71 
 
 073 E PRAYER BOOK 
 
 THREE LECTURES 
 
 _ DELIVERED TO 
 
 JEWISH STUDY SOCIETY 
 
 3 
 
 5 , 
 
 DURING THE WINTER OF 1904-1905, 
 
 REV. MORRIS JOSEPH. 
 
 ISSUED BY THE SOCIETY.) 
 
 LONDON: 
 PRINTED BY WERTIIEIMER, LEA & CO., 
 
 46^47, LONDON WALL AND CLIFTON HOUSE, WORSHIP STREET. 
 1905.
 
 THE PRAYER BOOK 
 
 THREE LECTURES 
 
 DELIVERED TO 
 
 THE JEWISH STUDY SOCIETY 
 
 DURING THE WINTER OF 1904-1905, 
 
 BY THE 
 
 REV. MORRIS JOSEPH. 
 
 (ISSUED BY THE SOCIETY.) 
 
 LONDON: 
 PRINTED BY WERTHEIMER, LEA & CO., 
 
 46 & 47, LONDON WALL AND CLIFTON HOUSE, WORSHIP STREET. 
 1905.
 
 NOTE. 
 
 THESE Lectures are printed at the request of the Com- 
 mittee of the Jewish Study Society, and in compliance 
 with the desire expressed to me by individual members 
 of my audience. They pretend to offer nothing more 
 than a very slight contribution to the study of a subject 
 which is at once vast, complex and, in some of its 
 phases, obscure. But for the increased interest attaching 
 nowadays to the history of the Prayer Book, and the 
 dearth of literature upon the subject accessible to the 
 English reader, I should not have dared to court a wider 
 publicity for these Lectures than they have already 
 obtained. 
 
 I have acknowledged in the footnotes my indebted- 
 ness to the various authorities ; but I am under special 
 obligations to Baer's Abodath Yisrael. 
 
 M. J.
 
 I. 
 
 I BEGIN this evening a course of lectures on the Prayer 
 Book, regarded from the historical and the religious 
 standpoints. Such a task, I think, is likely to be of 
 interest and value. It cannot but be useful to set the 
 Prayer Book in its true historic perspective, to exhibit it 
 as the outcome of a process of evolution, and to show 
 the relation that exists between the ideas it embodies 
 and the past life of Israel. But no less needful is it to 
 bring into clearer relief the sublimity of our liturgy, and 
 sympathetically to examine its claim to remain the 
 chosen expression of Israel's prayerful yearnings at the 
 present day. It can scarcely be denied that the Prayer 
 Book fails in these times to secure all the homage and 
 reverence and love to which its intrinsic merits entitle it. 
 Some of us do not take the trouble to discover its 
 spiritual beauty ; others have lost touch ^with it. In the 
 one case the more or less unknown tongue in which the 
 Prayer Book is written stands in the way ; in the other 
 the very familiarity of the prayers, the habit of repeating 
 them week after week from childhood or youth, has 
 obscured their meaning and diminished their impressive- 
 ness. There are doubtless many persons who are 
 honourable exceptions to the rule. But that it is the 
 rule no one, who knows anything of human nature, will 
 question for a single moment. 
 
 The task, then, which I am proposing to'myself is not 
 superfluous, nor, I trust, is it likely to be without interest 
 for my hearers. There, is sufficient ardour for Jewish 
 things left us, I am sure, to make any effort welcome 
 that aims at restoring the Prayer Book, Israel's great 
 religious and historic monument, to its rightful place in 
 the affections and the spiritual life of its custodians. 
 
 But the attempt to accomplish the plan I have formed 
 will come later on. My immediate aim is to introduce 
 it by an inquiry into the nature of the Service as it was 
 
 A 2
 
 carried on in the primitive Synagogue. This will be 
 the first step towards getting the historic perspective of 
 which I have spoken. With a clear picture in our 
 minds of the broad outlines of the Synagogue worship 
 in its earliest days, we shall be in a position to measure 
 the extent of the changes which subsequent ages have 
 introduced. 
 
 To many persons it will come as a surprise to learn 
 that the Prayer Book, as we have it now, is the product 
 of centuries of growth from very smaUjbeginnings. Yet 
 many more will be astonished to -, hear that, as Schiirer 
 affirms,* the Synagogue was originallyjnot established for 
 purposes of worship, or, at any rate, for the paramount 
 purpose of worship. It was established chiefly, if not 
 solely, for the purpose of religious study, in other words, 
 for the study of the Scriptures. At some early period 
 how early we cannot now ascertain the custom arose 
 among our forefathers of meeting every Sabbath for the 
 reading of the Scriptures ; and out of this practice grew 
 that more settled and more organised institution which 
 we call the Synagogue. Josephus (first century) refers 
 the practice back even to the Mosaic age.f Philo, his 
 contemporary, does the same.J It is in accordance, he 
 says, with a custom dating from the time of Moses that 
 " even to this day the Jews hold philosophical discus- 
 sions on the seventh day, disputing about their national 
 philosophy; for, as for their houses of prayer in the 
 different cities, what are they but schools of wisdom and 
 courage, and temperance and justice, and piety and 
 holiness ? " Such passages-^ incidentally indicate the 
 important place which the study and discussion of 
 religion occupied in the primitive Synagogue. 
 
 The reading of the Scriptures was supplemented by 
 prayer. This addition was inevitable. The study of 
 
 * History of the Jewish People (Eng. ed.), II. 2, p. 54. 
 
 t Apian, II. 18 (Whiston's ed.). 
 
 j Vita Mosis, III. 27 (Bohn's ed., III., p. 119).
 
 the inspired Word was a sacred act, and the religious 
 feelings it aroused necessarily found expression in some 
 devotional utterance, more or less fixed and definitive. 
 Thus it is that there are prayers in our liturgy which 
 have a direct reference to Holy Scripture, to the duty of 
 pondering it, to the glory of obeying it. An example 
 is the familiar passage on page 39 of the Authorised 
 Daily Prayer Book* (to which edition I must be under- 
 stood as referring throughout) in which the following 
 sentences occur : "O our Father, our King, for our 
 fathers' sake, who trusted in Thee, and whom Thou 
 didst teach the statutes of life, be also gracious unto us 
 and teach us . . . . Enlighten our eyes in Thy law, 
 and let our hearts cleave to Thy commandments." And 
 the Hebrew for " law " is " Torah," which stands, at the 
 very least, for the entire body of Holy Writ. And then, 
 to cite another, though later, example, there is the lovely 
 passage on page 4, in which we beseech God to make 
 the words of His Law " pleasant in our mouths," a well- 
 spring of true and never-ending delight. 
 
 Thus, so far as the Synagogue is concerned, worship 
 was the accompaniment of the reading of the Scriptures, 
 perhaps even the consequence of it. The Synagogue 
 was primarily riDJ3n JV2, "the House of Assembly," 
 rather than n'pDnn JV2, " the House of Prayer." 
 
 At what precise date these places of assembly came 
 into existence we do not know. In Psalm Ixxiv. (v. 8) 
 we have the pious singer's bitter lament : " They have 
 set Thy Sanctuary on fire ; they have burnt up all the 
 Synagogues of God in the land" an utterance which 
 indicates that there were already Synagogues in the 
 Psalmist's time, and that they were to be found in 
 various parts of Palestine. Unfortunately, the age of 
 this Psalm, like the age of the Psalter generally, is a 
 subject of controversy. If, as some modern scholars 
 maintain, the Psalm dates from the Maccabean period, 
 
 * Edited by the Rev. S. Singer.
 
 it gives us little help. For it is generally admitted that 
 the Synagogue is almost, if not quite, as old as Ezra, 
 who is three centuries earlier than the Maccabees. 
 Some authorities claim for it a greater antiquity still. 
 In the 3Qth chapter of Jeremiah (v. 8) we read that, 
 when the Chaldeans took Jerusalem, they " burned the 
 King's house and the houses of the people (Dyn JV3) 
 with fire." The Hebrew word JV2 is in the singular, but 
 the Anglican Version, it is interesting to note, translates 
 it in the plural, "the houses of the people." What were 
 these houses ? It has been suggested* that they were 
 the Synagogues. If this interpretation be correct, then 
 there were Synagogues in Jerusalem even in the time of 
 the first Temple, always assuming, however, that the 
 passage is not an interpolation, as some modern critics 
 believe it to be.f That there were Synagogues in the 
 Capital, as well as in other parts of Palestine, during the 
 age of the Second Temple we know. There was one 
 within the precincts of the Temple itself. The Talmud 
 speaks of the rvnn rDK^, the " Hall of Hewn-stone," 
 the meeting-place of the Synhedrin, where the priests 
 assembled every morning for common prayer. But of 
 this more presently. Outside Palestine Synagogues were 
 to be found, at more or less early periods, in Alexandria, 
 Antioch, Damascus and Rome, and in many towns of 
 Babylonia and Greece. 
 
