RABBI ARTHUR SEGAL:LORD'S PRAYER AT JEWISH INTERFAITH WEDDINGS + ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS MEETINGS;Jewish Alcoholics, Chemically Dependent Persons, and Significant Others
Shalom:
As one who Rabbinically counsels Jews who are in 12 step programs, such as Alcoholics Anonymous, Overeaters Anonymous, Alanon, Emotions Anonymous, Narcotics Anonymous, and where there are not enough Jews to form a chapter of JACS [Jewish Alcoholics, Chemically Dependent Persons, and Significant Others....
WWW.JACSWeb.Org ]. the question is often asked to me if a Jew can or should say the "Our Father" prayer, {aka the Lord's Prayer} said at the end of 12 step meetings, usually while members are holding hands in a circle.
The question is answered on the JACS web site as a 'yes' to help form bonds of fellowship, even though when the question was asked to Rabbi Walter Jacobs, of Pittsburgh, and now the Chief Rabbi of Germany, near Munich, [who I had the privilege to have Shabbat dinner with just a few blocks from my home some 9 years ago, and to be invited to second night Passover at his synagogue in Munich in 2006], said 'no'. I respectfully have to disagree with my learned teacher, Rabbi Jacobs. Entschuldigen Sie mich, bitte.
I am also asked, when I am involved in interfaith weddings, when I am doing the Jewish service and a minister or priest is doing the Christian part, is it offensive to include the 'Our Father?" And my answer is "No, it is not offensive."
My reasons for both are below, as is the prayer found in both the Books of Matthew and Luke. I have printed it in Hebrew and in transliteration, so that those who are familiar with Hebrew prayers, will recognize immediately most of the words.
Our Father, Who art in heaven,
Hallowed be Thy Name.
Thy Kingdom come.
Thy Will be done, on earth as it is in Heaven. Give us this day our daily bread.
And forgive us our trespasses,
as we forgive those who trespass against us.
And lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from evil.
[For thine is the kingdom,
and the power, and the glory,
for ever and ever.] Amen.
- אבינו שבשמים יתקדש שמך
- תבוא מלכותך
- יעשה רצונך
- .כאשר בשמים גם בארץ
- .את לחם חוקנו תן לנו היום
- .ומחל לנו על חובותינו כאשר מחלנו גם אנחנו לחיבנו
- ואל תביאנו לידי נסיון
- כי אם תחלצנו מן הרע
- כי לך הממלכה והגבורה והתפארת]
- .[לעולמי עולמים אמן
| - Avinu she-ba-shamayim yitkadash shmecha
- Tavo malchutcha
- yeaseh rezoncha
- ka-asher ba-shamayim gam ba-aretz.
- Et lechem chukeinu ten lanu hayom.
- U-mchal lanu al chovoteinu ka-asher machalnu gam anachnu le-chayaveinu.
- Ve-al tavienu liydey nisayon
- ki im techalzenu min ha-ra
- [ki lecha ha-mamlacha ve-hagvura ve-hatiferet
- Le-olmey olamim amen].
|
The only thing unJewish about the prayer, is the title. Jews do not consider Jesus as their Lord.
From the Talmudic parallels (Tosef.,Talmud Bavli Tractate Beracoth Mishna 3: 7; Beracoth Daf 16b-17a, 29b; Talmud Yerushalmi. Beracoth 4: 7d) it may be learned that it was customary for prominent masters (Rabbi is Aramaic for 'my master.') to recite brief prayers of their own in addition to the regular prayers; and there is indeed a certain similarity noticeable between these prayers and that of Jesus.
