Who’s “us”? At the end of every Amidah, there is a silent and personal meditation, “Elokai n’tzor,” where we ask G-d to help us deal with inappropriate speech (lashon hara), to protect us from hateful speech, and more. It ends with the stirring, passionate plea: “He Who makes peace in His heavens, let Him make peace on us and on all Israel. And let us say, ‘Amen.’”

Who’s “us”? This is, after all, a personal, private, and silent meditation. There’s no “us” involved, unless you are seriously schizophrenic in which case you have bigger issues than understanding prayer texts. So why do we suddenly act as if we are speaking to, or even about, a larger group of people?

One simple answer is that this phrase “He Who makes peace…” is the second most common phrase in the entire siddur, appearing at least four times in an average weekly shacharit (morning) service, three times at minchah (afternoon) and an additional three times at maariv (evening). So a minimum of ten times a day.

With that in mind, we can understand why it would be much easier for an average davener to simply quote that line rather than going through all sorts of grammatical twists and turn in order to say, “make peace on me and all Israel, to which I say amen.,” which anyway sounds painfully clumsy.

That being said, I think there is something deeper going on here. When we conclude this meditation, and thereby conclude the Amidah itself, we formally take leave of the Divine Presence. We take three steps back, bowing first to the left, then to the right, and then straight ahead. In this sacred choreography, we are bowing first to the angel Gabriel, who represents strict divine Justice; and then to the angel Michael, who represents divine mercy, and in addition is seen as Israel’s special protector, and then finally to the Divine Presence itself.

This serves as a reminder to us that, last paragraph not withstanding, the Amidah prayer that we have been davening to this point is profoundly collective, nationalistic, even, rather than personal. So what we are asking for as we conclude is not our personal desire for protection but rather the protection offered our people, the people of Israel, as a whole.

When all is said and done (and davened) we are individuals praying primarily for “us” rather than for “me.”