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.

Let me explain by running down all thirteen berakhos:

• Requests for Each Person:
  • Spiritual:
    1. Space – Chonein haDaas: We ask for Daas because it is only through thought and emotion that we can engage in healing and improving our connection to our higher purpose.
    2. Restoration – HaRotzeh biTeshuvah — who “Desires” repentence. Aside for teshuvah obviously is about working our way back to spirituality, the berakhah even starts with the word “Hashiveinu – Cause us to return!”
    3. Fulfillment – Selach Lanu: after Hashem’s help refining our Da’as, and our own Teshuvah, we can ask for Hashem to actually forgive us.
  • Physical:
    1. Space –Go’el Yisrael: We ask for a redemption from our suffering, and our place of suffering. Which then gives us the room to actually improve our physical states.
    2. Restoration – Refa’einu: Restoring health and each person’s physical state.
    3. Fulfillment – Mevareikh haShanim: The culmination of physical success, financially thriving and having a productive year.
• Requests for the Jewish People as a unit
  • Government and Justice:
    1. Space –Meaqbeitz Nidchei Amo Yisrael: “blow the shofar for our freedom, gather our exiled”, so that we can start our own country and re-impliment our government and system of justice.
    2. Restoration (a)- Tzaqah uMishpat: another berakhah that opens “Hashivah — restore our justices as before…”, the executors of national justice.
       (b)- VeLamalshinim: punishing the wicked to rid the world of evil. Again, repair. We might have categorized this berakhah as a pair with rewarding the righteous. But I thought it belongs here, as getting rid of evil isn’t part of the final state. It’s a necessary step for getting there.
    3. Fulfillment – Al haTzadiqim: After we achieve justice, and the wicked have been addressed, we would like to see good being rewarded. The ultimate Justice — when it becomes indistinguishable from Lovingkindness.
  • Spiritual Redemption:
    1. Space – Bonei Yerushalayim: Home of the Beis haMiqdash, clearly the “space” for our national spiritual redemption.
    2. Restoration – Matzmiach Qeren Yeshuvah: in this berakah we ask for a restoration of Davidic rule. We end “who causes the power of redemption to sprout.” But we are still at laying the context for our spiritual, not the final flowering.
    3. Fulfillment – Shomei Tefillah: With full spiritual redemption comes the opportunity for free dialog with the Almighty. Now when we pray we only take it on faith that there is a Divine Response. But in the future, with a spiritually (not “just” physically) rebuilt Yerushalayim, and a Beis haMiqdash, we will be able to experience it. Which is why this berakhah is a good segue to Retzei, which moves on from Hashem accepting our prayer to speaking about the Avodah in the Beis haMiqash as well.

I often find myself counting the groups on one hand, and the step within the group on the other, so that I am paying attention to the progression.