A Quest for Dominion
MEESH HAMMER-KOSSOY
SHMA.COM
Pray for the welfare of the government. If it were not for fear of it, people would swallow one
another alive. Mishnah Avot 3: 2
Hashanah amidah] is as follows: One should
say [the blessings for] the forefathers, the mighty
deeds and the holiness of God, include kingship
prayers with it but not blast. [One should continue with] the holiness of the day and blast, the
remembrance blessing and blast, and shofar
blessing and blast. One should then say the
blessings for temple service, thanksgiving, and
the priestly blessing. These are the words of
Rabbi Yohanan ben Nuri.
Rabbi Akiva said to him: If shofar blasts do
not accompany the kingship prayers, why bother
mentioning them? Rather, one should say the
forefathers, the mighty deeds, and the holiness
of God, and include kingship prayers with the
holiness of the day and blast, the remembrance
blessing and blast, and shofar blessing and
blast. One should then say the blessings for
temple service, thanksgiving, and the priestly
blessing. (Mishnah Rosh Hashanah 4: 5)
ta uya harwm almlau twklm lu hmwlub llptm ywh rmwa Mynhkh Ngs anynj ybr
welb Myyj wher
Afew months ago, I changed the signature in my email to include the above quote. Its tone and message are not as uplifting
or inspirational as other quotes I have used in
the past. Indeed, friends questioned my choice.
Governments are guilty of so much evil in our
world — unnecessary wars, unfathomable corruption, waste. Why pray for their wellbeing?
Rabbi Hanina Reserve High Priest, who authored this statement — possibly as a response
to witnessing the destruction of the Temple at the
hands of the brutal and miserably corrupt Roman
government in the year 70 C.E. — was not praising the Romans. Rather, his comments may have
been aimed at the civil war he witnessed leading
up to the destruction. The zealots in that war
justified their rebellion under the rubric, “We
have no king other than God.” (Josephus, JW II,
116, 433) The Romans may have been terrible,
but they were better than anarchy.
A similar debate currently rages in the religious Zionist community. Many religious
Zionists once saw the State of Israel as the “
beginning of the sprouting of our redemption.”
Now, in the wake of the disengagement, some
religious Zionists have adopted a slogan of sectors within the anti-Zionist, ultra-Orthodox
community: “We don’t believe in the rule of the
heretics, but only in our Father in Heaven.” 1
While the weekday amidah yearns for the
restoration of the Davidic kingdom as a harbinger of messianic redemption, the passages
about kingship in the Rosh Hashanah musaf
amidah seem to scrupulously avoid invoking
any earthly king. The authors of the liturgy explicitly speak about God alone as king, apparently adopting the position of the ancient
zealots and contemporary ultra-Orthodox that
any authority other than that of the King of
Kings should be shunned. However, a closer
look at the disagreement cited in the following
Mishnah about the structure of the silent
prayer of the Rosh Hashanah musaf service
(charted here for easy reference) shows that
the situation is more complex.
The order of blessings [for the Rosh
Blessing
Blasts
Rabbi Yohanan
ben Nuri
Rabbi Akiva
Praise
Thanksgiving
Avot
Gevurot
Kedushat HaShem
Kedushat Ha Yom
Zikhronot
Shofarot
Avodah
Hodaah
Birkhat Kohanim
Kingship
X
X
X
Kingship
A quick glance at the chart shows that Rabbi
Akiva and Rabbi Yohanan ben Nuri disagree
about whether kingship verses should be included in the third or fourth blessing. However,
Rabbi Akiva’s verbal objection to Rabbi
Yohanan ben Nuri — “If shofar blasts do not accompany the kingship prayers, why bother
mentioning them?” — does not seem to correspond to the adjustment he recommends concerning Rabbi Yohanan ben Nuri’s order of
prayer. If the kingship verses must be connected
to a shofar blast, the natural response should be
1 http://sf.tapuz.co.il/shirshur-
264-125590284.htm
Dr. Meesh Hammer-Kossoy
directs the social justice track
and teaches Talmud at the
Pardes Institute of Jewish
Studies in Jerusalem,
www.pardes.org.il.
