"Let them perish soon." What prayers over the centuries have the “walls of idols” been drenched?

The Episcopal Letter states: “Following John Paul II, let us visit the synagogue on 13 April. Let us remember men and women whose prayers have been soaking walls of idols for centuries. And where possible, let us meet judaic sisters and brothers.”

And what prayers have the walls of idols soaked with for centuries? The 2 main regular prayers are Shema Jisrael (Listen to Israel) and Amida, or Tefilat ha-Amida (A standing prayer). They are refused mandatoryly 3 times a day during the shacharit of morning prayer, the mincha of afternoon prayer, the maariw of evening prayer. Amida is besides called Shemone Esre or eighteen, due to the fact that it contains 19 (sic!) blessings.

1. Awot the Ancients;

2. Gewurut the Power; besides called Tehiyyat ha-Metim the Resurrection of the Dead;

3. Kedussate ha-Shem Holy Name;

4. Binah – Understanding; 5. Teshuwah Repent;

6. Selichach forgiveness;

7. Geulah Salvation;

8. Refuah Cure;

9. Birkat ha-Shan The blessing of years;

10. Galujot Assembly of exiles;

11. Birkat ha-Din Justice;

12. Birkat ha-Minim Against Heretics [the Sectarians];

13. Cadikim the Righteous;

14. Boneh Jeruzilajim Rebuilding Jerusalem;

15. Birkat David the Blessing of David;

16. Tefillah Acceptance of Prayer;

17. Awodah Temple Service;

18. Hodaah Thanksgiving;

19. Sim Shalom Peace.

19 blessings are divided into 3 parts: 1-3. Praise God; 4-16. They constitute requests to him; 17-19. Request to return to Zion and reconstruct temple worship.

Unlike Shema Jisrael, which consists of verses of the Torah, the blessings of Amida's prayer were arranged by the rabbis only after the demolition of the Temple of Jerusalem by the Romans in 70. The emergence of this prayer is the foundation of the fresh rabbinic Judaism religion that arose just in the first years after the demolition of the temple, erstwhile temple worship, which was dominant in the erstwhile religion of Moses, could not continue. Each of these blessings is to let the Jews to find themselves again in tragic conditions after the demolition of Jerusalem, the failure of a large condition of the population during wartime activities, the abduction of an equally large part into slavery by the Romans. Amida is tasked with building the identity of the ethnoconfessive group erstwhile it is deprived of the erstwhile sense of existence, or worship at the temple.

Survivors from Jerusalem gathered in the city of Iamnia, where the office of the Sanhedrin were moved in 70. This was where the synod was to take place in the 1990s-95s, during which the canon of Tanach (the book of the Old Testament) was established. It was here in the Public Simon ha-Pakula that at the request of Rabbi Gamaliel II the younger prayer of Amida was arranged. But the 12th blessing of Birkat ha-Minim, which was a call of God's wrath on minima, sectarians and heretics breaking out of Judaism, specified as the Pharisees saw him, was the blessing arranged by Rabbi Szmuel ha-Katan. Later in usage were different versions of the blessing, the most elaborate is:

Let there be no hope for apostates unless they return to your Law; and let the Minim perish immediately; and let the enemies of your people be removed; and let the arrogant authority be immediately exterminated, destroyed, and brought low in our days; let them perish immediately; let them be wiped out from the Book of Life and with the righteous be not written down; and let the enemies of your people and of his persecutors be removed; and break the yoke of the Gentiles from our necks and affairs, lest our enemies recover; Blessed art thou, O Lord, who destroys the transgressors and subdue the arrogant.

The blessing of Birkat ha-Minim was directed primarily against Jews who considered Jeshua ha-Nocri to be the Messiah. Hence, the text of the blessing erstwhile mentions Nocrim the Nazarenes or Christians. Christendom of the end of the first century was a large part of the Jews who recognized Jesus as the Messiah, but they did not halt scrupulously following the Mosaic Law and continuing to participate in temple worship. After 70, all they had left was to go to the synagogue. Of course, Christians who were not Jews, who were gaining for religion in God’s Anointed 1 (Christus), in accordance with the principles set by Paul of Tarsus, maintained only the absolute core of the Mosaic Law or Decalogue, were free from all the remainder of the detailed provisions of that Law and did not feel the request to go to any church in the synagogue.

However, for judaic Christians the synagogue was very crucial due to the fact that it allowed them to find themselves socially and nationally after the terrible defeat of the year 70. However, it was in the 1990s-95 that Christians were expelled from the synagogue (aposynagogos) by the Pharisees by the introduction of the Amin prayer, which demands God’s punishment for Nocrim (Nazarenes) and Minim. The second word was very spacious and meant: Jews exceeding the principles of the Mosaic Law; Jews with heterodoxical views; Sadducees – hostile to the Pharisees temple partisans, now devoid of their standing; Essenes; Samaritans; judaic gnostics; collaborators with Roman authority, like Josephus; polytheists; but besides Judeo-Christians and ethno-Christians of pagan origin. However, the blade of this blessing was directed first in Judeo Christians, who, if they wanted to go to the synagogue, would gotta curse themselves.

Since it is hard to anticipate that the polytheists, Samaritans, or gnostics, who frequently respect the God of Israel as the personalization of evil, would go to prayers to the synagogue, Birkat ha-Minim would be directed primarily against Christians. any even think that the word minim itself was the Hebrew acronym Ma’amin be-Jeshu ha-Nocri – Confessors of Jesus of Nazareth.

Therefore, the episcopal letter should not celebrate the figure of John Paul II, that he was the first pope to visit the synagogue, but the chief rabbi of Rome Elio Toaff, that he invited the pope to the synagogue and intonated Psalm 150 alternatively than the prayer of Amida. Rabbi Toaff was a man who was open to the followers of another judaic religion, namely Christianity, but had to gradually adjust the followers of Judaism to the minimial crossing the gates of the synagogue. He paid tribute to the late Pope Pius XII for saving Jews during planet War II. However, this did not mean approval to invitation minima to the synagogue. Pope John XXIII just stood under the Roman synagogue and blessed people coming out of it. Therefore, Elio Toaff had the courage to invitation the minima to the synagogue, not as tourists, but for a prayer meeting. He besides had the courage to change the content of the prayer formulas established by the synod in the Public and removed the 12th blessing of Birkat ha-Minim from the prayer, giving up the curse of Christians.

And on 13 April, at the request of the Episcopal, you will cross, minim, the gates of the synagogue, and may you find yourselves on the followers of the tradition of the rabbi of Rome Elio Toaff, and not on the people faithful to the orders of the synod in the Public.

PS. Elio Toaff came from Livorno from an cultural group called Italki, Jews surviving in Italy since Roman times, although Livorno is besides a city of Sephardic Jews.

Visitor Malinowski

The text originally appeared on the Facebook page. We print it with approval from the author.