The latest edition of Mosaic ( http://mosaicmagazine.com/?utm_source=Mosaic+Newsletter&utm_campaign=f1b8ff64ee-Mosaic_2015_10_26&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_0b0517b2ab-f1b8ff64ee-41143073 ), contains a monograph by Reuven Kimmelman, professor of classical Judaica at Brandeis University, entitled “The God of All or the God of the Jews? The Theological Tension of Aleinu” (http://thetorah.com/theological-tension-of-aleinu/ ) “Aleinu” has always been a prayer that has not only been of interest to me, but also has placed me in contentious situations in my role as Jewish educator and congregational Rabbi with respect to one of the elements in the opening paragraph. This line, “Heim Mishtachavim LeHevel VeRik, Eil Lo Yoshia” (they prostrate themselves to vanity and emptiness, to a god that does not redeem), had understandably been excised from certain Siddurim and Machzorim due to the assumption of the reviewers that the prayer as a whole, and this line in particular, was polemically directed at the dominant religion of the country in which the prayerbook was being published. Only of late, in editions of the Siddur that have been printed in Israel as well as countries free of this type of censorship, has the line been restored. Kimmelman dismisses the claim that Aleinu contains a critique directed at Christianity when he writes, “Lest its anti-idolatry stance be taken as anti-Christian, medieval and modern scholars have attributed its authorship to pre-Christian figures from Joshua to Rabban Yochana ben Zakkai.” While this may be true from an academic historic perspective, I have been concerned about what the average Jewish worshipper may be thinking while reciting the line. Even if this prayer was composed during some very early period, does it necessarily mean that later generations will not attribute to the words their own meaning in a more immediate context? For this reason, I have always instructed the prayer leaders in the various contexts in which I served as an authority, to omit the line. Since I believed that the average worshipper would not be informed by the historical perspective, I felt that it was extremely untoward to use prayer as an opportunity to insist upon our superiority over other contemporary religions and their worshippers. It is one thing to appreciate our being chosen to receive God’s Tora, quite another to say that all other religions are worthless. (See Jonathan Sacks’ The Dignity of Difference for a deeper exploration of this idea.) Sometimes, translating scholarly material into a layperson’s religious context requires adroit nuance and empathic perspective.
The Vision Articulated in the prayer “Aleinu LeShabeiach
26 Monday Oct 2015
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