Many of us in the progressive halakhah camp make our denominational home in the Reform movement. So it’s appropriate at this season of Yom Ha’atzma’ut to consider the relationship of North American Reform Judaism toward the State of Israel. To be specific, we’re not talking about political issues, such as security policy, relations with the Palestinians and the Arab states and the like. Nor do we have in mind the always sensitive and often infuriating realm of religion-and-state policy, which includes the Israeli government’s response to the legitimate demands of its non-Orthodox citizens. Our inquiry here is more theological than political: how does the organized Reform movement understand the religious significance of the state of Israel? What, according to official Reform movement doctrine, is the significance of the establishment and the existence of the state as a matter of Jewish faith and belief? We’re hardly the first ones to ask these questions, which are addressed in numerous sources.[1]
For purposes of this blog, though, there’s no better place to look than in Mishkan T’fila, the current official prayerbook published (2007) by the Central Conference of American Rabbis (CCAR). That’s because, like the traditional Jewish prayerbook (siddur), Mishkan T’fila is very much a text of halakhah.[2] While it is not a comprehensive work of systematic theology, the prayerbook reveals better than any other source the collective vision of the Reform rabbinate as to how Reform communities ought to organize their worship and express verbally the community’s vision of God, Torah, and Jewish experience. So at the approach of Israel’s 69th anniversary we ask: what does the American Reform[3] prayerbook have to say about Israel in general and about Yom Ha’atzma`ut in particular?
In this regard, it’s useful to compare the approach of Mishkan T’fila with that of the siddur it came to replace. Gates of Prayer (GOP, 1975) marked a dramatic change from its predecessor, the Union Prayerbook (UPB), which mentions Israel hardly at all.[4] By contrast, GOP‘s introduction explicitly cites “the rebirth of Israel” as one of the historical factors that warranted the creation of a new siddur. Accordingly, Gates of Prayer calls upon Reform congregations to act out the centrality of the State of Israel in their worship life, most obviously by transforming Yom Ha’atzma`ut into a religious festival with a special service of its own (pp. 590-604). It suggests that Hallel be recited on that day, just as it is recited on festive days in the traditional liturgical calendar. And GOP even inserts Yom Ha’atzma`ut into the passage in the t’fila known as ya`aleh v’yavo (pp. 67, 601), a supplication reserved in the traditional liturgy for Biblical holy days: Pesach, Shavu`ot, Sukkot/Shemini Atzeret; ḥol hamo`ed (the intermediate days of Pesach and Sukkot), Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur, and Rosh Ḥodesh. And only those days; not even Hanukkah and Purim are so honored. By including Yom Ha’atzma`ut in the ya`aleh v’yavo, GOP endows it with a degree of holiness similar to that of the Toraitic festivals, which is a truly bold and even daring statement of its sanctity.
In some respects, Mishkan T’fila builds upon and advances the stance of its predecessor. It too offers a special liturgy for Yom Ha’atzma`ut (pp. 538-553). In addition, it restores some traditional land-of-Israel-centered passages that were excised from virtually all previous Reform prayerbooks. Chief among these is the phrase v’havieinu l’shalom, “Gather us in peace from the four corners of the earth and lead us upright to our land,” which appears in Ahavah rabah, the blessing immediately preceding the morning Shema (pp. 62, 230, and 456). This phrase, an expression of the traditional Jewish hope of shivat tziyon, “the return to Zion,” was anathema to classical Reform ideology. Even Gates of Prayer leaves it out. But Mishkan T’fila restores it to its place.[5] The same is true with or ḥadash al tziyon ta’ir, “Shine a new light upon Zion,” that since Geonic times has appeared at the conclusion of Yotzer, the first of the two benedictions preceding the morning Shema. Older Reform prayerbooks removed this passage. Mishkan T’fila brings it back (pp. 60, 228, 313 and 454), explaining it as a sign that “our movement consciously affirms its devotion to the modern State of Israel and signals its recognition of the religious significance of the reborn Jewish commonwealth” (p. 60, note). It would appear that Reform Jews are no longer embarrassed about giving utterance in their prayer to the dream of Jewish national rebirth. And finally, the siddur restores the mention of God’s power to bring wind, rain, and dew in the second benediction of the T’fila. This traditional passage is keyed to the agricultural calendar of the land of Israel, which is presumably why earlier Reform prayerbooks removed it. Mishkan T’fila, because it wishes us to “join our Israeli brothers and sisters in their prayers[6] for seasonal rains in the land of Israel” (p. 79, note), includes it. In all these ways, the siddur affirms the centrality of Eretz Yisrael and associates Reform Judaism with the ancient Jewish identification of “redemption” as a national experience, the hope that we Jews as a people will return to the land of our ancestors. This is a groundbreaking move for an “official” North American Reform prayerbook.
