Now that we completed the 13 berakhos Chazal labeled requests, we get to Retzeih, the first of the three berakhos of thanksgiving. For reasons I don’t know, it reads like a request as well. After all it ends, “וְתֶחֱזֶֽינָה עֵינֵֽינוּ בְּשׁוּבְ֒ךָ לְצִיּוֹן בְּרַחֲמִים: בָּרוּךְ … הַמַּחֲזִיר שְׁכִינָתוֹ לְצִיּוֹן — And may our eyes behold Your return to Zion in Compassion. Blessed … Who returns His Divine Presence to Zion.” We literally ask that Hashem return to Tziyon soon enough for us to witness it. How is that praise? Please comment or message me if you know of an answer or any leads on one.

Now, on to the body of the berakhah. This berakah 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. The mishnah says that the kohanim in service would say: one of the berakhos of Shema, the Aseres haDiberos (taken out of the siddur when sects arose that said those were the only real commandments and the others didn’t matter), the first two paragraphs of Shema, “Avodah” — meaning an earlier version of Retzeih, and Birkhas Kohanim.

Here is the body of the berakhah:

רְצֵה ה’ אֱלֹקינוּ בְּעַמְּ֒ךָ יִשְׂרָאֵל וּבִתְפִלָּתָם
וְהָשֵׁב אֶת הָעֲבוֹדָה לִדְבִיר בֵּיתֶֽךָ
וְאִשֵּׁי יִשְׂרָאֵל
וּתְפִלָּתָם
בְּאַהֲבָה תְקַבֵּל בְּרָצוֹן
וּתְהִי לְרָצוֹן תָּמִיד עֲבוֹדַת יִשְׂרָאֵל עַמֶּֽךָ

Be Pleased, Hashem, our G-d, with Your people, Israel and with their tefillos;

and restore the service to the Devir (i.e. the Qodesh haQadashim) of Your “abode”

and the fire-offerings of Yisrael

and their tefillos,

accept lovingly and willingly.

And may You always find Pleasure with the service of Your people, Israel.

I would assume the part “וְהָשֵׁב אֶת הָעֲבוֹדָה לִדְבִיר בֵּיתֶֽךָ – and restore the service to the Devir (i.e. the Qodesh haQadashim) in Your ‘abode'” couldn’t have been in the original, which was said while there was Avodah going on, and the Kohein Gadol did bring Qetores into the “Devir Beisekha“.

If we put the comma where most siddurim do, we get:

רְצֵה ה’ אֱלֹקינוּ בְּעַמְּ֒ךָ יִשְׂרָאֵל וּבִתְפִלָּתָם

וְאִשֵּׁי יִשְׂרָאֵל וּתְפִלָּתָם בְּאַהֲבָה תְקַבֵּל בְּרָצוֹן

Be Pleased, Hashem, our G-d, with (1) Your people, Israel, (2) with their tefillos,

and (2) the fire-offerings of Yisrael (2) And their tefillos, accept lovingly and willingly.

This would make sense in an era where there is a Beis haMiqdash, and there are ishei Yisrael for Hashem to accept, but doesn’t fit all that simply today.

It is possible that “ishei Yisrael” here is meant poetically, as perhaps the “inner fire” of passion when davening. Or the offerings that aren’t actually physically being given, but are fulfilled through praying about them (ונשלמה ספרים שפתינו). Tosafos (Menachos 110a, “UMikhael“) suggest it refers to the heavenly Beis haMiqdash, where the angel Mikhael offers the souls of righteous people as a sacrifice.

But Tosafos also offer a second possibility, which I personally find more natural. When Chazal inserted “וְהָשֵׁב אֶת הָעֲבוֹדָה”, they expected us to move the comma, repurposing the pre-existing clause “ve’ishei Yisrael“

And now with the insertion, we are saying:

רְצֵה ה’ אֱלֹקינוּ בְּעַמְּ֒ךָ יִשְׂרָאֵל וּבִתְפִלָּתָם
וְהָשֵׁב אֶת הָעֲבוֹדָה לִדְבִיר בֵּיתֶֽךָ וְאִשֵּׁי יִשְׂרָאֵל
וּתְפִלָּתָם בְּאַהֲבָה תְקַבֵּל בְּרָצוֹן

Be Pleased, Hashem, our G-d, with (1) Your people, Israel and (2) their prayer;

and restore (1) the service to the Devir (i.e. the Qodesh haQadashim) of Your “abode” and (2) the fire-offerings of Yisrael

and their tefillos, accept lovingly and willingly.

The insertion of “leDevir Beisekha” in the middle applying to the avodah only is awkward, in that it means we have a long clause followed by an “and” that refers to something way back before it. However, the idea is that this is a repurposing so as not to drop words said by the Kohanim. (It is also not the only case in the siddur that we jump back like this.)

Retzeih thus 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.