 So much, for the moment, as to the primitive Syna- 
 gogue. If we turn to the Service, we find ourselves 
 again groping in the dark. The beginnings of the 
 Prayer Book are as obscure as those of the Synagogue. 
 We consult the Talmud ; but the only light we get is 
 that furnished by a passage in the Mishnah,J which tells 
 
 * By Low, in Frankel's Monatsschrift for 1884, P- *3 seq. See 
 also Dr. Kohler's article in the same publication for 1893, p. 441. 
 t See Duhm on the passage in Marti's Hand-Commentar, 
 \ Tamid, v. ir
 
 us that at dawn every day, after the offering of the 
 morning sacrifice, the priests, accompanied by their lay- 
 helpers, betook themselves to the " Hall of Hewn-stone," 
 already mentioned, where a Service of prayer was there- 
 upon held. The description of this Service given by 
 the Mishnah is more circumstanf'al than intelligible. 
 "The Head-priest," to quote the passage, "said to them, 
 Recite one benediction, and they recited it. They then 
 read the Ten Commandments and the three paragraphs of 
 the Shemang. Next they recited three benedictions, the 
 prayer beginning with "True and firm " [on page 42], 
 the Abodah [perhaps some such passage as " Accept, 
 O Lord," on page 50] and the Priestly Blessing [on 
 P a e S3]- O n Sabbath they recited an additional bene- 
 diction for the division of the priests whose weekly 
 period of service had just closed." 
 
 There are many obscurities in this famous passage, 
 which even the Rabbins themselves could not clear up. 
 One thing, however, is certain. A tradition that a brief 
 Service of prayer, fixed in character, supplemented the 
 more ornate and imposing Service of sacrifice and song 
 in the Temple was current among the Jews in the time 
 of the Mishnah, a couple of centuries, that is to say, 
 after the Destruction. At what period this Service came 
 into existence we do not know; but probably the 
 Synagogue Service grew out of it. It is fair to assume, 
 at any rate, that, in its general character, it bore a very 
 close resemblance to the early Synagogue Service. It 
 may possibly have been shorter, abridged to suit the 
 convenience of the priests, whose ministrations were 
 needed in the Temple itself ; but it was doubtless very 
 similar to it. At an early date, then, morning prayer in 
 the Synagogue consisted of the Shemang, with its intro- 
 ductory and closing blessings, to which was added the 
 Amidah, though in a simpler version than we have it 
 now in other words, all the contents of pages 37 to 54 
 in a briefer form.
 
 8 
 
 Under what conditions the Synagogue Service came 
 into existence we can conjecture, however dimly. Dr. 
 Kohler * has hazarded the assertion that " strictly 
 speaking, Israel first learnt to pray in exile." In earlier 
 times, he says, their priests and prophets prayed for 
 them. But, dismissing the point thus raised, and also 
 the further question whether organised meetings for 
 prayer preceded the Babylonian Captivity or not, there 
 can be no doubt that the Exile gave an important im- 
 pulse to the religious movement, of which the Synagogue 
 was one of the consequences. The ruined Temple, 
 whose memory was indelibly engraved upon the hearts of 
 the pious captives, was a living voice urging them to 
 establish some semblance of its worship, however faint 
 and inadequate, in the land of their banishment. But 
 to this influence there was added the thought of the 
 Exile itself and of the causes that had produced its 
 sorrows and humiliations. The captive people knew 
 themselves for sinners, and would necessarily have 
 sought in prayer to reconcile themselves with the God 
 from whom they had fallen away. Finally, and closely 
 connected with this last influence, was the growing im- 
 portance of religious study. Heedlessness of the Holy 
 Law had been Israel's bane ; in reverence for the Law 
 lay the antidote. This new famine and thirst for hearing 
 the words of the Lord, powerfully served, as I have 
 already said, the cause of public worship. Meetings 
 for religious study were eagerly seized upon as oppor- 
 tunities also for prayer. What Ezra achieved in Palestine 
 after the Return must have been attempted by his 
 devout companions in Babylonia. The Synagogue was, 
 to say the very least, the foster-child of the Captivity. 
 
 If we seek for the first authors of the Prayer Book, it is 
 doubtless to the great men of the Exilic age that we must 
 look. Prayerful worship there must have been among 
 
 * In the article in the Monatsschrifc already cited, p. 442.
 
 the Israelites in the ages previous to the Captivity; but 
 for even the rudiment of a Prayer Book we must wait 
 until the Captivity itself or the period immediately 
 subsequent to it. The new spiritual awakening which 
 called into being the Sopherim, the Scribes of the Law, 
 of whom Ezra is the typical representative, probably laid 
 the foundations of a liturgy, however simple and rudi- 
 mentary. Its authors Kohler* identifies with " the 
 Chassidim or Anam'm, the pious servants of the Lord, 
 who first had the courage to cry nnx imx 'n nntf 
 ' Thou. O Lord, art our Father' (Isaiah Ixiii. 16, in oppo- 
 sition, that is, to the popular conception of the Supreme 
 as a stern and inaccessible judge). In this group of 
 men, to whom we owe the greater part of the Psalms, 
 the chapters of comfort in Isaiah, and many additions to 
 the Prophetic literature generally, and from whom the 
 various books of the Bible received their present shape, 
 we must seek for the authors of the Synagogue liturgy." 
 These men were intensely religious souls, athirst for the 
 living God ; they were mystics, in the best sense of the 
 word. And it is the mystics in various ages who have 
 done most to make the Prayer Book what it is.f 
 
 But we are chiefly concerned, for the time being, with 
 the beginnings of the liturgy. Three times a day 
 the pious Israelite was accustomed to seek God in 
 prayer. The Psalmist, in Psalm Iv. (v. 17), exclaims 
 " Evening and morning and at noon-day will I prayer- 
 fully commune, and God will hear my voice " ; and 
 Daniel, as we know, conformed to the custom which 
 seems here to be indicated.^ On hearing of the royal 
 interdict, forbidding prayer to God, Daniel, we read, 
 "went into his house and kneeled upon his knees three 
 times a day, and prayed, and gave thanks before his 
 
 * Ibid p. 443. 
 
 f See Dr. P. Bloch's articles on the H331O mr in the same 
 publication for 1893. 
 Dan. vi. lo.
 
 IO 
 
 God, as he did aforetime." The three daily Services of 
 the Synagogue, the Morning, Afternoon and Evening 
 Services, have perpetuated this usage. Their origin is- 
 ancient, ancient enough to have set the Talmudic 
 doctors disputing about it.* According to one view the 
 three Services were instituted to correspond with the 
 daily sacrifices in the Temple, the Morning Service with 
 the sacrifice of the morning, the Afternoon Service with 
 the sacrifice of the evening. But what of the Evening 
 Service ? That, the Sages frankly confessed, they could 
 not account for. But one Rabbi scouted such ignorance,. 
 or poverty of invention. The Evening Service, he said, 
 was intended to correspond with the act of burning the 
 remnants of the sacrificial victims, which took place 
 every night on the altar of the Temple. According to 
 another opinion the three Services were instituted 
 severally by the three patriarchs, Abraham, Isaac and 
 Jacob a purely fanciful conjecture, of course. Accord- 
 ing to yet another theory the three Services correspond 
 with the three natural divisions of the day : morning,, 
 which chases away the darkness ; afternoon, when the 
 sun's rays are most powerful ; evening, when the dark- 
 ness has come again In the morning, continues the 
 author of this explanation, a man should pray, " I offer 
 homage to Thee, O God, because thou hast brought me 
 out from darkness to light " ; in the afternoon he should 
 say, " I offer homage to Thee, and pray that, as I have 
 seen the sun in the East, so I may be deemed worthy to 
 see it in the West " ; in the evening he should say, 
 " May it be Thy will, O God, that Thou bring me out 
 once more from darkness to light."t 
 
