liturgical minutiae

[cellio]

We were supposed to study talmud again today, but never quite got there: when I walked in, my rabbi asked me what I thought of the new siddur. We talked about some of the issues there, and ended up on a hunt for the alternate R'tzei.

It's like this. There's a prayer, R'tzei, that is part of the Amidah, the central prayer of each service. Most of the time, the text is about the rebuilding of the Temple and the return of korbanot ("sacrifices"). [1] This is, of course, theologically challenging for Reform, and most Reform siddurim over the years have changed this text.

When the movement changes a text, it doesn't just do it willy-nilly; they try to do it as authentically and logically as possible. So while you might disagree with adding "v'imahot" ("and our mothers") to the opening prayer of the Amidah (I do :-) [2] ), the goal of egalitarianism made them want to do something, and that was the change that fit best with tradition, the flow of the text, and so on. There is no ungendered word for "ancestors" in Hebrew, or they presumably would have used that. (That said, there's an interesting approach in some parts of the new siddur, where they use "doroteinu", "our generations", to replace "our fathers and our mothers". It's a change in meaning, but a small one. And it seems to work in the places where they've used it.)

Ok, back to R'tzei. There is in fact a different version of that prayer that doesn't refer to the Temple and is more generally about service to God. [3] I've heard several people, including my rabbi, say that it's in the holiday service. Today we went looking for it.

After failing to find it in the Yom Tov (holiday) Amidah in several siddurim, we consulted a book about siddurim. (This was actually a study of Reform siddurim in particular. I should ask to borrow it at some point.) That book said that it's in the musaf service [4], not in the main service. So we looked there and still didn't find it, until we realized that the source pointed to a repetition within musaf and we were looking at the first version. [5] So, finally, we got to the right part of the siddur.

Guess what? It's not always there! At the risk of getting the who's-who wrong, let me just say that we consulted Birnbaum, Hirsch, a "mainline Orthodox" Israeli siddur (I don't know whose), and one other (name like d'Pool?), and two of them included the altered final bracha and the other two didn't. When I got home I checked most of the remaining siddurim on my shelves. Artscroll has the alternate text, as does Siddur Sim Shalom (Conservative). The Lubavich siddur (nusach ha-ari) does not have it. I lack the skill to check Va-ani Tefilati, a Masorti siddur, which is, basically, Israeli Conservative. (I lack the skill because the book has no English translations. It was an ordering error, but shipping it back would have cost more than keeping it, so I kept it.)

When I reported this back to my rabbi, he said that he had found a reference [6] to the Jerusalem Talmud [7] that calls for this change. It might actually support using this (unobjectionable) version at other times, but we will have to consult the talmud to see what it says, and I might have misunderstood that point. (We don't have the Jerusalem talmud in our library, only the Babylonian, so this requires an excursion.)

It would be cool to chase this down, because if it does say that, then it's an actual halachic source supporting a change to the siddur that some would like to make, and that would be kind of nifty. The Reform movement doesn't require that a change be halachic, of course, but there are still points to be scored by finding a solution that is that closely tied to tradition. Or at least I think so.

[1] This is the one where the chatima begins with "hamachazir".

[2] It's grammatically incorrect, or at least grammatically redundant. Or so I've been told by people who know these things. But I'm one of those old-fashioned folks who also believes that "he" can be neutral in English...

[3] This is the one where the chatima begins with "she'otecha".

[4] Musaf is an extra service that immediately follows the regular morning service on Shabbat and holidays.

[5] The Amidah is repeated in each service: first each person reads it silently, and then the chazan (leader) reads it aloud. With one exception that is irrelevant to this discussion, this repetition is the exact same text -- except, as it turns out, for R'tzei on a holiday. So the first time it's the usual text, and only the second time does it change. (And yes, this does mean that on Shabbat morning you will hear or say the Amidah four times -- twice in the morning service (shacharit), and twice in musaf. Practice makes perfect.)

[6] He cited "Eisenberger", if my memory hasn't failed me, but I don't have the title and Google isn't working its magic for me tonight. So I'll have to ask for a title or a first name or something.

