Subject: Understanding Jewish Prayer -- Part III
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Subject: JUICE Siddur 3
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World Zionist Organization
Student and Academics Department
Jewish University in CyberspacE
juice@wzo.org.il birnbaum@wzo.org.il
http://www.wzo.org.il
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Course: THE PRAYER BOOK: A WINDOW ON JEWISH THEOLOGY
Lecture: 3/12
Lecturer: Barbara Sutnick and Rabbi Reuven Sutnick
To all JUICE subscribers: Shana Tova (Happy New Year) 5758
FIXED PRAYER: HISTORY AND DEVELOPMENT
In the previous Lecture, Jewish prayer as we know it today
was connected CONCEPTUALLY to its antecedents in biblical
sacrifice and biblical prayer. This Lecture will focus on the
development of FIXED Jewish prayer as a historical process. For
the puposes of this course, I will not attempt to date with any
precision the various stages of development of the siddur. My
purpose is the show that the development of the siddur was a
progression that spanned several periods of Jewish history, and
that this progression reflects Jewish ideas about prayer.
Our working assumption is that prayer is an ancient and
integral part of Jewish ritual, deriving from the earliest stages
of Hebrew religion. However, THE FIXED PRAYER SERVICE as a
complete devotion in and of itself, dates from a much later
period in history. The support for this assumption comes from
three sources: a) there is no evidence of a fully-developed fixed
prayer rite in the Bible; b) the overwhelming evidence that the
sacrifices addressed ALL the ritual needs of our ancestors leaves
little doubt that sacrifice was the central institution of Jewish
religious life in the biblical period; and c) there are specific
Talmudic sources which place the redaction of major parts of the
service in the post-biblical and Talmudic period (c. 100 B.C.E
- 500 C.E.). So our questions this week are simple but big: how,
why and when did the real crystallization of Hebrew prayer take
place?
To refine our question a bit, when a Jew prays, s/he opens a prayer
book -- a siddur (plural = siddurim). The Hebrew word, SiDDuR (1) comes
from the root S,D,R, which means "order." Thus the siddur is a book in
which groups of prayers are arranged in a proper and useful order.
(Another example of a word with this Hebrew root is the Passover SeDeR,
for which the ORDER of the rituals is a guiding principle.) As a
collection of prayers, the siddur contains groups of prayers and
individual prayers which each have their own history of development. As a
program of ritual practice, the siddur has its own literary history. You
see, people don't write a siddur like one writes a novel. The siddur, by
and large, reflects a rite which has already been in practice at the time
that it was written. IT IS AN ORDERED ANTHOLOGY OF EXISTING PRAYERS WHICH
FOLLOWS THE PRACTICE OF THE COMMUNITY FOR WHICH IT IS COMPILED. (Please
read the Appendix to this lesson, "Order Your Siddur" before going
further.)
The task of understanding the history of the development of
the siddur is two-fold. It involves both tracing the origin of
individual sections of the siddur; and explaining how the prayer
book we use came to take final shape. We will not explore
prayers in depth yet in this Lecture; rather we will touch on
some examples as clues to the development of the siddur as a
whole (refer to notes at the end of the Lecture for more
information on each prayer). For example, in the Ashkenazic(2)
rite, the blessing "Baruch She-amar"(3) appears at the beginning
of the weekday Preliminary Service; in the Sephardic(4) rite,
"Baruch She-amar" appears in the middle. They are the same
prayer, only they are positioned differently in the two siddurim.
Clearly, even if we know everything there is to know about
"Baruch She-amar" as a prayer, we still need to know about its
positioning in our siddur. Consequently, we are interested in
the development of the COMPONENT SECTIONS of today's synagogue
ritual and in HOW THEY CAME TOGETHER to form the fixed order of
the service.
Finally, even when we do uncover some very specific evidence
about the authorship of a particular prayer, we have to question
exactly what authorship or editorship meant at that stage in
history. For example, regarding the "18 Blessings" of the Amidah
(5), we read:
Shimon HaPakuli ordered 18 Blessings before Rabban
Gamliel at Yavneh; Rabbi Yochanan said (some say it was
taught in a Mishnah): 120 elders, among them several
Prophets, enacted the 18 Blessings (already) in order.