 * Jer. Berachoth, iv. I. 
 
 f Does the prominence given to the light of the sun in these 
 utterances point to the influence of Persian religious thought ? Were 
 these brief prayers partly the suggestion of Mazdaism, with its deifi- 
 cation of the light, and partly since God is thanked for the light 
 a protest against it ? If so, then it would seem that there is some- 
 thing to be said for the theory (see Kohler's article, already cited >
 
 11 
 
 Thus from a very early period the faithful seem to 
 have assembled in the Synagogue for worship thrice 
 every day. Hence the three Services those for the 
 morning, the afternoon and the evening of the modern 
 Synagogue. A fourth, the Additional Service, was intro- 
 duced on Sabbaths and Festivals after the Fall of the 
 Temple, in memory of the additional sacrifices formerly 
 offered in the Sanctuary on those occasions. It was, as 
 the Talmud itself acknowledges, of minor importance.* 
 
 Of the Morning and Evening Services the central 
 element was the Shemang, in the three paragraphs of 
 which it now consists. Its daily recital is of very 
 ancient origin. Josephus goes as far as to assign it to 
 the Mosaic era. The importance ascribed to the 
 Shemang, which is not a prayer, but a Biblical passage 
 selected for meditation, seems to bear out what I have 
 already said as to the promotion of Scriptural study being 
 one of the original functions of the Synagogue, if not the 
 only one.f That just the Shemang should have been 
 the portion of Scripture chosen for daily meditation is 
 explained by its highly impressive character. It is first 
 and chiefly a proclamation of the Divine Unity, the 
 fundamental dogma of Israel's religion. But it sets 
 forth other great conceptions too : the need of a whole- 
 hearted, a loving service of God, the duty of religiously 
 training the young, the twin truth of human responsibility 
 and Divine requital, the importance both of inward 
 religion and of sacred symbols by which to express and 
 to vivify it.J 
 
 that would assign a Persian origin to the old Jewish practice of 
 worshipping three time-; a day a theory, in other words, that 
 would discern in that practice no reminiscence of the Temple 
 Service, but a consequence of the impact of their surroundings 
 upon the Jews of the Captivity. 
 
 * Berachoth, 30, a ; see also Zunz, Ritus, p. 2. 
 
 t See M. Friedmann's note on the Siphre to Deut. vi. 4. 
 
 \ According to the Rabbins the Shemang contains the Ten 
 Commandments (Jer. Berachoth, i. 8), and even epitomises the 
 whole of the Torah (Siphre to Numbers xv. 39). He who recites 
 the Shemang daily acquits himself of the duty of studying the Torah. 
 (Menachoth, 99, b .)
 
 12 
 
 The recital of the Shemang was introduced by two 
 blessings : that for the light, on page 37, and that 
 beginning with the words "With abounding love," on 
 page 39. It closed with a single benediction : that 
 beginning "True and firm," on page 42. This was the 
 practice at Morning Prayer. At the Evening Service 
 the Shemang was preceded and followed by two blessings 
 in each case : those on page 96 and those on pages 99 
 and TOO.* 
 
 The second ingredient of the Service was the series of 
 benedictions known as the Amidah, i.e., the prayer said 
 "standing," one form of which you will find on page 44 
 and the pages that follow. This was the one strictly 
 prayerful constituent of the ancient Synagogue worship, 
 and was called tephillah, "the prayer" par excellence. It 
 formed part of every Service. I shall have more to say 
 about this compilation later on. But I may add that 
 while, in its present form, it probably dates from about 
 the time of the destruction of the Temple, 1,800 years 
 ago, its origin is much more ancient. 
 
 These were the very simple constituents of the Daily 
 Service in the early Talmudic age. They were supple- 
 mented on Sabbaths, Festivals and Fast-days, and also 
 on Mondays and Thursdays, which were market-days 
 and days on which justice was administered, by public 
 readings from 'the Pentateuch. The original practice 
 probably was to select passages for recital which, by 
 reason of their subject-matter, were deemed appropriate 
 to the occasion. The custom of reading the Pentateuch 
 throughout in consecutive portions Sabbath after Sabbath 
 would appear to be of later origin. The readings still in 
 use on New Moon, the Festivals and Fast-days are a 
 
 * The blessings " With abounding love" (page 39) and "With 
 everlasting love" (page 96), being thanksgivings for the Law, are 
 probably the oldest. M. Friedmann thinks that they were 
 respectively said on entering the house of study in the morning and 
 on leaving it in the evening. See his note to the Siphre to 
 Deut. vi. 4.
 
 '3 
 
 survival of the earlier practice. When the modern cus- 
 tom of reading the Pentateuch throughout, Sabbath by 
 Sabbath, came into vogue, the arrangement was so con- 
 trived as to complete the reading of the five Books, from 
 Genesis to Deuteronomy, in three years. The practice 
 of finishing the reading in one year is of later date 
 and took its rise outside Palestine.* On Sabbaths and 
 Festivals passages from the Prophets were also read. 
 There was no complete reading of the Prophets. Certain 
 selections were assigned to the various Sabbaths, the 
 subject of which bore some resemblance to that of the 
 Pentateuchal portion for the day. The sermon, based 
 on some passage of the Scriptural lesson, formed the 
 final constituent of the Service. The homiletical collec- 
 tions known as the Midrashim owe their origin, in part, 
 to the discourses thus delivered. 
 
 The language of the prayers, it need hardly be said, 
 was Hebrew. But the Law and the Prophets were trans- 
 lated and paraphrased into Aramaic, the vernacular, for 
 the edification of the people. This exposition, which was 
 delegated to a person known as the meturgeman, a word 
 akin to the Turkish "dragoman," was interpolated as a sort 
 of running commentary into the reading of the Scriptures. 
 In the case of the Pentateuch it followed each verse ; in 
 the case of the Prophets it was introduced after each 
 third verse. 
 
 But the needs of the unlettered worshipper received 
 recognition in another direction also. The use of the 
 vernacular was extended from the Scriptural readings to 
 the prayers themselves. It was not long before certain 
 passages of an impressive character were added to the 
 Service, framed in the language of the people. One of 
 them was the Kaddish (page 77) ; another was the prayer 
 for the congregation (page 152). Of the Kaddish I shall 
 speak at length before I close. Meanwhile you will have 
 
 * A two-year cycle and a three-and-a-half-year cycle are also 
 mentioned.
 
 14 
 
 gathered the important fact that the Synagogue Service, 
 in its earliest shape, was of a very simple character. If 
 the statutory Morning Prayer, for example, as it existed 
 i ,800 years ago, were printed separately, it would fill only 
 about a dozen pages, as compared with the fifty pages to 
 which the orthodox daily Morning Service now extends, 
 and even in that brief form it had already received 
 additions. The extent to which the Prayer Book has 
 grown during the interval could not, I think, be indicated 
 in more striking fashion. 
 
 It would be a mistake, however, to suppose that the 
 morning devotions of the Israelite, even in the early 
 Talmudic period, were confined within the limits of the 
 Service thus outlined. That Service comprised only the 
 obligatory prayers. Every Jew was bound daily to recite 
 the Shemang, with its accompanying blessings, and the 
 Amidah. But he could, if he chose, add other prayers 
 to them. And that he should desire to do so was only 
 natural. The statutory Service would often fail to 
 express all the message of his heart to God. He would 
 have from time to time some special petition to offer 
 that was suggested by his own individual needs ; or he 
 would wish to utter his thanks for some signal mercy 
 that had come to gladden his personal life. And to 
 such a desire he would give effect either in some simple 
 prayer of his own making or in the repetition of some 
 passage from Holy Writ, from the Psalms especially, 
 which translated more or less faithfully the emotions that 
 dominated his soul for the time being. 
 
 There seems reason to believe that the interval 
 between the first three and the last three blessings of the 
 Amidah was originally reserved as a space in which to 
 introduce these private and spontaneous supplications.* 
 It was only later that the space was filled up with stereo- 
 typed prayers. And if you examine old-fashioned edi- 
 
 * Zunz, Gottesdienstlichc Vortrdge (and ed.), p. 381.
 
 tions of the existing Prayer Book, you will find that, in 
 this central part of the Amidah a fixed place is indicated 
 the paragraph " Hear our voice " on page 49 at 
 which private prayers may still be introduced at the will 
 of the worshipper. 
 