The prayer, which is not called the Lord's prayer in Matthew nor in Luke, is 100% Jewish. Jews came to Rabbi Yeshua and asked him how to pray. Many of us may forget that at this time circa 30 CE, there were two religions at play in Judea : Hebraism with its Temple, priests, sacrifices, and no prayer as we think of it today, and Rabbinic Talmudic Judaism, of which Yeshua was a part, which had no temple, no priests, nor sacrifices, but had prayer, study, rabbis, synagogues, good deeds and love. So a Hebrew asking Jesus, how to pray, would not be unusual, in Judea, as the Rabbinic tradition was strong in Babylon where is began 500 years prior, and in competition with the priests of the Temple, in Judea.
It was not until 70 CE when the Temple was destroyed by the Romans, that Hebraism died, and Judaism was allowed to grow. [Hebrewism does exist today ironically in a sect surviving 2000 years called the Karaites.]
Further, Jesus wasn't a pagan, a Roman, nor a Greek. The prayer came from the Jewish tradition almost phrase by phrase .
The Interpreter's Bible, agrees. The Lord's Prayer "is thoroughly Jewish," it states, and nearly every phrase is paralleled in the Jewish liturgy.
I can cites line-by-line parallels between the Lord's Prayer and the Jewish mourner's prayer, the Kaddish ("May (God) establish His kingdom during our lifetime and during the lifetime of Israel"); the Eighteen Benedictions ("Forgive us our Father, for we have sinned"); Talmudic prayer ("Lead me not into sin or iniquity or temptation or contempt," goes one); and other Hebrew scriptures.
That means Jesus brilliantly condensed important Jewish ethical teachings into one prayer.
The 'Our Father" gathers up all of life and brings it before God. Jesus brings the wide range of concerns the Jews would bring to prayer and just boils them to these six petitions.
While Catholics and Protestants, meanwhile, have differed on the use of the last line, known as the doxology -- "For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever and ever." Protestants generally use it, while Catholics added it to the Mass just in 1970, the line was lifted from the Book of Chronicles, in which King David is quoted: "Yours, Lord, is the greatness and the power and the glory and the majesty and the splendor."
Given its Jewish roots the Our Father is "so wonderfully inclusive that any religious orientation could pray this prayer."
The biggest irony, perhaps, is that Jesus himself might never have uttered his own prayer in a public setting.
"When you pray," he counsels his followers during the Sermon on the Mount, "go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen."
Specifically: The invocation "Our Father" i.e. "Avinu" or Abba (hence in Luke simply "Father") is one common in the Jewish liturgy (the Amidah prayer's fourth, fifth, and sixth benedictions, and especially in the Rosh Ha Shana prayer: "Our Father, our King! Disclose the glory of Thy Kingdom unto us speedily").
More frequent in Judaism is the invocation: "Our Father who art in heaven" (Talmud Tractate Beracoth. 5: 1; Tractate Yoma 8:. 9; Tractate Soṭah 9: 15; Mishna Pirkei Avot 5. 20; Midrash Tosefot, Midrash Demai, 2: 9; and elsewhere: "Yehi raẓon mi-lifne Avinu she-bashamayim," and often in the liturgy).
A comparison with the Ḳaddish ("May His great name be hallowed in the world which He created, according to His will, and may He establish His Kingdom . . . speedily and at a near time"), with the Sabbath "Ḳedushshah" ("Mayest Thou be magnified and hallowed in the midst of Jerusalem . . . so that our eyes may behold Thy Kingdom"), and with the "'Al ha-Kol" (Massek. Soferim xiv. 12, and prayer-book: "Magnified and hallowed . . . be the name of the supreme King of Kings in the worlds which He created, this world and the world to come, in accordance with His will . . . and may we see Him eye to eye when He returnes to His habitation") shows that the three sentences, "Hallowed be Thy name," "Thy Kingdom come," and "Thy will be done on earth as in heaven," originally expressed one idea only—the petition that the Messianic kingdom might appear speedily, yet always subject to God's will.
