At Last -- Pray and Mean It #16

[Cant...@aol.com]

Dear "Readers:"

Somehow, over a year has elapsed since my last posting of a Pray and
Mean It. If you DON'T know me personally, you might think that
something horrible has happened in my life. Thank God, such is not
the case.

It's just one of those things -- one thing after another, after
another. . .

I'm thrilled with so many things that I'm privileged to do, whether
daily or occasionally, and somehow, the slightly complex process of
getting a posting onto the listserv has been beyond my reach. I HAVE
written several more postings -- and the whole thing (many future
postings) is available in my head.

"This week's" reflection is on the "T'ka B'shofar" paragraph of the
daily Amidah (picking up where I left off). I think you'll be able to
pick up along with me where we left off.

All prior postings can be found at my synagogue website -- www.tiferethisrael.org
-- specifically under "Resources" at
http://www.tiferethisrael.org/resources/prayandmeanit/prayandmeanit.htm

Thanks for your patience -- and best wishes for Pesach!

Cantor Jack Chomsky

Pray and Mean It is an occasional listserv. Its aim is to build an
understanding of and connection to Jewish prayer step by step. It is
administered through googlegroups. (Your inclusion in this group is
confidential. I am the only person who has access to the names and e-
mail addresses on the list.) People who wish to be added to the
listserv may visit the googlegroups site or e-mail me at
Cant...@aol.com. All postings can be viewed with clear legible
Hebrew at my synagogue’s website, www.tiferethisrael.org You are
welcome to share this with others who might find it interesting or
valuable. Recipients will NOT be able to respond to the entire list,
but may correspond with me.

Thanks and best wishes – Cantor Jack Chomsky, Congregation Tifereth
Israel, Columbus Ohio

Pray and Mean It 16
This is the 16th installment in this series.

We have just recited blessings about our personal health (R’faeinu)
and the health of our planet (Barech Aleinu). we now turn our
attention to the status of our people.

תְּקַע בְּשׁוֹפָר גָּדוֹל לְחֵרוּתֵֽנוּ
T’ka b’shofar gadol
l’cherutenu

וְשָׂא נֵס לְקַבֵּץ גָּלֻיּוֹתֵֽינוּ
V’sa neis l’kabetz
galuyoteinu

וְקַבְּצֵֽנוּ יַֽחַד מֵאַרְבַּע כַּנְפוֹת הָאָֽרֶץ.
V’kabtzenu yachad meiarba kanfot ha-aretz

בָּרוּךְ אַתָּה ה'
Baruch Atah
Adonai

מְקַבֵּץ נִדְחֵי עַמוֹ יִשְׂרָאֵל.
M’kabetz nidchei amo
yisrael.


Sound the Great Shofar for our freedom,
And raise high the banner to gather our exiled.
And gather us together from the four corners of the earth.
Praised are You Adonai,
Who gathers the dispersed of (His) people Israel.


This brief passage has profound implications geographically across the
entire world AND temporally -- across the Jewish calendar.

It’s one of those payoffs that regular schulgoers get on the high
holidays. Before I was a regular davener, I had no idea that the
dramatic phrase that we recite toward the end of Musaph, starting the
Shofrot section of that service, was an everyday thing. Conversely, I
didn’t have the satisfaction of getting a little bit of Rosh Hashanah
every weekday of the year through this cross-reference.

On one level, then, just as newspapers will tell you “how many
shopping days to Christmas,” the recitation of this phrase referring
to the Shofar serves as a daily reminder of where we are in the course
of the year relative to Rosh Hashanah. (This may give you more
pleasure than it gives me. Contemplating Rosh Hashanah means
contemplating a huge list of things that need to be accomplished!)

But the reference to Shofar strikes me as incidental. I relate to
this paragraph of the Amidah much more on the basis of a call to
Jewish unity. Gathering our people from the four corners of the earth
gives me a pleasant image of the amazing ingathering of our people in
the land of Israel -- Jews from every corner of the world -- from
Russia and other former Soviet Union countries, from South America,
from North America, from South Africa, from Yemen, Syria and Egypt,
from Ethiopia. . . from almost everywhere that there have ever been
Jews.

The sad truth is that some of those people don’t look on me in such a
kindly way. There are ways that a Jew like me really struggles for my
religious redemption in the land of Israel. The Orthodox
establishment has thrown up many roadblocks holding back the Jewish
lives of Masorti and Reform Jews in Israel. The sadder truth is that
sometimes I feel enough anger about this to interfere with my sense of
brotherhood with such fellow Jews. I use this paragraph as a reminder
that even though I may sometimes be treated as an outsider, I believe
in the one-ness of our people -- and I will celebrate it even when
others aren’t prepared to.

Furthermore, the sense of gathering us together from disparate places
is something I think about in other contexts -- when my family comes
together to celebrate a simchah -- or a sad occasion -- and when a
group of people with shared interests gathers in one place -- a USY
Kinnus, a Cantors Assembly Convention, any national Jewish gathering.
Each of these is a hint, a foretaste, of a greater ingathering.

If we are prepared to bless the lesser gathering, perhaps we are that
much closer to the greater gathering.

It can also be nice to expand the meaning of the word nes in this
text. It is understood that in this context the word means banner.
Yet we also know the word nes means miracle (and we have noted the
centrality of this concept to the Modim section in the Amidah). If we
keep a sense of the miraculous even as we understand the word to mean
banner in this context, the phrase in which it appears could be
translated, “And raise high miraculously the banner to gather our
exiled.” Keeping a sense of the miraculous gathering of exiles that
has been the basic history of the modern state of Israel -- and
keeping a sense that it is sacred work and that we need to still pray
for it and work for it -- helps make it a greater reality -- and gives
possibility in the future for even greater miracles.

And of course we seek those miracles -- or tiny pieces of them -- each
and every day and each time we raise our voices and our hearts in
prayer.


If you wish to respond, you may e-mail me at Cant...@aol.com.