 That the worshipper in olden times did supplement 
 his devotions in the Synagogue with voluntary prayer is 
 historically certain. The Talmud has preserved some 
 of these utterances prayers which were deemed worthy 
 of being enshrined in its pages by reason partly of their 
 devotional beauty and partly of the eminence of the 
 men who composed them. Thus one Rabbi, we are told, 
 closed his worship in the synagogue with these words : 
 " May it be Thy will, O God, that love and peace and 
 brotherliness dwell among us ! May our hope of Heaven 
 be fulfilled ! Grant that the good inclination may uphold 
 us. Fill us with the desire to fear Thy name, and do 
 Thou give us our soul's peace, Amen."* Another offered 
 this prayer : " May it be Thy will, O God, that no hatred 
 of us enter the heart of any man, and that hatred of no 
 man enter our hearts. May Thy law be our occupation 
 all the days of our lives, and do Thou accept our prayers 
 in grace and mercy."f Yet another prayed as follows : 
 " Unite our hearts, O God, to fear Thy name ; keep us 
 far from what Thou hatest ; bring us near to what Thou 
 lovest ; and deal mercifully with us for Thy name's 
 sake."! Yet another offered this prayer : " May it be 
 Thy will, O God, that we return unto Thee in perfect 
 penitence, so that we may not be ashamed to meet our 
 fathers in the life to come." One Rabbi prayed for 
 light, that is for spiritual light ; another to be delivered 
 from evil companions.|| Another offered this prayer : 
 
 * Berachoth, \6, b. 
 
 f Jer. Berachoth, iv. 2. 
 
 I Ibid. 
 
 Ibid. 
 
 || Berachoth, 17, a; 16, 6.
 
 i6 
 
 " O God, before I was created I was nought, and now 
 that I am created I am nought also. In life I am but 
 dust, how much more, then, shall I be dust in death ! 
 Lo, I am full of shame and confusion in Thy presence. 
 Help me, O God, to sin no more."* Finally we have 
 this prayer : " O God, keep my tongue from evil, and 
 my lips from speaking deceit, and to all those who curse 
 me let my soul be silent and lowly as is the dust. Open 
 my heart to Thy law, and let my soul pursue after Thy 
 commandments. And as to those who devise evil 
 against me, do Thou speedily bring their designs to 
 nought and their plans to confusion. May the words of 
 my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable 
 unto Thee, O Lord, my Rock and my Redeemer."! 
 
 This last prayer is familiar to you all, for, like the one 
 I quoted immediately before it, it forms part of our 
 existing liturgy. My citation of it, then, will have at once 
 suggested to you one answer to the question, How did 
 the Synagogue Service grow out of its simple beginnings 
 into the vast and complex fabric it eventually became ? 
 In process of time, as the result of causes which I shall 
 presently indicate, it was found necessary to enlarge the 
 liturgy, and these private prayers were among the first 
 materials which were utilised for the purpose. But other 
 materials were also employed. At an early period certain 
 fixed prayers were composed for use in the home. The 
 Talmud contains examples of them, and specifies the 
 occasions on which they are to be recited. It directs, 
 for example, that on waking from sleep the Israelite is to 
 offer the following benediction : " Blessed art Thou, 
 O Lord, who givest life to the dead."| This brief 
 utterance is elsewhere in the Talmud expanded into the 
 following prayer : " O God, the soul that Thou hast set 
 
 * Berachoth, 17, a. 
 f Ibid. 
 
 j Jer. Berachoth, iv. 2. 
 Berachoth, 60, b.
 
 I? 
 
 in me is pure. Thou hast formed it, Thou hast breathed 
 it into me, and Thou wilt take it from me, and restore it 
 to me in time to come. As long as it dwells within me 
 I will give homage to Thee, O God of my fathers, Lord 
 of the universe, Master of all spirits. Blessed art Thou, 
 O Lord, who givest back the souls to the bodies of the 
 dead." This prayer the Israelite is to repeat immediately 
 on waking. Then, on opening his eyes, he is to say 
 " Blessed art Thou, O Lord, who makest the blind to 
 see " ; when he rises he is to say " Blessed art Thou, who 
 loosest them that are bound"; when he puts on his 
 garments, " Blessed art Thou, who clothest the naked " ; 
 and so forth. And then he is to offer up this prayer : 
 " May it be Thy will, O Lord, that I walk in Thy 
 law and cleave to Thy commandments. Lead me not 
 into sin or temptation or shame. Let not evil desire 
 rule over me. Bend my will to Thine. Help me to 
 cling to the good, and give me grace in Thy sight and 
 in the sight of those about me, Amen."* 
 
 All these prayers, too, as you know, have been woven 
 into the liturgy. You will find them on pages 5, 6 and 7. 
 But originally they were exclusively home-prayers, to 
 be offered up in the privacy of one's chamber, and 
 intended to accompany and to hallow some of the most 
 familiar incidents of the personal life. 
 
 Passages from the Psalter must likewise have been 
 introduced into the Service at an early date, without 
 however being included at first among its obligatory 
 elements.f The Psalms, as we know, played an 
 important part in the worship of the Second Temple, 
 and this fact would suffice to account for their introduc- 
 tion into the Synagogue Service. In the Temple a 
 special Psalm was assigned to each day of the week,| 
 and identically the same arrangement still obtains in 
 
 * Ibid. 
 
 t Weiss. Javish Tradition (Wilna ed., 1904), I., p. 62. 
 
 j Mishnab, Tamid, end. 
 
 B
 
 i8 
 
 Jewish places of worship.* But the Psalter was placed 
 under larger contribution still. At some period, the 
 date of which cannot be determined, the practice grew up 
 of prefacing the statutory Service with readings from the 
 Psalms. It was able to appeal to the saying of the 
 Rabbins : " First offer praise to God, and then prefer 
 thy requests."! The practice has been stereotyped in 
 the addition to the Morning Prayer of the collection of 
 Psalms known as the K1DH 'pIDS, "Verses of Song," 
 printed between pages 16 and 33 of your Prayer Books. 
 But the selection was by no means fixed ; each community 
 made one for itself.^ At a probably later date further 
 Psalms were added to the Service, Psalm vi., for example, 
 which you will find on page 62, a repetition of Psalm 
 cxlv., on page 72, and Psalm xx. on page 73. 
 
 Two other sources which were laid under contribution 
 in the expansion of the Prayer Book have still to be 
 mentioned. I allude to the prayers improvised by the 
 Reader, and the more carefully wrought compositions of 
 the poets. Intended only to serve a temporary purpose, 
 and possessing chiefly only a personal character, the 
 devotional utterances of the Reader, or rather a selection 
 from them, came, in course of time, to be incorporated 
 into the liturgy. But the additions derived from this 
 source were few and insignificant compared with the 
 poetical compositions which, some two hundred years after 
 the close of the Talmud, that is to say, during the seventh 
 century, began to pour into the Prayer Book with ever- 
 increasing volume. These compositions, which form a 
 vast literature by themselves, are known as piyutim, and 
 their authors as poetanim. Some of these poems found 
 their way into the Sabbath Service ; but the great 
 majority of them went to swell the bulk of the liturgies 
 
 * Authorised Daily Prayer Book, page 80 seq . 
 f Berachoth, 32, a. 
 
 J The last six Psalms (cxlv.-cl.) became the favourites at an early 
 date. See Maimonides, Hik. Tphillah, vii. 12.
 
 19 
 
 for the Festivals. And though many of the most eminent 
 Rabbis expressly condemned them, they kept their place 
 in the Service for many centuries. It is only in recent 
 years that any serious and successful attempt has been 
 made to dislodge them. 
 