The hallowing of God's name in the world forms part of the ushering in of His kingdom (Ezek. 38: 23), while the words "Thy will be done" refer to the time of the Messianic coming, signifying that none but God Himself knows the time of His "divine pleasure" ("raẓon"; Isa. 61: 2; Ps. 69: 14)
"May Thy Kingdom come speedily" and "Thy Kingdom come"; and "Thy will be done" are submitting everything to God's will, in the manner of the prayer of Rabbi Eliezer in the Talmud: "Do Thy will in heaven above and give rest of spirit to those that fear Thee on earth, and do what is good in Thine eyes. Blessed be Thou who hears prayer!" (Talmud Tractate Beracoth 3: 7).
The rest of the prayer, also, stands in close relation to the Messianic expectation. Exactly as R. Eliezer of Modin said: "He who created the day created also its provision; wherefore he who, while having sufficient food for the day, says: 'What shall I eat to-morrow?' belongs to the men of little faith such as were the Israelites at the giving of the manna" (Talmud Tractate Soṭah 48b), so Jesus said: "Take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat or . . . drink. . . . . O ye of little faith. . . . Seek ye first the Kingdom of God, . . . and all these things shall be added to you" paraphrasing the Talmudic teacher Simeon ben Yocḥai in Talmud Tractate Beracoth 35b; and Tractate Ḳiddushin 4:14).
Faith being thus the prerequisite of those that wait for the Messianic time, it behooves them to pray, in the words of Solomon (Prov. 30: 8 ), "Give us our apportioned bread" ("lecḥem chukeinu") that is, the bread we need daily.
Repentance being another prerequisite of redemption (Pirḳei Rabbi. Elaezer. 43 ; Targum Yerushalmi. and Leḳah Ṭov to Deut. 30: 2; ), a prayer for forgiveness of sin is also required in this connection. But on this point special stress was laid by the Jewish sages of old. "Forgive thy neighbor the hurt that he hath done unto thee, so shall thy sins also be forgiven when thou prayest," says Ben Sira (Ecclus. [Sirach] 28: 2). "To whom is sin pardoned? To he who forgives injury" (Derek Ereẓ Zuṭa 8: 3; Talmud Tractate Rosh Ha Shana 17a) Accordingly Jesus said: "Whensoever ye stand praying, forgive, if ye have aught against any one; that your Father also which is in heaven may forgive you your trespasses" It was this precept which prompted the formula "And forgive us our sins ["ḥovot" = "debts"; the equivalent of "'avonot" = "sins"] as we also forgive those that have sinned ["ḥayyabim" = "those that are indebted"] against us."
Directly connected with this is the prayer "And lead us not into temptation." This also is found in the Jewish morning prayer (Talmud Tractate Beracoth. 60b; : "Never should a man bring himself into temptation as David did, saying, 'Examine me, O Lord, and prove me' [Ps. 26: 2], and stumbled" [Talmud Tractate Sanhedrin. 107a]). As sin is the work of Satan, there comes the final prayer, "But deliver us from the evil one [Satan]." This, with variations, is the theme of many Jewish prayers (Beracoth. 10b-17a, 60b), "the evil one" being softened into "yetẓer ha-ra'", "evil desire," and "evil companionship" or "evil accident"; so likewise "the evil one" in the Our Father was later on referred to things evil.
The doxology added in Matthew, following a number of manuscripts, is a portion of I Chron. 24: 11, and was the liturgical chant with which the Lord's Prayer was concluded in the Church; it occurs in the Jewish ritual also, the whole verse being chanted at the opening of the Ark of the Torah.
In any event, Judaism believes in pluralism and that Jews do not have the one true path to God for all people. Judaism believes that for Jews, the path has been laid out by God, but that God has given directions to other prophets in other times for other groups, nations, and religions. Xenophobia in Jewish people comes from a history of persecution, but it is not part of the theology. RABBI ARTHUR SEGAL:RIGHTEOUS OF ALL NATIONS HAVE A SHARE IN THE WORLD TO COME
Shalom,
Rabbi Arthur Segal
JEWISH RENEWAL:
JEWISH SPIRITUAL RENEWAL
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