(Talmud, Megillah 17b)
This bit of Talmud is an effort to date the origins of the Amida
prayer. Yavneh was the site of the great Rabbinic reconstruction
of Judaism after the destruction of the Second Temple (70 C.E.)
Rabbi Yochanan, however, places the editing of the 18 Blessings
in the end of the prophetic period, hundreds of years earlier and
BEFORE the BUILDING of the Second Temple. Also if we look at the
verbs describing the activities involved -- "ordered" and
"enacted" -- we notice that neither really imply composition.
So it is possible to say that the 18 blessings from which the fixed
Amidah was "enacted" date from a much earlier period. Indeed we
read:
We find 18 blessings of the "Prayer" (a code-word for
Amidah) were always (sic.) enacted one after the other;
when the Men of the Great Assembly(6) came, they collected
them and ordered them according to their accepted order.
(Midrash Shibolei HaLeket, ch.18)
According to this piece of the puzzle, there was always a
tradition of 18 blessings (note the small "b" in blessings);
exactly WHICH eighteen blessings, we do not know. There may have
been several renditions. This idea makes sense: the Amidah for
the Sabbath is not the same as the Amidah for holidays, which is
not the same as the Amidah for weekdays. The Men of the Great
Assembly selected the best individual blessings and created a
proper order out of a treasury of blessings which dated back to
biblical times.
We will return in a future lecture on the "18 Blessings" to
Shimon HaPakuli's contribution. However, for our present
purposes, we have before us evidence of a process of compilation
taking many centuries. The Talmud considers Shimon HaPakuli, who
lived in the first century C.E. (Common Era), to be a prayer
editor. However, the tradition of a prayer service consisting
of "18 Blessings" and possibly the texts themselves (or portions of
text) is considerably earlier. So even the identification of an
editor does not prove anything about the condition of the texts
he received.
I want to discuss one additional segment of the Prayer Book
which also illustrates this point. This time, however, we can
date the canonized text exactly and we can use the language of
the siddur to document the process of editing. *SIDDUR SEARCH*
In the complete siddur, at the conclusion of the Additional
Service for the Sabbath, *EUREKA* we find a number of passages
from the Mishnah. One of the quotations, Mishnah Tamid 7:4,
lists the Psalms which were recited by the Levites at the time
the wine libation was poured out evenings and mornings in the
Temple.
The Song which the Levites recited in the Temple:
On the first day of the week they said....(Psalm 24)
On the second day.... (Psalm 48) etc.
We can draw a straight line from the Bible to the Temple
ritual to the Mishnah to the siddur: the Levites made use of
chapters from the Psalms in their performance of the daily wine
libation; the above-mentioned mishnah is part of the Sabbath
service; and common to all Daily Prayer Books, the same sequence
of Psalms is recited at the conclusion of the Morning Service.
Now, if I were to ask you how and when the particular Psalms came
into the Daily Service, how would you answer? There are several
choices. Do we assume that the original intent of the psalmist
was to create liturgy for the respective days? Do we assume that
the incorporation of these particular psalms into the Daily
Service came in Temple times? Do we assume that our recitation
of these psalms marks the first time that they are used as part
of a pure prayer ritual (unconnected to sacrifice) and therefore
constitutes authentic innovation? The bottom line: seemingly
simple questions are more common than simple questions!
A QUASI-SCIENTIFIC METHOD:
If the truth be told, the study of Hebrew liturgy is a
scholarly field with its own method. There is probably somebody
out there right now with a PhD. in Liturgy screaming at the
computer monitor that there's not "a prayer's chance in Hades" we
can do anything of value in several pages on the INTERNET! But
I think we already have. Let's state several assumptions,
formulate a working hypothesis and test it.
Assumption 1: When the signs of an editor are present,
we can assume that s/he is drawing upon earlier work
(remember, there is a tendency in Judaism to connect back to
earlier communications with God, particularly biblical ones-
-see Lecture 2) and we automatically look for precedents.
Assumption 2: We will know prayer ritual when we see it!
Ritual recitation has unmistakable characteristics.
Assumption 3: While accepting that the primary mode of worship in
the Bible was the system of sacrifices, this does not
exclude the possibility of a recognizable prayer ritual.