In other respects, though, Mishkan T’fila pulls back noticeably from the Zionist passion of the GOP. Gone is the inclusion of Yom Ha’atzma`ut in ya`aleh v’yavo. In its place, the day is mentioned by way of an insert into the birkat hoda’ah, the “blessing of thanks” in the t’fila (p. 555). This change, which follows the model established by the prayerbooks of the American Conservative movement, equates Israel Independence Day with the “Rabbinically” ordained festivals of Hanukkah and Purim (also traditionally mentioned in birkat hoda’ah) rather than with the Biblical holy days. Nothing wrong with that; this “demotion” reflects a much more appropriate, less presumptive conception of the day’s religious status. Yet Mishkan T’fila adds a critical distinction. The “inserted” passages for Hanukkah and Purim are introduced in Mishkan T’fila (pp. 556-557), as in the traditional siddur, with the formula al hanisim, “We thank You for the miracles, for the redemption… and for the wars which You waged for our ancestors in days of old, at this season.” For Yom Ha’atzma`ut, however, there is no al hanisim. The passage simply recounts “the return to Zion of our time,” the deeds of the Jews who gathered in the land of Israel, built it up, and “established this Independence Day.” The acts are the acts of the people; Heaven, it would seem, had nothing to do with it. God, in this passage, has wrought no miracles and fought no wars on behalf of our people in Zion today.[7] True, we pray for future miracles, that “as You performed miracles for our ancestors, do likewise for us, saving us now as you did then,” a prayer that evokes the language, if not the substance, of al hanisim. But that which has already happened – the return to Zion and the rebirth of Jewish national sovereignty – is not depicted as a “miracle.”
The question is obvious: if we perceive and describe Hanukkah and Purim as instances of Divine redemption for Israel, do we not see the hand of God in the events that led to the establishment of the modern Jewish state? Maybe not. Perhaps we are too close to those events to answer that question with certainty. Perhaps the decades of war and struggle in the Middle East have left us uneasy, have made us less than eager to pronounce the creation and existence of the state as evidence of “miracles,” of the working out of God’s plan. Whatever the reason, Mishkan T’fila clearly tempers the Zionist enthusiasm of Gates of Prayer.
Is this such a bad thing? It could be said that Mishkan T’fila stakes out a reasonable middle ground between the anti- and non-Zionism of Reform’s “classical” period and the uncritical adoration of the state of Israel demonstrated by those who interpret the establishment of the state as the dawn of the Messianic age.[8] No matter how important it is to us, the state of Israel is a political entity, just the sort of human arrangement that should not be the object of our devotion. Still, there’s no denying that the founding of Israel was a watershed moment in Jewish history that, like redemptions of the past, has brought our people “from darkness to a great light”.[9] Some of us, for that reason, have no problem including the creation of the state of Israel among the nissim, the miracles that occurred “during ages past at this season” for which we give thanks. But Mishkan T’fila, apparently, is not so sure.
Does the prayerbook, Reform Judaism’s most official liturgical-halakhic expression, get Israel right? Discuss.
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[1] These include, first of all, books dealing with the history of Zionism and the Reform movement, including the comprehensive (though somewhat dated) David Polish, Renew Our Days: The Zionist Issue in Reform Judaism (Jerusalem: World Zionist Organization, 1976. See also the many Israel-centered resolutions adopted by the movement’s congregational and rabbinical bodies. Special attention should be paid to the historical trends in the relationship of Reform Judaism toward the Jewish national movement as expressed in the platforms of the Central Conference of American Rabbis (CCAR), especially the “Zionist” or “Miami Platform” of 1997.
[2] Most early siddurim and maḥzorim were primarily treatises on liturgical halakhah. To this day, most siddurim contain sections on “Laws of Prayer” and detailed notes as to the proper way in which to fulfill the particular day’s liturgical obligations.
[3] Our focus on Reform worship doesn’t mean we ought to ignore the liturgies of other Jewish communities. For example, just how the siddurim of various pro-, non-, and anti-Zionist Orthodox groups either mark or ignore Israel Independence Day is a fascinating topic in its own right and an appropriate one for this blog… maybe (b’li neder) for Yom Ha’atzma`ut 5779?
[4] This includes even the “Newly Revised Edition” of the Union Prayerbook; Part I, ( New York: CCAR, 1961). That version does contain a prayer for “our brothers who toil to rebuild Zion” (p. 68). There is, however, no special liturgy for Yom Ha’atzma`ut.
[5] On the other hand, Mishkan T’fila does not restore kibutz galuyot, “the ingathering of the exiles” benediction to the T’fila. That b’rakhah has been replaced by a blessing for “freedom” (p. 86).
[6] A quibble: the second benediction of the T’fila (g’vurot) is not traditionally speaking a prayer for rain but rather a mention (הזכרה) of God’s power over the rain. The actual prayer – i.e., the supplication – for rain comes in birkat hashanim, the ninth benediction of the T’fila, where rain is requested roughly during the months that correspond to the rainy season in Eretz Yisrael.
[7] Indeed, the passage does not mention the War of Independence or the fact that the national rebirth was accompanied and made possible by military struggle. On the other hand, the service for Yom Ha’atzma`ut begins with a reference to nisim venifla’ot, “the miracle of (national) rebirth” (p. 538). Perhaps this brings God back into the picture. Note, however, that the service is constructed in the form of a sustained meditation upon Israel’s 1948 Declaration of Independence, a decidedly secular document.
[8] On the other hand, Mishkan T’fila does reproduce the “Prayer for the State of Israel” (p. 552), composed in 1948 by the Israeli Chief Rabbinate and which refers to the state as reishit tz’miḥat g’ulateinu, literally “the beginnings of the sprouting forth of our redemption.” The translation, however, renders the phrase as “the dawning of hope for all who seek peace,” which arguably blunts the claim that the state’s founding was guided by God and is part of God’s plan for the Jewish people.
[9] ומאפילה לאור גדול; M. P’saḥim 10:5.