The seventh blessing of the weekday Amidah marks a radical turn with regard to the goal of our prayers. To this point, the focus was on certain undeniably “spiritual” topics: wisdom, repentance, forgiveness. Now, the Amidah shifts to an explicitly “political” program, calling for a return to the Land of Israel and the reestablishment there of our society.
Even a cursory reading of this part of the Amidah puts the lie to the claim that Judaism and Zionism are two separate things (and the corollary, that one could be “anti-Zionist” but not simultaneously anti-Semitic). To be sure, if one defines Zionism as merely a late 19th century European political movement, all bets are off. Politics are politics, after all. But that’s a bizarre and distorted misreading of Zionism. If we instead define Zionism as simply the Jewish desire to return home to Israel, Zionism so defined permeates every aspect of traditional Jewish liturgy and thought.
This is reflected in the very placement of this blessing as the seventh blessing. Seven, of course, has tremendous symbolic value in Judaism, reflecting the seven year sabbatical cycle culminating in the jubilee year when all land in Israel is considered redeemed and returns to its original owner; and, in addition, reflecting Shabbat, the Sabbath, which is “me’en olam haba” “like a foretaste of the redeemed world.”
How seriously are we to take this blessing? One could be forgiven for thinking that it simply refers to a vague hope that things will get better in the future. Hope does spring eternal, after all, and hope is a good thing. So when we pray that G-d will redeem us “for His name’s sake” we could perhaps just look for things to get progressively better over time.
The alternative, though, is to see the need for redemption, and the possibility of it, in much more radical and urgent terms. This is reflected in the Israeli Progressive Siddur Haavodah Shebalev (The Service of the Heart), where it says “redeem us with a complete redemption.” From the Israeli perspective, we are already living in redemptive times. It is no longer an abstract thought, or a heartfelt wish. It is an historical process that is actually well on its way toward fulfillment.
Seen this way the prayer is a call to action, both on the part of G-d and on the part of the Jewish community. It is no coincidence that it follows directly after the prayers for repentance and forgiveness, for these are seen within traditional circles as the necessary prerequisites for the process of divine redemption.
The tension between redemption as a hope and redemption as a movement runs deep in Jewish history. In all places and times, Jews kept the hope of return alive. Every now and then, though, the hope was roused into a burning passion, a rage that translated into concrete and radical action. We find ourselves living though such a period now.
Thank G-d.