 These, then, are the chief sources which have fur- 
 nished the additions made to the Prayer Book since its 
 earliest days. If we ask what were the causes that 
 necessitated such additions, the answer is not difficult to 
 find. The first was the fall of the Temple. The dis- 
 appearance of the great national religious centre inevitably 
 modified the position and functions of the Synagogue. 
 It became the sole rallying-point of the religious life of 
 the community, "the banner," as Zunz says,* "of Jewish 
 nationality and the shield of the Jewish religion, "and the 
 character of its Services necessarily reflected the in- 
 creased importance, the heightened dignity, which it 
 thus attained. Moreover, with the fall of the Temple 
 began the age of dispersion and persecution. In a 
 strange land and amid a hostile population, the Jew 
 clung more tenaciously than ever to his House of Prayer. 
 In it he poured out his soul in lament for his sorrows, 
 and in longings for happier times. New devotional 
 utterances were needed to express the sentiments born 
 of new and sadder conditions. Prayer was the Israelite's 
 great need in his hour of agony. But it was not his only 
 need. He wanted a moral, almost a physical, refuge and 
 stronghold, and he found it in the House of God.f 
 The Synagogue reverted, in a measure, to its ancient 
 position, and became the meeting house, where the 
 
 * Gottesdienstliche Vortrdge (2nd ed.), p. I. 
 
 f "Our refuge hast Thou been in all generations," so the 
 Psalmist cries, and a Rabbi, expounding the words, says that they 
 are an allusion to the Synagogue and the house of study. (Megillah, 
 29, fl ; Jer. Berachoth, 5. i). Another Sage, quoting the words of 
 Canticles, " I am come into my garden," applies them to the House 
 of Prayer, the Israelite's Paradise, the unfailing wellspring of solace 
 and joy. (Midrash Kabbah on the passage). 
 
 B 2
 
 20 
 
 congregation would assemble to draw support in their 
 troubles not only from the inspired Word, but also from 
 the heartening influences of association and fellowship. 
 
 It was under these circumstances that the Prayer Book 
 grew, and continued to grow. Prayer, and the conse- 
 crated House which formed its scene, were the Jew's 
 sole consolation in his affliction ; they alone availed to 
 disperse some of the gloom that shrouded his life. 
 No wonder that he made the most of them, that he 
 loved the Synagogue, and welcomed every device for 
 elaborating its worship, every expedient that kept him in 
 its peace-laden atmosphere. It is such conditions which 
 have fashioned the life-story of the Prayer Book. The 
 Jewish liturgy has been fed and nourished by them. If 
 it has grown to abnormal proportions, it is because all 
 the emotions of Israel's soul, all the travail of Israel's 
 life, have gone to the making of it. Its history is the 
 history of the Jew.
 
 21 
 
 II. 
 
 REFERENCE has been made to the piyutim. It is 
 desirable, however, to speak of them at greater length. 
 A literature in themselves, they have had a whole 
 literature written about them. The subject of heated 
 discussion in our day, they were the theme of con- 
 troversy no less fierce in ancient times. These 
 piyutim were frankly recognised and treated as in- 
 formal additions to the Service, and consequently 
 did not, at first, take their place among its necessary 
 constituents. But in course of time they came to be 
 regarded in a different light, and virtually to be treated 
 as essentials. It is only a few years ago, for example, 
 that a somewhat acrimonious dispute arose among the 
 congregation of an important Synagogue in the West 
 End of London, because by direction of the wardens, 
 the recital of the piyutim had been eliminated from the 
 Evening Service on the Festivals. And, as a matter 
 of fact, passages which have all the characteristics of 
 piyutim, both good and bad, have been actually in- 
 corporated into the statutory Service, and are accord- 
 ingly printed among the obligatory portions of it in the 
 Daily Prayer Book. An example is the paragraph 
 beginning, "God, the Lord over all works," on page 
 129 of your Prayer Books, which, though not a 
 rhymed composition, is piyut all the same. 
 
 Now, there were piyutim to which no reasonable 
 exception could be taken, but which, on the contrary, 
 could only enhance the literary and the devotional 
 value of the liturgy. The poems of Solomon ibn 
 Gebirol, of Jehudah Halevi, of the Ibn Ezras, are 
 examples. And here, by way of illustration, let me 
 quote just a fragment of Mrs. Henry Lucas's fine 
 paraphrase of one of Jehudah Halevi's piyutim
 
 22 
 
 
 
 that to which she has given the title of " The Heart's 
 Desire ": 
 
 Lord ! unto Thee are ever manifest 
 
 My inmost heart's desires, though unexpress'd 
 
 In spoken words. Thy mercy I implore 
 
 Even for a moment then to die were bless'd. 
 
 * * * * 
 
 Afar from Thee in midst of life I die, 
 
 And life in death I find when Thou art nigh. 
 Alas, I know not how to seek Thy face, 
 
 Nor how to serve and worship Thee, most High. 
 O lead me in Thy path, and turn again 
 
 My heart's captivity, and break in twain 
 The yoke of folly : teach me to afflict 
 
 My soul, the while I yet life's strength retain. 
 
 * # * * 
 
 The world is too much with me, and its din 
 Prevents my search eternal peace to win. 
 
 How can I serve my Maker when my heart 
 Is passion's captive, is a slave to sin? 
 
 * * * * 
 
 What more can I allege ? From youth to age 
 
 Passion pursues me still at every stage. 
 If Thou art not my portion, what is mine? 
 
 Lacking Thy favour, what my heritage ? 
 Bare of good deeds, scorched by temptation's fire, 
 
 Yet to Thy mercy dares my soul aspire : 
 But wherefore speech prolong, since unto Thee, 
 
 O Lord, is manifest my heart's desire ?* 
 
 If all the piyutim had equalled or approached this 
 specimen in merit, literary and devotional, and if they 
 had been discreetly introduced into- the Service, their 
 place in the Prayer Book would probably never have 
 been seriously contested- But such, unfortunately, 
 was not the case. For more than six hundred years, 
 from the end of the seventh century to the end of the 
 thirteenth, an almost indiscriminate process of over- 
 loading the liturgy with these compositions went on. 
 Poems, good, bad and indifferent, were thrown at 
 random into the Prayer Book, to the discontent of 
 some persons, to the delight of many. Great Rabbis, 
 some of them poets themselves, loudly condemned 
 them. The piyutim, they pointed out, sinned in 
 * The Jewish Year, p. 153, seq.
 
 23 
 
 various ways. They, destroyed the ancient simplicity 
 of the Service, they broke its continuity, they pro- 
 longed its duration. Their theology was bad and 
 their Hebrew worse; their very rhyme was an 
 innovation, and therefore objectionable; it was bor- 
 rowed from the Christian or the Moslem, and was 
 therefore anathema. Among those who denounced 
 rhyme, and metre too, or outlandish rhyme and 
 metre, was, strange to say, Jehudah Halevi, himself a 
 poet and a rhymer. The defenders of the piyutim are 
 said to have seized upon the inconsistency, and to 
 have used it as an argument. The dough, they 
 ironically said, must be bad indeed if the baker calls 
 it so. But the anti-piyutists stuck to their guns. No 
 epithet was too hard to hurl at the piyutim. Ibn 
 Ezra summed up all the accusations of his side when 
 he declared that the piyutim were everything that 
 prayers should not be. But all this thunder failed 
 of its effect. The people loved the piyutim, and 
 ignored the Rabbis. For once the ecclesiastical writ 
 did not run. The piyutim kept their place in the 
 liturgy, and it is only in recent years, as I have said, 
 that a really successful attempt has been made to 
 remove them.* 
 
 If the names of Jehudah Halevi and Ibn Gebirol 
 are inseparably associated with the better order of 
 synagogue poets, Eleazar Kaliri is the typical repre- 
 sentative of the other school. " Of him and his 
 methods Graetzt writes as follows : " His style is clumsy 
 and obscure. He wrote more than a hundred 
 and fifty liturgical poems, few of any poetical 
 value, none of any beauty. His aim was to 
 put into rhymed verse a great deal of the 
 Agadic (i.e., the homiletical) literature of the Rabbins. 
 
 * For some of the facts set forth in this part of the lecture the 
 writer is indebted to the excellent article entitled " Liturgische 
 Poesie " in Hamburger's Real-Encyclopddie. 
 
 f Geschichte der fuden, v. 159.
 
 24 
 
 He had also to make his verses begin alphabetically 
 and to stamp his name upon each poem in acrostic 
 form. To overcome the difficulties which thus con- 
 fronted him he was forced to do violence to the 
 Hebrew tongue, to defy the convention which assigns to 
 words a definite meaning, and to invent a phraseology 
 never heard of before. In place of graphic word- 
 pictures, he gives us dark riddles, which it needs a 
 profound knowledge of the Midrashic literature to 
 solve. Nevertheless, Kaliri's poetic effusions forced 
 their way into the liturgies of the Babylonian, the 
 Italian, the German and the French communities. 
 The Spanish Jews, with their fine literary perceptions, 
 refused to adopt them. Kaliri was acclaimed the 
 master builder of the poetanic literature, and legend 
 has shed a halo about his name." 
 
