The advent of modernity had a massive effect on Judaism. In fact, it was so threatening to the traditional Jewish lifestyle that one famous rabbi solemnly declared that “Everything new is forbidden.” Despite his efforts, the Jewish perspective on women, science, non-Jews, and nearly everything else has evolved dramatically over the past several hundred years.
Nowhere is this atmosphere of change more evident than in the interpretations, reinterpretations, revisions and, I daresay, distortions of the 10th blessing of the Amidah and the theology it presents.
The classic blessing is this: “Sound a great shofar for our freedom, and lift up a banner to gather our exiles, and gather us together from the four corners of the earth. Blessed are You, Ad-nai, who gathers the dispersed of His people Israel.”
Three quick observations: First, this is a blessing about “us” and “our.” It’s not about somebody else. Second, it’s about all of us, not some of us. And third, it is about an ingathering, a return to a geographic place called Israel.
This is serious business. And one can understand that a people living in exile, and yearning to return to their homeland, would compose a blessing like this and recite it with great fervor. But modernity brought a challenge to all three abovementioned propositions.
In the modern world, it became possible for Jews to change their status from resident aliens to citizens. They did so proudly, and gratefully. That, in turn, meant that a prayer for rescue and liberation was no longer applied only to the Jews. There were people far more oppressed than the Jews of Berlin, Paris, and New Yolk. Further, the wishes for ingathering no longer applied to all Jews. Jews in the West were “at home” so it was only Jews in the East or Middle East in need. And finally, in an age of Enlightenment and Emancipation, a return to Israel was no longer a necessity, even for Jews.
The upshot of all this was a radical change—perhaps the most radical change—in modern siddurim. Rabbi Isaac Mayer Wise substituted the following words: “Let resound the great trumpet for the liberty of all nations; lift up the banner to unite them in the covenant of peace, and bring them nigh unto Thee, to worship Thee in truth.” The more recent Gates of Prayer reads: “Sound the great horn to proclaim freedom, inspire us to strive for the liberation of the oppressed, and let the song of liberty be heard in the four corners of the earth.”
These are, needless to say, beautiful sentiments. Who could disagree? But for Jews living one generation after Auschwitz, they seem dramatically inadequate, perhaps even perverse. The 19th century might have brought us utopian dreams. The 20th century definitely brought us dystopian realities. In the shadow of gas chambers, the necessity of collective consciousness (“us”), solidarity (“all of us”) and national ingathering (Israel) has shown itself to be the only light that can pierce the darkness of exile.