[7] There are two talmuds, one composed in Babylon (in exile) and the other composed in Jerusalem. The Babylonian one is more complete and is held to be authoritative, but occasionally something turns up only in Jerusalem (not often).

Comments

[goljerp]

There are two talmuds, one composed in Babylon (in exile) and the other composed in Jerusalem.

The Babylonian Talmud is also a bit later. I think that (before the printing press) there was something like one complete surviving manuscript of the whole Jersualem Talmud, with a few partial manuscripts. This might say more about the Talmud burnings of Europe (and elsewhere) and the difficulty of copying manuscripts than it does about the authority of the Jersualem Talmud, but still...

siddur name, 2 rtzeis

[chaos-wrangler.livejournal.com]

and one other (name like d'Pool?)

(From memory) I think the name is "de Sola Pool". If it's the one I'm thinking of, it's the main siddur used at Lincoln Square Synagogue (modern orthodox in NYC).

I think the second, different rtzei you found is the one used when the kohanim do birkat kohanim instead of the chazan saying it. In some congregations/traditions this happens every shabbat, but in most American Ashkenaz shuls it only happens on yom tov so you'll only find it in that section of the siddur. This may account for some of the discrepancies between the siddurim you looked at.

Btw, the compiling, editing, etc of the Babylonian Talmud was finished later than that of the Jerusalem Talmud, but (as far as I know) the two were started at around the same time. One reason for the later completion is that the Jews living in Babylon generally had less religious persecution to deal with, which is also a reason that the Babylonian Talmud is generally more followed (since more discussion was possible at the time it was written).

liturgical geeking, cont'd

[sanpaku.livejournal.com]

The "retzei" prayer, and the one with the chatimah [1] that you indicated, runs traditionally thusly:

Retzei Adoshem Elokeinu beahava uvitfilatam, vehasheiv et-ha'avodah lidvir beitecha, ve-ishei yisrael utefilatam beahava tekabeil beratzon, u'tehi leratzon avodat yisrael amecha. Vetechezeina einenu beshuvcha letzion berachamim. Baruch atah Adoshem hamachazir s'chinato letzion.

Which I would translate, poorly, roughly as thus:

Accept in love, Adoshem Elokeinu, our prayers, and restore our service to the Devir (sanctuary) of Your house, and the fires and prayers of Israel accept in love with grace, and may your grace be [upon] the service of your people Israel. And may our eyes witness your return to Zion, in mercy. Blessed are you Adoshem, who returns Your Presence to Zion.

Your previous correspondent is correct that the she'otcha version is only used as a prelude to birkat kohanim when done by actual kohanim, only done on Yom Tov in the diaspora. It's a bit esoteric, to say the least.

Now, rtzei has had some changes in the Conservative world. In most Conservative siddurim, "ishei yisrael" has been deleted to omit the reference to "fires," since officially we're not praying for the restoration of the cult, just the rebuilding of the Temple. (In a Conservative daily service without imahot, that is the only change in the Amidah from the traditional orthodox prayerbook.)

However, as you see from the above, rtzei does not directly address sacrifices. It does call for the restoration of the "service" in "Your house." But the sheot'cha wording does not change that, since it replaces the part that starts "And may our eyes...," not the first part.

The real problem, though, is that I'm not sure how she'otcha is any more "general" in its references -- quite the opposite: "restore your Presence to Zion Your city and the order of service to Jerusalem. And may our eyes witness Your return to Zion in mercy, and there may we serve you in awe as in days of old and in ancient times." "Service" here, remember, avodah, means "sacrificial service," like on Yom Kippur when the "Avodah service" reads the passage discussing the high priest making his offering in the Temple. Overall the emphasis of the bracha is overwhelmingly on restoring the ancient cultic service.

So I'm not sure you will get something ideologically any more palatable to Reform. The fact is that the traditional prayer is premised on the urgent need for the restoration of God's presence to Zion, and thus implicitly apologizing (in the original meaning of that term) for tfilah as a means of reaching God versus avodah, which is spelled out in the written Torah. I don't think alternate historical versions would ever entirely address that problem. A version that accorded with Reform ideology would have to start from scratch, as it were.

This is interesting stuff. You really should try to get ahold of that Elbogen book. It's expensive but right up your alley.