HYPOTHESIS: We can study our fixed prayer ritual, found in the
siddur, and identify its BIBLICAL antiquity in EACH case.
Just for the record, I know my hypothesis is overstated. No one
argues that today's Jewish prayer service is biblically ordained.
However, let's have fun with our Quasi-Science, and push the
hypothesis to the limit!
Assumption 2, that we will recognize a ritual text when we
see one, is an important idea that we have not discussed until
now. In fact, it may be the most important assumption. An
example will help to clarify matters. Psalm 136 is part of the
Sabbath morning service:
Give thanks to God Who is Good
His Mercy is Forever
Give thanks to the God of gods
His Mercy is Forever etc.
This Psalm is referred to as Hallel HaGadol (The Great Praise).
It is recited on Sabbath and Holidays during the morning service
and as part of the Passover Seder. If you examine the Psalm
cursorily, you will notice the refrain, "His Mercy is Forever"
(Ki L'Olam Chasdo) repeats at the end of each phrase. (If you
have trouble finding it in your siddur, try the biblical Book of
Psalms, which is in numerical order.) Lest we miss the refrain,
in every edition of the Prayer Book I have seen, this refrain
section is set off in its own column. There are 26 verses, the
numerical(7) equivalent of God's holiest name, the four-letter
tetragramaton. Read this Psalm out loud in any language you
wish. I think you will intuitively sense that the Psalm was
created for use in a call-and-response ritual; the people
answered "His Mercy is Forever" as the leader's extolled each of
God's attributes. To recognize a prayer created for public
ritual, it is helpful to use your ears! Repeated phrases, the
feel of repeated rhythms, parallel meanings -- all are indicators
of ritual. (For a corollary in modern culture, think of the
mammoth refrain in "We Will Rock You" by the rock group Queen.
You can bang out the three beats of the chorus on any table and
in no time people will join in. I am not the first to suggest
that rock music can be ritualistic.)
So why do I say this assumption is perhaps the most
important? Perhaps some (albeit somewhat politically INCORRECT)
humor will help make the point:
George Burns turns to Grace Allen after being flabbergasted
and bamboozled once again by her inanity: "Gracie, why don't
you think before you speak!" She responds: "How do I know
what I'm thinking until I say it!?!"
The sound, rhythm and physicality of verbal expression CAN serve
to enhance our understanding of the cognitive message.
Once we have established that elements of prayer ritual
existed side-by-side with sacrifice, it makes sense that there
was something unique and recognizable in the reciting. Read the
Psalm aloud to yourself. How can we understand it until we say
it? Once we say it, how can we fail to understand it? Psalm 136
bears the unmistakable mark of ritual. It should not surprise
us that it figures prominently in our service today!
TESTING 1,2,....
One of the most recognizable sections of the Festival Service and
the Service for the New Moon is Hallel. *SIDDUR SEARCH* Hallel
is found in most siddurim after the daily prayers and the Sabbath
prayers and just after the New Moon blessing. It comes before
the special sections (including Musaf) for New Moons and
festivals *EUREKA*. The melodies of Hallel are well known to
pray-ers; the words are used throughout modern, popular Chassidic
music. Hallel consists of Psalms 113 to 118, six liturgical
songs which refer to the Exodus from Egypt, the parting of the
Red Sea, the giving of the Torah, the raising of the dead (in the
messianic future) and the messianic awakening. On the most
facile level, the Psalms are all biblical, so the argument for
antiquity is obvious. However, if we look at our Prayer Book we
will notice something interesting: there is a blessing which
precedes Hallel, "... Who commands us to recite Hallel" and a
long blessing at its conclusion, "...the King is celebrated in
praise", neither of which come to us from Psalms. In other
words, in the evolution of fixed Hebrew prayer, six songs were
taken from the Book of Psalms, and were designated as a unit for
performance at specific points in the Jewish liturgical cycle.
The blessings serve to frame the biblical text; they also say
that the recitation of these songs at specific times fulfills a
commandment.
Referring now to our hypothesis, beyond the fact that the
texts are biblical, we want to examine the possibility that the
fixed prayer unit of the six psalms of Hallel is also biblical.
