Berakhot 090

Today's shiur is dedicated by Sherry Fyman in honour of the birth last Shabbat of the first grandchild of Rona and Rabbi Simchah Roth, the son of Nechama and Meiram Barbiru.

7:
In the preceding shiur we saw that the view of the Talmudic sages concerning the recitation of the Amidah was very different from ours today. They saw the recitation of the Amidah as a personal communion with the Deity, which must be approached only as an act of loving devotion and personal creative involvement; the lack of a suitable frame of mind – whatever the reason might be – was enough to excuse the worshipper entirely (or for the worshipper to recite a short resumé of the Amidah instead).

8:
The great medieval halakhic code of Rabbi Ya'akov ben-Asher, the Tur, notes the difference, quoting the famous teacher of his own even more famous father, the Rosh, Rabbi Asher ben-Yeĥi'el [Tur Oraĥ Ĥayyim 98]:-

How many of us reach even this nowadays?

9:
All this discussion on the preference for personal creativity in the recitation of the Amidah must serve as a refutation to all those who would relate to the texts of our prayers in the Siddur as if they were holy writ – never to be changed or altered. This is far from the view of the Talmudic sages and would have been disapproved of by them. We need a fixed and recognized text for our worship today for the same reason as did the great Amora from Eretz-Israel Rabbi Zeira [Berakhot 29b]:

Most of us are not capable of spontaneous liturgical creativity, and such a requirement would leave us quite literally speechless and prayerless. But, within the parameters set for each berakhah by the sages who first propounded them (Anshei Kenesset ha-Gedolah), it is not only permitted to improvise and personalize, but according to sages in our mishnah it is a definite requirement! In any case, nowadays, with a fixed and printed text before our eyes, there is no real danger that the spontaneous introduction of novel material will derail us completely.

10:
The Gemara [Berakhot 16b] tells us that, after their recitation of the Amidah, the sages were wont to add a personal prayer; and a reasonably large selection is offered. Tradition has selected one of these [Elohai netzor, "Guard my tongue…"] as a permanent and unique selection. It should be our desire to remove from our worship as far as possible the impression that it is – to use the phrase quoted in our mishnah in the name of Rabbi Eli'ezer – a mechanical task. A positive step in the re-introduction of a modicum of personalization would be to offer the worshipper the full selection of personal prayers offered in the Gemara, and asking him or her to make a conscious selection therefrom at every recitation of the Amidah – and preferably a different selection each time. Maybe in this way some of us would come in time to compose our own private devotions to be added at the end of the Amidah. Be that as it may, as my own special contribution to this suggested endeavour, I shall offer in a future shiur a translation of the personal prayers of the sages quoted in the Gemara.

To be continued.