The world works in mysterious ways. I recently wrote about the Prayer for our Country. There, I emphasized the importance of continuity. By maintaining the same blessing under all circumstances, we assert that our hopes for “the Land of the Free and the Home of the Brace” transcend contemporary politics. By asking G-d to help us live with the integrity of our aspirational national values, we express our faith that our politics will reflect, more and more, those same values.
No sooner did I write those words than I saw an article in The Forward entitled “This rabbi felt he could no longer recite the Prayer for Israel. So he rewrote it.” The rabbi in question, who will remain nameless, commented, “this government [in Israel] does not deserve my community’s blessing unambiguously.”
Really? “Deserve?” I don’t think that I can adequately describe the arrogance and pretension in that assertion. The Prayer for Israel is not a piece of candy to be given out to well-behaved children. The Prayer for the State of Israel is a poignant, almost desperate, cri-de-coeur, a cry of the heart, that the precious gift of the State of Israel never be lost to us.
The issue is not whether the State of Israel “deserves” our blessing. The issue is whether we deserve the blessing of the State of Israel.
Why all the hullabaloo? Well, the rabbi in question and many of his Upper West Side congregants, aren’t crazy about the current Israeli government.
Join the club. I’m not crazy about them either. And more to the point, neither are the millions of Israelis who have been protesting in the streets for the past six months. So when the prayer says, “send Your light and Your truth” to the country’s leaders, it isn’t because they “deserve” it. It’s because they need it. And we need them to have it.
The Prayer for Israel was originally written at the founding of the state by Chief Rabbi Isaac Herzog. It was in response to an extraordinary, arguably divine, turn of events. Rabbi Herzog could not have predicted all the twists and turns of coming decades, including venal politics and politicians, any more than our founding fathers in America could have predicted that 75 years after the inspiring ratification of the Constitution of the United States, President Lincoln would be dedicating the Gettysburg National Cemetery as the Union was tearing itself apart.
Keeping a long story short: we don’t need to pray when things are perfect. We need to pray when they aren’t.