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.
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Gevurah is the strength to not step in when chassidim would not be tovim. To help rather than smother. Tzimtzum. Anavah.

Moshe praises Hashem as “HaKeil haGadol vehaGibbor vehaNorah”. That is the praise Anshei Kenesses haGedolah codified into Birkhas Avos, and thus that list somehow pasts muster. R Chanina (Megillah 25a) scolds a Chazan for ad-libbing beyond those three adjectives.

But we do have many more praises in Birkhas Avos! How is that legitimate?

The Vilna Gaon says that this four-description pattern, the noun and three adjectives, is actually all we do say in this berakhah is elaborations on this four-fold theme.

There is something of a conflict between Tuvekha – Your Good, and Yeshu’asekha – Your salvation. If everything were going well, we wouldn’t need saving.

We see the same dichotomy repeatedly in Birkhas Avos…

A lot is hiding in the word “וּמֵבִיא – and brings”. Hashem won’t send the Melekh haMoshiach. He will come with (so to speak), bringing the person who will help us bring His Plan to culmination.

The Jewish People established a relationship with Hashem, even before Sinai, with avos who acted with chessed….

Rabbi Y.B. Soloveitchik takes the possessive in “Elokei Avraham, Elokei Yitzchaq, vEilokei Yaaqov — the G-d of Avraham, the G-d of Yitzchaq, and the G-d of Yaaqov” in a sort of mystical way: that one can somehow take possession of the Creator.

I want to say something similar, but with a more rationalist presentation:

The posessive could be used to show that two things exist in relation to each-other in a number of different ways.