Most Reform Jews are more familiar with the Shabbat Amidah, which is an abbreviated version. It is shorter because Jews believe it is not appropriate to ask God for favors, in the form of blessings for ourselves, on Shabbat. On Shabbat we only say the parts that are not specifically about ourselves, which are the first three and the last three blessings.
Today we looked at the weekday Amidah, which is comprised of nineteen blessings:
- God’s covenant with our ancestors
- God’s power
- God’s holiness
- For wisdom
- For repentance
- For forgiveness
- For deliverance
- For healing
- For bountiful years
- For the gathering of exiles
- For justice
- For punishment of heretics
- For reward of the righteous
- For the rebuilding Jerusalem
- For the coming of the Messiah
- For God to accept our prayers
- For worship
- For gratitude
- For peace
Although we do not know exactly when people started saying these 19 blessings, scholars know they are quite old. It seems that Israelite communities had a system of saying 18 blessings, but the blessings varied slightly between communities. In fact, these blessings are sometimes called “The Eighteen,” even though there are 19 of them!
The Mishnah tells us that it was Rabban Gamaliel who set the blessings into a standard that could be used by everyone. Gamaliel was a leading authority in the Sanhedrin, or the rabbinic court, in the early 1st century of the Common Era. According to the Mishnah, Gamaliel requested that one of the younger rabbis create a 19th blessing against the heretics, and that is why there are 19.
That’s a nice story about why there are 19 blessings, but it is untrue. Through fragments that have resurfaced over time, notably those fragments found in the Cairo Genizah, we know that the Amidah was 18 blessings as late as the year 1000 CE. And, with the benefit of scholarship and common sense, we know that it is unlikely that any blessings were codified and then disseminated through the Israelite community. Printing was very expensive, and the vast majority of people were not literate.
It is more likely that Gamaliel recognized the need for people to cry out to God based on their current situation. What Gamaliel provided was a part of the service that was used to petition God for whatever might be needed, and that varied from community to community.
Gamaliel lived at the time that the 2nd Temple had been destroyed. This was a time that many people claimed to be messiahs and they stated that it was the End of Days. The earliest Christians were actually Jews who were followers of the resurrected messiah. The Jewish people in power needed to distance themselves from this movement, and to instill in their people that this new movement was doomed to fail.
As mentioned earlier, the Mishnah tells us that Gamaliel asked one of the younger rabbis to create a blessing against heretics. An ancient version of this blessing was found among the Cairo Genizah fragments that reflected what the Jewish leadership was trying to make clear to their people. The blessing in the weekday Amidah that, today, is a blessing requesting the punishment of heretics, used to have a more encompassing message that dealt with the rise of the followers of Christ. It went as follows:
May there be no hope for apostates
And may You quickly uproot the insolent reign in our day,
And may the Christians and heretics instantly perish.
“May they be erased from the book of life, and may they not be written with the righteous.”
Blessed are You … Who humbles the insolent.
misquotes or misunderstandings in what Rabbi Jaech taught us are the responsibility of Tara Keiter
