priests pronounced their blessing, the double genuflection would still designate the completion of the prayer.

Understanding blessing 19 as an appendage to the Amidah explains the incongruity of an additional blessing, even one for peace, succeeding the concluding genuflections. The wide variety of versions of blessing 19, including its peroration, indicates the absence of any standardized formulation as well as its relative lateness. Its presence simply is a way of taking leave from God, or, better, of fulfilling the mandate of concluding prayer with the theme of peace. A mandate that was only applied in amoraic times, as the tannaitic sources mention the priestly blessing itself as the conclusion for peace. Indeed, it is only in amoraic times that the theme of peace has a distinct blessing with its own nomenclature. Since the motif is not universal peace, the blessing is not a function of any redemptive scheme of the Amidah. Rather it is a function of the priestly benediction in particular and of conclusions of prayer in general, for, as it says, "When God sought to bless His people, He found no vessel that would contain all the blessings with which to bless them except peace, as it is said, `The Lord blesses His people with peace'" (Ps. 29:11).

6. Epilogue

The Amidah is the most comprehensive orchestration of redemptive motifs in the Rabbinic liturgy. Its achievement is all the more impressive for having integrated them into an overall theme. The redemptive motif that is conspicuously absent is the Exodus. The absence of this liturgical staple of redemption can best be explained by the assumption that the Amidah liturgy was composed with the awareness that the Shema` liturgy, with its conclusion of the redemption from Egypt, would have already been said even if not yet as part of the same service. The Exodus so complements the Amidah's theme of redemption that it was only a matter of time before the third blessing of the Shema` in the morning service -- celebrating as it does the redemption from Egypt in such a manner as to quicken the hope for future redemption -- was linked up with the Amidah. Upon welding the Shema` and Amidah liturgies together, the Amidah assumed the role as the functional equivalent of the song of salvation intoned at the Exodus. As the faith-producing salvation at the Re[e]d Sea was followed by the singing of the Song at the Sea (Exod. 15:1-19), so, it was argued, mention of the Exodus in the liturgy should be followed by the recitation of the Amidah. Indeed, some were so impressed by the parallel between the Song at the Sea and the Amidah that they correlated the eighteen verses of the former with the eighteen benedictions of the latter. Such correlations enhanced the perception of the Amidah as the liturgy's song of redemption.

Upon the conjoining of the Shema` liturgy with the Amidah, the Amidah became the prayer for future redemption, relegating that of past redemption to the third blessing of the Shema`. Once joined together for the morning service, R. YoČanan prohibited rending them asunder even for the evening service.

In contrast, his senior colleague, R. Joshua b. Levi held that the Amidah should precede the Shema` in the evening just as it succeeds it in the morning, making the day begin and end with the Shema`. His position that the Shema` should be the first thing in the morning and the last at night can be confirmed by the Shema` itself, as it says: "You shall speak of them ... when you lie down and when you get up." The fact that R. YoČanan's position notwithstanding prevailed shows the power of the link between the two redemptions. The stipulation that the Amidah always succeed the Shema` liturgy guaranteed that the hope for redemption would never become disjoined from its living memory.

Others, however, considered it proleptic to the Amidah. In any case, it serves as an apt lead in to the Amidah by virtue of its intrinsic pertinence to prayer and its original location before the verses: "You do not want me to bring sacrifices, You do not desire burnt offerings. True sacrifice to God is a contrite spirit" (Ps. 51:18f.). By introducing the Amidah with this verse the point is made that the Amidah dispenses with the sacrifice since statutory communal prayer either compensates for its absence or is its actual equivalent.

The view that the verse extends the redemption theme is bolstered by the preceding Psalm verse: "God my Redeemer, that I may sing forth Your beneficence" (Ps. 51:16). As such, Ps. 51:17 wells up out of gratitude to God for being "my Redeemer." Indeed, there was a practice to recite both Ps. 51:17 and 19:15 prior to the Amidah. Accordingly, Ps. 51:17, "O Lord, open my lips, and my mouth will proclaim Your praise," served as a bridge between "Redeemer of Israel" of the blessing and "My Rock and my Redeemer" of Ps. 19:15.

As time went on, the redemptive thrust of the Amidah grew. A late Midrash argued for a correspondence between its eighteen benedictions and the eighteen spiritual blessings for the future. Supplementary requests to the Amidah dealing with redemption added to this thrust. The verse - "That Your beloved may be delivered, save for Your right hand's sake, and answer me," (Ps. 60:7), which was also taken as an allusion to the redemption was appended. More recently, a reworking of the question posed on the Day of Judgment: "Did you look forward to redemption?" has creeped in from the margins of some versions of blessing 15 next to the strope "For we have hoped for Your deliverance each and every day."