Shema Qoleinu usually ends either
“כִּי אַתָּה שׁוֹמֵֽעַ תְּפִלַּת עַמְּ֒ךָ יִשְׂרָאֵל בְּרַחֲמִים – because You Listen to the prayers of Your nation Israel with Compassion” (Ashkenaz),
“כִּי אַתָּה שׁוֹמֵעַ תְּפִלַּת כָּל־פֶּה – … to the prayers of every mouth” (Rambam, contemporary Middle East, Chabad), or
“כִּי אַתָּה שׁוֹמֵֽעַ תְּפִלַּת כָּל פֶּה עַמְּ֒ךָ יִשְׂרָאֵל בְּרַחֲמִים – …. the prayers of every mouth of Your nation Israel with Compassion.”

So, there are really two which become three (to translate a Mishnaic idiom) different ways of seeing what the berakhah is about.

1- The Ashkenazic approach is that this berakhah is about the Jewish People’s particular relationship to Hashem. It mentions Rachamim (Divine Compassion) because it is about relationship.

2- The approach in the Rambam’s Siddur, followed by Sepharadim and Chabad, is that the focus is on Hashem’s Greatness. And therefore, the berakhah is about how He Listens to every mouth’s prayer. Beyond “just” those of the Jews. And His doing so with Divine Rachamim becomes more tangential.

But between classic Ashkenaz and the Chassidic Sfard, there is a second split:

1a- Ashkenaz speaks on a national level – “the prayers of Your nation Israel”.

2b- Sfard says He listens to each Jew – “the prayers of every mouth of Your nation Israel”.

In posts about the overall structure of the requests of Shemoneh Esrei, I said that I think of Shema Qoleinu as the third in the last of four parallel series of requests. Each set deals with a different topic, and the beakhos within the set ask (1) for the domain where that kind of request can best succeed, (2) repair of what we broke in this area, and finally (3) its culmination. In this set:

• First we ask for the ideal location for our relationship with Hashem, Yerushalayim.
• Then we ask for a restoration of the relationship with the Creator that comes with the Tzemach David and the messianic era.
• And so now, the next step in the sequence would be the culmination of our national spiritual health.

Version 1a, the Ashkenazic, “כִּי אַתָּה שׁוֹמֵֽעַ תְּפִלַּת עַמְּ֒ךָ יִשְׂרָאֵל בְּרַחֲמִים – because You Listen to the prayers of Your nation Israel with Compassion” best fills the mental structure I had built.

Regardless of your minhag, unless it is a rare one that I didn’t know about to cover here, there is a thought there you will hopefully find useful.

However, truth be told, despite being a non-Chassidic Ashkenazic Jew, that nusach is not what I actually say, because I also like the idea of maximizing the praise of HQBH implied by the Sepharadic version.

Fortunately, I learned that R’ YB Soloveitchik zt”l used the following nusach, which allows me to do both:

כִּי אַתָּה שׁוֹמֵֽעַ … 
תְּפִלַּת כָּל־פֶּה
.וּתְּפִלַּת עַמְּ֒ךָ יִשְׂרָאֵל בְּרַחֲמִים

… because You Listen to
the prayers of every mouth,
and the prayers of Your nation Israel with Compassion.

There is a rule that the body of a berakhah should end with me’ein hachasimah, in the same image – i.e. on the same basic thought — as the closing. Rabbi Soloveitchik’s nusach uses Hashem compassionately listening to the prayers of the Jewish People in that role. So, this version preserves my proposed structure by implying that the essence of the berakhah is about Jews, and national redemption. While still including Hashem listening to non-Jews.

Works for me.

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When this variation came up on the Avodah email list, it was pointed out to me that it does have a downside.

Chassidei Ashkenaz (Germany 12th – 13 cent CE, not to be confused with the current Chassidic movement) taught that when the berakhos were composed, the word count of each berakhah was chosen to correspond to the number of words in a pasuq or two of Tanakh (usually Tehillim) that relate to the same topic. The Tur records this correspondence of a number of berakhos that he received from them, and added more of his own. The list was completed by Rav Chaim Vital in the name of the Ari. See Arukh haShulchan OC 112:4-5 for an overview, and individual counts and their significance as he goes through Shemoneh Esrei in the subsequent simanim.

In OC 118:6, the Arukh haShulchan says that Shema Qoleinu has 35 words, which corresponds to the number of words in the first three pesuqim of Tehillim 113, starting after the introductory “Tehillah leDavid“.

This count holds for the Ashkenazic and Sepharadic versions, not for Nusach Sfard or the Rambam.

If you find the word count correspondence adds more meaning than following the meanings of words that speak more to me, this variation of including both ideas breaks the count. Caveat emptor! (“Let the buyer beware!”)