Restoring Zion to the Liturgy
Sermon, January 11, 2008
Rabbi Bruce Kadden
As we have begun using Mishkan T’filah this past
month, I have spoken about some of its changes and innovations and the rationale
for these changes. This evening I want to speak about the addition of a couple
of phrases in the morning liturgy which restore references to Zion, meaning the
land of Israel, to our liturgy.
The destruction of the Second Temple in the year 70 was
almost certainly the greatest disaster to strike Judaism until the Holocaust.
Not only was the central religious institution of Jewish life completely
demolished, but Jewish sovereignty was ended.
It easily could have been the end of Judaism, too, if not
for Rabbi Yochanan ben Zakkai and the other rabbis of the first and second
centuries who created a new form of Jewish life. Worship would no longer
feature animal sacrifices at a central shrine, but prayer services at sites
wherever Jews lived, sites called synagogues. Now, synagogues had already
started cropping up prior to the Temple’s destruction, but this catastrophe led
to a significant increase of such sites as places for Jews to gather and worship
God.
Prayer, too, was not new; Psalms, the Sh’ma and
other liturgy accompanied the Temple sacrifices. But now the rabbis quickly
developed a more complete liturgy, instituting three daily services to represent
each of the daily sacrifices.
Included in the prayers which the rabbis developed were a
number of explicit references to the rebuilding of the Temple in Jerusalem and
the return of the Jewish people to the land of Israel. These words provided
hope and inspiration to Jews throughout the diaspora that one day –with the
coming of the messiah—Jewish sovereignty would be re-established in the land of
Israel. Indeed, this message of hope helped sustain the Jewish people in
darkest times, assuring them of God’s promise.
In the middle of the 19th century, though, with
the rise of nationalism throughout Europe and the growing recognition that Jews
would not be accepted as equal citizens in their native countries, a few Jewish
thinkers began suggesting that it was time Jews took matters into their hands
and returned to the land of their ancestors.
Leo Pinsker, a Russian Jew, in his essay entitled
“Auto-Emancipation” wrote, “The Jews are not a living nation; they are
everywhere aliens; therefore they are despised. The civil and political
emancipation of the Jews is not sufficient to raise them in the estimation of
the peoples. The proper and the only remedy would be the creation of a Jewish
nationality, of a people living upon its own soil, the auto-emancipation of the
Jews; their emancipation as a nation among nations by the acquisition of a home
of their own.”
Building on these ideas--and having experienced deep-seated
anti-Semitism while covering the Dreyfus trial in France--the Austrian
journalist Theodor Herzl launched the movement to create a Jewish homeland in
Israel. This movement was called Zionism. Zion was the name of a mountain in
Jerusalem and, in the Bible, became a symbol not only for Jerusalem, but for the
entire land of Israel.
Zionism provided a challenge to Reform Judaism, which had
rejected the idea that Judaism was a nation, insisting that it was purely a
religion. The Pittsburgh Platform, adopted by Reform rabbis in 1885, clearly
stated “We consider ourselves no longer a nation but a religious community, and
therefore expect neither a return to Palestine, or a sacrificial worship under
the administration of the sons of Aaron, nor the restoration of any of the laws
concerning the Jewish state.”
To reflect this ideology, Reform rabbis excised references
to Jerusalem and the land of Israel from Jewish liturgy. The Union Prayer
Book, first published in 1895 and based upon earlier prayerbooks by Isaac
Mayer Wise and David Einhorn, does not contain any such references. According
to Rabbi Jacob Petuchowski, “The presence of the many pleas for the restoration
of Zion and for the Return to Jerusalem, in the traditional liturgy, was one of
the main motivations for the liturgical reform of the nineteenth century.”
But as Reform Judaism developed during the first part of
the 20th century, Zionism began playing a more significant role. The
Columbus Platform of 1937 reflects this evolution: “In the rehabilitation of
Palestine, the land hallowed by memories and hopes, we behold the promise of
renewed life for many of our brethren. We affirm the obligation of all Jewry to
aid in its upbuilding as a Jewish homeland by endeavoring to make it not only a
haven of refuge for the oppressed but also a center of Jewish culture and
spiritual life.” This theological change, however, was not reflected in the
revised version of the Union Prayer Book published in 1940.
But in 1975, Gates of Prayer restored a number of
prayers to the liturgy reflecting on the importance of Zion and Israel. In
fact, it contains both services for Yom Ha’atzmaut, Israel Independence Day, and
Tisha B’Av, the anniversary of the destruction of the Temple. And a few
references to Zion and Israel were restored to the regular liturgy, such as the
prayer for Jerusalem in the weekday Amidah.
Mishkan T’filah continues this trend, including two
significant phrases in the prayers which precede the Sh’ma in the morning
service. The Yotzer prayer for creation has added the traditional
phrase: “Or chadash al Tzion ta-eer, v’nizkheh chulanu m’heira l’oro/
Shine a new light upon Zion, that we all may swiftly merit its radiance.”
The reference to light would seem to make sense in a prayer
which focuses on the creation of light, but its inclusion bothered the medieval
sage Saadia Gaon, who banned it from the liturgy because he felt the prayer
focused on creation, not deliverance, according to Rabbi Lawrence Hoffman.
While Sephardim followed his teaching, Ashkenazim rejected it and maintained
this phrase.
Rabbi David Ellenson, President of Hebrew Union College,
notes that “This prayer for messianic redemption, with its Zionistic overtones,
was highly problematic for scores of early Reform liturgists who were eager to
demonstrated loyalty to their country of residence by purging Judaism of all its
nationalistic dimensions.” The inclusion of this phrase in Mishkan T’filah
indicates that we are no longer concerned that our affirmation of Israel will
call into question our loyalty to the United States.
The second phrase that is reinserted into the liturgy is a
longer phrase which occurs at the end of the Ahavah Rabbah prayer. It
begins: “Vahavi-einu l’shalom mei-arba kanfot ha’aretz v’tolicheinu
kom’meeyoot lartzeinu/Bring us to peace from the four corners of the earth
and lead us upright to our land.” Rabbi Ellenson notes that this idea “was a
late addition to the text,” so it was not difficult to remove it.
Mishkan T’filah has chosen to restore it to reflect
Reform Judaism’s strong commitment to Zionism and Israel as the homeland of the
Jewish people. And our cantorial soloist, Brad Smith, has chosen to use the
melody for Hatikvah for this part of the prayer, furthering emphasizing
the connection to Israel.
These are the changes that those familiar with the Shabbat
liturgy will notice. Mishkan T’filah has also included a beautiful
prayer for the State of Israel in the section of Prayers for the Community
toward the end of the Torah service, giving us the option of including this
reading from time to time. And the section of songs in the back of the siddur
includes many modern Israeli songs that we might include on occasion.
Thus Mishkan T’filah continues the trend which began
with Gates of Prayer in restoring references to Israel to our liturgy. These
changes reflect Reform Judaism’s continued embracing of Zionism and Israel,
which is particularly meaningful as we prepare to observe Israel’s 60th
birthday this spring.
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