 From his description of the piyutim of Kaliri and 
 his school, Graetz has omitted one important detail. 
 He makes no reference to their Cabalistical character. 
 This attribute has contributed more largely than any 
 other to make them the despair of the translator. 
 Heidenheim, Sachs and Steinschneider, all alike have 
 shrunk from the attempt to render these effusions 
 intelligible to the modern reader, and the translator 
 of the edition of the Festival Prayer Book generally 
 in use. in this country I mean the late Rev. D. A. De 
 Sola was constrained to do the same. Those who 
 are accustomed to that edition know how they are 
 pulled up from time to time by such headings as : 
 " The translation of the following poem is by David 
 Levi. " Wherever these notes occur, the Hebrew 
 original has been too much for the translator, and he 
 has had to fall back upon poor old David Levi, the 
 learned hatter, whose qualification for the role of 
 translator in these instances was not knowledge, but 
 courage. It is no disparagement of this remarkable 
 man to say this; for the most gifted scholar cannot
 
 25 
 
 translate what is not translatable. As a specimen, 
 let me give this short extract from a poem by Kaliri, 
 which forms part of the Additional Service for trie 
 New Year Festival according to the German rite : 
 
 The sole of the feet of the living creatures is twenty-seven 
 millions three hundred and seventy-five thousand miles straight to 
 the throne. When they are permitted to glorify the Supreme they 
 leap from beneath the throne. ... It appears as if they carried, 
 though they are borne by, the throne. . . . When Israel's prayer 
 ascends they drop the wing that it may reach the throne ; but 
 when transgressions are many they join the wing to prevent the 
 accusers approaching the throne. . . . O, Thou Almighty Judge, 
 be pleased not to sit on the throne in the porch, but turn to the 
 likeness of the Perfect Man that is engraven on the throne ; the 
 four living creatures, who bear and are borne by the throne, 
 supplicate the Lord not to destroy the throne for its own sake ; 
 even the throne opens its mouth and prays, saying : " Remember 
 the beautiful plants which are with Thee near the throne."* 
 
 All this doubtless meant something definite to the 
 author Kaliri ; but to most of the worshippers of his 
 time it could have meant little or nothing. For the 
 modern mind it certainly means nothing, and it is not 
 surprising, therefore, that this particular poem, with 
 others of the same kind, has been struck out of the 
 Service in many of the London synagogues. What is 
 surprising is that such compositions should ever have 
 found a place in the Prayer Book at all, or that having 
 found a place, should have kept it for so many cen- 
 turies. For, as Mr. De Sola points out; these Cabalis- 
 tical poems sin against the Rabbinical canon which 
 forbids, especially to the uninitiated, all theosophical 
 speculations. Moreover, this particular poem, in 
 common with others, placed where it is, breaks the 
 ccntinuity of the first part of the Amidah, and thus 
 violates a second Rabbinical regulation. The 
 religious authorities did not fail to press home these 
 objections. But their representations, as I have said, 
 went unheeded. The piyutim triumphed, for the 
 people would have it so. 
 
 * The Festival Prayers, edited by the Rev. D. A. De Sola, 
 Vol. III., p. 193 seq.
 
 26 
 
 If we ask for the secret of this long continued 
 popularity, the answer is ready to our hand. The 
 Synagogue, as I have already explained, was the 
 one place of resort for the medieval Jew. Within 
 its walls he took sanctuary from the troubles and the 
 perils that threatened him outside. Every device, 
 then, that lengthened the Service was welcome to him, 
 for it kept him all the longer in his haven of refuge. 
 But the piyutim had another feature to recommend 
 them. For centuries a personage had been slowly 
 evolving who was destined to play an important 
 part in the history of the Prayer Book. That per- 
 sonage was the Reader, by this time known as the 
 Chazan. At first only a member of the congregation, 
 temporarily selected to lead its prayers, and resuming 
 his place in its ranks when he had discharged his 
 sacred function for the time being, the Reader eventu- 
 ally became a recognised officer of the Synagogue. 
 Among the causes that led to this change was the 
 decline in the general knowledge of Hebrew. As 
 the difficulty of finding members of the congregation, 
 capable of leading public worship, increased, the 
 need of an official and permanent Reader grew more 
 imperious. Thus the Chazan, as we know him now, 
 came into being, and with him what is known as 
 Chazanuth, the characteristic mode of intoning the 
 prayers still in vogue in most Jewish places of wor- 
 ship. It was this Chazanuth which did more, perhaps, 
 than anything else to make the popularity of the 
 piyutim. 
 
 Picture to yourselves the dreary life of the mediaeval 
 Jew, shut up in his ghetto, denied Gentile fellowship, 
 cut off from nearly all worldly pleasures, with a great 
 dread ever in his heart the dread of outrage and 
 death. How gladly would he avail himself of any 
 resource that promised him a little brightness, a little
 
 27 
 
 relief. How eagerly, for example, would he turn for 
 solace to music. And the Synagogue offered him 
 that kind of solace. The piyutim might be as black 
 as they were painted, but they were sung, and that 
 was everything. The sweeter the Reader's voice, the 
 more popular became the Service and the longer.* 
 In fact, the Chazan was free to do pretty well what he 
 liked with the Service. The congregants, without 
 Prayer Books, or without the ability to read them, 
 merely listened while he prayed. And so he added 
 new prayers on his own responsibility, sometimes 
 because he thought them good, always because they 
 gave him an opportunity for singing. Thus the 
 Chazan triumphed over the Rabbi in the fullest sense 
 of the word. Not only did he set at nought the pro- 
 tests of the Rabbinate, but he disputed with it for 
 popular favour. The pulpit, which had already lost 
 much of its old power, now had a formidable rival, 
 against which it could make but a feeble stand. It 
 had to give way to the art of the Reader. Chazanuth 
 dethroned preaching. 
 
 I have dwelt upon the story of the piyutim because 
 it is a typical example of the conditions which have 
 made for the expansion of the Prayer Book. Here we 
 see an important addition being made to the Service 
 as a satisfaction, not merely of the religious needs 
 of the people, but of their longing for some relief from 
 the monotony and the misery of their daily lives. It 
 is under similar conditions that the liturgy has grown 
 throughout. More or less accidental and transitory 
 circumstances have helped to determine its character. 
 And when those circumstances have entirely passed 
 away we find the prayers to which they had given 
 
 * Zunz (Ritus, p. 70) tells us that at one time the singing of the 
 short prayer Baruch Sheamar (page 1 6) in the Synagogue of 
 Regensburg lasted a full hour on Sabbath mornings.
 
 28 
 
 birth still retaining their hold upon the affections of 
 the worshipper. 
 
 One of the most striking examples is to be found 
 on page 151 of your Prayer Books. I allude to the 
 prayer beginning with the words " May 'salvation 
 from Heaven." This is a prayer for the well being 
 of the men of light and leading in Israel ; and among 
 them " the Rabbins of the holy community in the land 
 of Babylon " are specifically mentioned. When this 
 prayer was composed there were important congrega- 
 tions in Babylonia, and it was meet and proper to in- 
 voke a benediction upon their religious guides. But 
 to-day these congregations have long since disap- 
 peared, and yet the prayer is still retained in the 
 liturgy, and, what is still more curious, in the Service, 
 with its ancient wording intact. Having found its 
 way into the Prayer Book in this form, it seems to have 
 acquired a prescriptive right to keep its place in it 
 unchanged. It is a strange anachronism, to say the 
 very least. 
 
 Now turn over-leaf and look at page 152. Here 
 you have another illustration, though of a somewhat 
 different kind. If you read the first paragraph on 
 that page, you will see that it is a prayer for the 
 congregation. If you look at the second paragraph 
 you will see that it is also a prayer for the congrega- 
 tion. One surely is superfluous. Why have both 
 been retained? Only because, composed at different 
 times and in different places, they have somehow got 
 into the Prayer Book, and having got there, have 
 stayed there. In olden days the congregation, know- 
 ing of one prayer only, was satisfied with it. In later 
 times, when it had come to know of both prayers, it 
 insisted upon having both. 
 
