Retzeih is old, a version of it was said by the Kohanim in the Beis HaMiqdash (Mishnah Tamid 5:1), in the oldest standardized Jewish liturgy…. It not only talks about Avodah in the Beis haMiqdash, but we are also continuing that chain. With only an insertion in the middle to make it applicable to living during Galus, we are actually saying something originally said as part of that Avodah. You could hear the generations of ancestors talking through us.

Shema Qoleinu usually ends either
“כִּי אַתָּה שׁוֹמֵֽעַ תְּפִלַּת עַמְּ֒ךָ יִשְׂרָאֵל בְּרַחֲמִים”…
“תְּפִלַּת כָּל־פֶּה”, or “תְּפִלַּת כָּל פֶּה עַמְּ֒ךָ יִשְׂרָאֵל בְּרַחֲמִים”…

So there are really two which become three different ways of seeing what the berakhah is about: …
Between classic Ashkenaz and the Chassidic Sfard, there is a second split….

Birkhas haShanim … an interesting structure. The thesis appears to be about prosperity … But why does it begin and end talking about time…? It is a berakhah that we earn that wealth. And in a way that displays honesty and integrity and provides a service to others. So that we have the wealth in the here-and-now and the growth that will get us greater happiness in the World to Come.

In the previous post, I reduced the list of 13 requests in the weekday Shemoneh Esrei to four sets of three (plus the one added later into the third set): Requests for each person – (1) spiritual and (2) physical, and the Jewish People as a whole – (3) for government and justice, with which we can (4) fully realize being a holy nation.

In this post, I want to look within each set, because I think there is a pattern. The first berakhah for each area is asking Hashem to provide the ideal “space” in which we can obtain it. The second in each ask for a restoration. And in the third, we ask for the actual realization and culmination in that section’s domain.

I find it hard to keep a sequence of 12 straight in my head difficult. And only harder to deal with 13, including the late addition of VelaMalshinim (which as “VeleMeshumadim” before censorship, and how I choose to say it.) But a sequence of four groups of requests is a more manageable overview.

This pasuq from Tehillim uses different verb conjugations in each clause. In the first: “tiftach – You will / shall open”. But the second clause has “yagid — it will declare”. The first half is about what we ask Hashem to do, the second, about we promise to do. But how is it appropriate to ask Hashem to do a mitzvah for us?

One day, inspiration hit me a little while after Shemoneh Esrei, when saying UVa leTzion. There we say the Qedushah’s “Qadosh, Qadosh, Qadosh Hashem Tzevakos” together with the following Targum Yonasan…. This actually corresponds quite well. I think the berakhah was written based on the Targum.

The current war has impacted life in Israel in a number of ways that seem parallel to the middle of Birkhas Gevurah. It seems impossible to make the Berakhah without bringing them to mind…

Continuing on in Shemoneh Esrei… The second berakhah is Birkhas Gevuros. We already suggested one way to view the word Gevurah.
…
Gevurah is the strength to not step in when chassidim would not be tovim. To help rather than smother. Tzimtzum. Anavah.