Clearly the siddur treats the six psalms as a unit -- were they
always so, or is this a later innovation?
The Talmud in Pesachim 117a sheds some light on the matter:
The Rabbis taught: This Hallel, who said it? R. Eliezer
said: Moses and Israel said it at the moment they stood
by the [Red] Sea....R. Yehuda said: Joshua and Israel
said it....R. Elazar HaModai said: Devorah and Barak ...
...R. Yosi HaGlili said: Mordechai and Esther said it ...
The Sages said: the Prophets among them decreed that Israel
should recite it at each juncture and that each misfortune
should not befall them; and when they are redeemed, they
should say it on their redemption.(8)
We see that the Talmud attributes to these particular psalms even
greater antiquity than the Book of Psalms itself! Dating back
to the earliest stage of Jewish nationhood, the Hallel unit was
invoked as the expression par excellence of national joy -- King
David, the author of the Psalms, dates from the middle Biblical
period. This piece of Talmud is giving us liturgical history.
We see when Hallel was said and by whom; most importantly, we see
when Hallel should be said, and who decreed it. It was always
a unit. Prior to the time of the prophets, the unit was recited
spontaneously (as a result of KaVaNah -- see Lecture 1) and
sporadically at times of great celebration; the Prophets decreed
the occasions in which the ancient unit should be recited as part
of the fixed ritual.
One last point: the word Hallel has the special ring to it
that indicates ritual. It is the root of the word Hallelujah
(jah = God). For those familiar with Middle Eastern and
Sephardic culture, they know that in times of celebration,
revelers produce a high-pitched wavering cry of joy by ululating
with their tongues. Try to pronounce the word "ululate" and you
will know what it means! Hallel means to rejoice by ululating,
or at least the root originally meant that. Hallu-jah means to
ululate for God, in other words, to celebrate in religious
ritual. If you say it, you cannot help but know what it means!
NOTES
(1) The doubled "d" in English reflects the intensive form of the
Hebrew letter d (dalet) in this grammatical form of the root.
(2) Jews of German or Eastern European origin.
(3) A prayer of praise for God which begins "Blessed is the One
who spoke and the world came into being, blessed be He."
(4) Jews of Spanish/Portuguese and sometimes North African
origin.
(5) Amida = 18 Blessings = "SHMoNeh ESRei" ("Eighteen") = "The
Prayer" (in Talmudic Hebrew). The standing silent prayer during
which the worshipper tends to rock back and forth gently and bow
sporadically. We will focus on this prayer in detail in an
upcoming Lecture.
(6) Men of the Great Assembly: rababinic inheritors of the
Hebrew prophetic tradition. They are generally dated to the time
of Ezra.
(7) Gematria is a special type of numerology that we find applied
to Hebrew religious texts. Gematria derives significance from
the fact that every Hebrew letter also has a numerical
equivalent. For example the first Hebrew letter, "aleph", has
the value of 1; the second letter, "bet" is valued at 2, etc.
Basically gematria advances the creative notion that if two words
add up to the same number then they can be deemed as equivalent
in meaning for the purposes of interpreting a text. In the case
of our Psalm 136, the holiness is enhanced by the fact that it
has 26 lines. Specifically, the numbers corresponding to the
holy four letter name of God in Hebrew are as follows: yod = 10;
hey = 5; vav = 6; and hey = 5. The sum is 26.
APPENDIX: ORDER YOUR SIDDUR
Although there are numerous editions of the prayer book
available, all tend to be arranged according to an order which
is more or less uniform. For this reason, the prayer book is called
a "siddur" in Hebrew, which means "order" (plural = siddurim).
In order to follow many of our course discussions, please arm
yourself with a traditional Daily Prayer Book (siddur) with an
English translation. (One that has only Sabbath services will
not be sufficient). Please *order* a siddur if you do not have
one already!
Despite all the order, finding your place in the siddur may
take some patience. A siddur does not have chapters and verses;
nor is there uniformity of pages from edition to edition. I will
do my best to direct you in locating particular sections that we
will be discussing. Such directions will be prefaced with the
marker *SIDDUR SEARCH* and will conclude with the marker
*EUREKA!*. Please persevere! -- I'll try to make it worth your
while!
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