 Yet another example you will find at the bottom of 
 page 65 and the top of page 66. The two paragraphs
 
 2 9 
 
 beginning "O God, slow to anger" are virtually 
 identical, and therefore tautological. They are 
 evidently variants of the same prayer, and in many 
 modern editions of the Prayer Book the first bears the 
 heading : " According to the Custom in Germany and 
 Little Poland," the second the heading, "In Great 
 Poland they say this also." It would appear that, at 
 an early date, it was the practice to use both versions 
 in some Synagogues, one being said by the Reader, 
 the other by the congregation. But in Great Poland 
 they are more punctilious still, for both paragraphs 
 are recited by Reader and congregants alike. We in 
 London, not to be outdone by Great Poland, follow 
 the same usage, and thus, in the Authorised Prayer 
 Book, the two passages, practically identical though 
 fhey are in sense and in wording, are printed without 
 headings, and so made integral parts of the Service. 
 
 As a final example I may refer you to the prayer, 
 "Blessed be the Lord for evermore," on page 100. 
 This passage is a collection of Scriptural verses which 
 together contain the four-lettered Name of God 
 eighteen times repeated. It is an admitted post- 
 Talmudic interpolation into the Service, and it was 
 originally intended to take the place of the Evening 
 Amidah, the prayer of eighteen blessings, the recital 
 of which, unlike that of the Morning or Afternoon 
 Amidah, was optional. In olden times, according to 
 one interpretation, Synagogues were often built in 
 secluded places, or in places at a distance from the 
 homes of the worshippers, and to have tarried in 
 them late would have been inconvenient and even 
 dangerous. The Service was accordingly abridged by 
 the substitution of this paragraph for the Amidah. 
 But when the circumstances which gave rise to the 
 innovation had passed away, the practice that had 
 grown out of them was still kept up, and both the
 
 3 
 
 Amidah and the passage formerly substituted for it 
 were recited.* Thus a change which originally made 
 for a shorter Service, eventually had the effect of 
 lengthening it. 
 
 It is in such ways that the Prayer Book has attained 
 to its present dimensions. Custom (Minhag) has 
 often been more powerful than statute. Sometimes it 
 has even over-ridden it. 
 
 We are now face to face with a further important 
 question, the diversity, namely, which marks the 
 liturgy. To speak of the Jewish Prayer Book is more 
 convenient than correct. There are may Jewish 
 Prayer Books. I leave out of account the liturgy of 
 the Karaite Jews, which, if we except the Shemang 
 and a few other passages, bears no resemblance what- 
 ever to the Prayer Book in use among Jews generally. 
 It is enough to remind you of the many points of 
 difference between the German and the Portuguese 
 liturgies, and further between the many varieties com- 
 prised in each of them. In the one case there are the 
 strictly German and the Polish rites; in the other 
 there are the Spanish and the Moorish, the old French 
 and the Arabian rites. And if you would realise the 
 happy freedom which is given to a Jewish congrega- 
 tion to order its Services in accordance with its indi- 
 vidual needs and tastes, you have only to think of 
 the worship that is carried on in the Synagogues of this 
 one city of London. If you were to choose at ran- 
 dom some of those Synagogues for a visit on an ordi- 
 nary Sabbath morning, it is highly improbable that you 
 would find Services identical in every particular being 
 performed in any two of them. Further, I would 
 remind you that about fifteen years ago the old Prayer 
 Book in use among the Jews of England prior to their 
 expulsion in the thirteenth century, was discovered, 
 
 * For the authorities see Bacr, Abodath Yisrael, on the passage.
 
 3 1 
 
 and it was found to differ in many respects from the 
 accepted liturgy. About this interesting document 
 I shall have something more to say presently. 
 
 In spite, then, of seeming rigidity, the Synagogue 
 Service has been characterised throughout by a funda- 
 mental elasticity. If even the Amidah, that essential 
 and time-honoured ingredient of the Service, has 
 never, as Zunz points out,* attained a fixed and un- 
 disputed form, it is not to be wondered at if prayers 
 less venerable and less sacred have not gained 
 universal recognition. 
 
 The diversity of which I am speaking was favoured 
 by many circumstances. Dispersion of the Jews was 
 one of them. When congregations were scattered 
 and communication between them was difficult, purely 
 local ideas and wants were free to express themselves 
 in public worship. Environment was another factor. 
 The form of the Service reflected the culture of the 
 congregation, and this culture itself was influenced in 
 its turn by the intellectual condition of the surround- 
 ing population, and by the relations which subsisted 
 between them and their Jewish neighbours. To such 
 external influences, as Zunz maintains,! is to be attri- 
 buted the introduction into the Synagogue of prayers 
 for the dead. For a thousand years, he says, unceas- 
 ing protests were maintained against the innovations 
 which had crept into the Service from alien sources. 
 They were all un- Jewish, it was said a curious anti- 
 cipation, it may be noted in passing,, of a current 
 controversy. But in spite of the objection they kept 
 their place in public worship. 
 
 Yet another circumstance which made for diversity 
 was the rise of the Chazan, of which I have already 
 spoken. The larger the licence enjoyed by this func- 
 tionary to add to the materials of the Service, the 
 
 * Gottesdienstliche Vortrd^e (2nd ed.), p. 382. 
 f Ritus, p. 3.
 
 32 
 
 greater became the difference between one Prayer 
 Book and another. For the Chazan, powerful as he 
 was, had but a limited jurisdiction geographically, 
 and what was pleasing to one congregation might not 
 only be unsuited but even unknown to many others. 
 Indeed it has rightly been said that if it had not been 
 for the invention of printing, the Prayer Book would 
 never have attained to its present dimensions and com- 
 parative fixity. Many additions of merely local 
 character would have remained unknown outside the 
 congregation for whose exclusive benefit they had 
 been originally intended.* 
 
 Finally, we must always bear in mind that each com- 
 munity of Jews had its own joys and sorrows, and 
 that its experiences powerfully helped to mould the 
 form of its public worship. The sadder prayers had 
 their birthplace in lands of oppression, and with those 
 prayers there went up that bitter cry for Divine ven- 
 geance which mingles now and again with the more 
 benign utterances of the Synagogue. All such sup- 
 plications are being gradually discarded by Jewish 
 congregations in every civilised land. But while we 
 condemn them as anachronisms, let us not fail to 
 realise the conditions which brought them forth, and 
 which, in a measure, constitute their justification. 
 There is nothing unnatural about these entreaties. 
 They were wrung from a people's agony. Think of 
 the Crusades, and the torture they were the occasion 
 of heaping on the Jew, and then throw a stone, if 
 you can, at those who put up these prayers. But 
 were they anything more than words, however fervent? 
 No. Vengeance was prayed for and left to God. 
 The worshipper never translated his fierce supplica- 
 tions into deeds. He held his hand. No; he did 
 not; he stretched it out, but to help, not to strike. 
 
 * See Zunz, Ritus, p. 149.
 
 33 
 
 It was filled with blessing for his enemies again and 
 again. 
 
 As a proof of the diversity that has always charac- 
 terised the Jewish liturgy, I have cited the Prayer Book 
 used by the Jews of England prior to their expulsion 
 in the thirteenth century. It was discovered some 
 years ago by the late Professor Kaufmann, of Buda- 
 Pesth, who gave a full description of it in the 
 Jewish Quarterly Review for October, 1891. 
 Those who are curious to know what sort of liturgy 
 was in use in the Synagogues in this country when the 
 first Edward was king would do well to consult Pro- 
 fessor Kaufmann's article. But, by way of illustrating 
 my immediate subject I may not inappropriately 
 give a brief account of it here. 
 
