In the weekday Amidah, there are 13 intermediate blessings. They are found between the introductory 3 blessings of praise and the concluding 3 blessings of thanks (found in all Amidah prayers). These intermediate blessings begin with requests for wisdom (4), repentance (5), and forgiveness (6). Seen in this context, the theme of the seventh blessing is jarring. “See our affliction and fight our fight, redeem us quickly for Your name’s sake…”. Whereas the previous blessings could be seen as the kind of requests anyone, regardless of religion, could make, this blessing is stunningly particularistic, calling on G-d “Redeemer of Israel.”
In fact, what is happening here is that this prayer ushers in a series of blessings which deal with the national liberation of the Jewish people, including among other things a return to Jerusalem and the arrival of a ruler of King David’s dynasty. This puts the lie to the notion that Zionism is a mere 19th century invention, rather than a Jewish yearning that has lasted for nearly 4 millennia.
That said, there is an interesting history to this prayer as it appeared (or didn’t appear!) in modern prayer books. Rabbi Isaac Mayer Wise, perhaps the most prominent early rabbinic leader in America, felt that this prayer no longer applied to Jews in America, the “land of the free.” He changed the wording so that it applied only to “the oppression of our brethren” somewhere else, but not here. A later version in the Reform movement, the Union Prayer Book, left out the blessing altogether. Post-holocaust, though, the need for redemption in general and the Jewish people’s redemption in particular led almost all Jewish movements to restore the prayer. And in Israel, they emphasize the belief that Israel is “reshit tzmichat geulateynu”, “the beginning of the flowering of our redemption,” by asking for a “full redemption”, implying that the redemption has in fact already begun.
We hope so. In any case, keep praying.