 It had long been a favourite assumption of 
 scholars that the Prayer Book in use in this country 
 before the expulsion closely resembled, if it was not 
 identical with, that of the Jews of France, with whom 
 the Jews of England were united by very close ties. 
 But there was no proof for this assumption. Pro- 
 fessor Kaufmann's discovery has established the fact 
 that while both liturgies resembled each other in many 
 points, they differed in many others. Certainly, the 
 freedom assumed by the framers of the English 
 Prayer Book was, to use Professor Kaufmann's ad- 
 jective, "astounding." "Their innovations were," he 
 says, " of a most searching and extensive character ; 
 they did not spare even the oldest and most important 
 of our prayers those that are common to the 
 Sephardic and German rituals." Thus, to give only 
 one or two examples, in the ancient and familiar 
 prayer on page 5 of the Prayer Book, beginning, " O 
 my God, the soul which Thou gavest me is pure," 
 there is inserted a long confession of sins. Then, as 
 to the benedictions which immediately follow this 
 
 c
 
 34 
 
 passage. You will remember that, as I have already 
 explained, these were originally private prayers, which 
 the devout Jew offered up on awaking and rising in 
 the morning. One benediction he was to recite on ' 
 opening his eyes, another when he rose, another when 
 he dressed himself, and so on. In course of time, 
 however, these benedictions became integral and fixed 
 parts of the liturgy. But in the old English Prayer 
 Book this dignified position is denied them. They 
 are still treated as occasional prayers, which might 
 be omitted if the circumstances of the moment 
 demanded it. Thus a rubric directs that if the wor- 
 shipper has not slept, he is not to recite the benedic- 
 tion : " Blessed art Thou who openest the e'yes of the 
 blind." If he has slept, but not taken off his clothes, 
 he is not to say : " Blessed art Thou who clqthest the 
 naked." And so forth. Here, if I mistake not, we 
 have a symptom of a healthy revolt against that stereo- 
 typing of devotional practice which sinned no less 
 against the Talmudic law than against the interests of 
 the Prayer Book itself.* Finally, to complete my 
 brief list of examples, this old English liturgy contains 
 a direction to the effect that, in the summer, when 
 men would be out and about their business, a greatly 
 abridged form of the Amidah is to be substituted for 
 the ordinary and much longer version. This rubric, 
 too, is in accordance with Rabbinic statute. 
 
 This Prayer Book of the pre-Expulsion Jews is clear 
 evidence of the liberty which mediaeval congregations 
 claimed for themselves in settling the details of reli- 
 gious worship. They had no scruple in lengthening 
 or abbreviating, or even omitting what are now, and 
 what were, even in their time, regarded as essential 
 
 * Maimonides {Hilc. T'phillah, 7, 9) speaks of the inclusion of 
 these benedictions in the fixed Service as coming into fashion in his 
 day, and explicitly condemns it.
 
 35 
 
 ingredients of the liturgy. The 'extent of their courage 
 will be evident when we remember that they lived in 
 an age when the words of the Prayer Book were 
 counted, and a magical value was ascribed to their 
 very number; and woe to the liturgy which, by omis- 
 sions or additions, disturbed this occult influence, or 
 implied a denial of it. The liturgy of England was 
 guilty of this heinous offence, and so it was forcibly 
 denounced by certain continental authorities as 
 heretical, and those who used it were branded as 
 apostates. 
 
 This old English Prayer Book further affords an 
 example of the vicissitudes which many a Jewish 
 liturgy has undergone. "Books," says the old adage, 
 "have their fate," and so, too, we may add, have 
 Prayer Books. This particular Prayer Book was lost, 
 or rather overlooked, for centuries. Even Zunz, the 
 great historian of the liturgy, though he knew of the 
 existence of the manuscript containing it, even handled 
 it perhaps, never recognised the treasure which was 
 within his grasp. Moreover, this old liturgy died, to 
 all intents and purposes, with the community Tor 
 whom it was framed. Professor Kaufmann speaks of 
 it as a liturgy killed by exile, and the description is 
 apt enough. When Edward the First expelled his 
 Jews he gave the death-blow to their Prayer Book. 
 They themselves necessarily adopted the liturgies of 
 the various communities among whom they found an 
 asylum. And when their successors set foot in 
 England four hundred years later they brought with 
 them a different Prayer Book that which they had 
 used in Holland. There could not be a more striking 
 illustration of the changeful character of the Jewish 
 liturgy, or of the large extent to which the fortunes 
 of individual: communities have helped to shape its 
 various phases. 
 
 C 2
 
 36 
 
 Finally, to bring my general historic sketch to a 
 close, I would remind you that the earliest known 
 Jewish Prayer Book dates from the middle of the ninth 
 century. It was the work of the Gaon Cohen Zedek, 
 and was followed some thirty years later by the famous 
 liturgy of the Gaon Mar Amram. Of this latter 
 authority Graetz* says that he " laid down the col- 
 lection of prayers, as it had gradually taken shape 
 through the centuries, as an inviolable standard. Who- 
 ever deviated from it was to be regarded as a heretic, 
 and excluded from the communion of Israel. But^as 
 the poetical additions for the Festivals were not yet 
 in general use in his time he allowed, in respect of 
 them, liberty of choice." Upon this it is only neces- 
 sary to remark that, in course of time, as I have 
 already stated, these poetical additions became fixed 
 elements of the liturgy in their turn, and any attempt 
 to tamper with them was resented by many well- 
 meaning persons as unorthodox. Among later liturgies 
 I may mention the version of the Prayer Book included 
 by Maimonides in his Rabbinical codex (Yad 
 Hachazakah) in the second half of the twelfth century, 
 and the Festival Prayer Book, known as the Machzor 
 Vitry, compiled by Simchah, of Vitry, a disciple of 
 the great Rashi, about half a century earlier. 
 
 * Geschichte derjuden, v. 249.
 
 37 
 
 III. 
 
 I PASS on now to consider a few typical passages 
 from the liturgy in their historical and devotional 
 aspects, and shall take first the prayer known as the 
 Kaddish, which you will find on pages 75 and 76 of 
 your Prayer Books. 
 
 The word "Kaddish" is the Aramaic for "holy." 
 The prayer owes its name to the second Hebrew word 
 of its opening paragraph, " Magnified and sanctified 
 be His great name," which is a reminiscence of the 
 Divine declaration in the last verse of chapter xxxviii. 
 of Ezekiel, " I will magnify and sanctify Myself in the 
 eyes of many nations." To what date this prayer, in 
 its complete form, is to be assigned, we do not know. 
 But in the Talmud there are many citations of the 
 response which forms its second paragraph : " Let His 
 great name be blessed for ever and to all eternity," 
 which, I may remind you, is a quotation almost word 
 for word from the twentieth verse of chapter ii. of 
 Daniel. Of these words we read in the Talmud* that 
 a Rabbi of the second century declared, on the 
 authority of Elijah the Prophet, whom he met in a 
 ruined place in Jerusalem, that when uttered in the 
 Synagogues and the houses of study, they win the 
 Divine grace and love for Israel. Elsewhere! the 
 Talmud lays down the dictum that he who repeats this 
 ejaculation with all the fervour of which he is capable 
 is sure of everlasting bliss. Thus it would appear that 
 in these words we have the pith, perhaps even the 
 original form, of the Kaddish, and that, in its 
 simplest shape, it already existed 1,700 years ago. A 
 prayer essentially intended to set forth the praise and 
 the glory of the Supreme, the Kaddish may be styled 
 the Magnificat of the Synagogue. 
 
 * Berachoth, 3, a. f Shabbath, 119,*.
 
 Your Prayer Books, you will find, contain the 
 Kaddish in various forms suited to the diverse occa- 
 sions on which it is used. Thus there is a short form 
 on page 37, to mark the end of a division of the 
 Service; one, slightly longer, on page 77, to be used 
 by mourners; another, that on page 75, marks the 
 close of a Service ; another, on page 86, is recited 
 after the delivery of a religious discourse or a reading 
 from the Talmud; and there is yet another on page 
 321, which is read at the conclusion of the Burial 
 Service, and, being the Kaddish of "resurrection " or 
 "revival," is tecited by the Sephardim on the Fast 
 of Ab also, when they pray for the rebuilding of the 
 Temple. All these occasions are regarded as appro- 
 priate opportunities for glorifying the Divine name. 
 
 Originally the Kaddish was used only to mark the 
 close of a religious discourse, notably of a funeral 
 oration. The speaker was careful to end with words 
 of hope and comfort, and this aim was fulfilled by the 
 Kaddish, of which the first paragraph is a prayer for 
 the establishment on earth of the Kingdom of Heaven, 
 in other words, for the advent of the Messianic era. 
 According to Zunz* and other scholars, the religious 
 discourses were styled "blessings and consolations," 
 and in this circumstance we are to find the key, we 
 are told, to the meaning of that very difficult 
 word Nnonj, "consolations," which occurs in the 
 Kaddish, and which is printed in the last line but 
 two at the bottom of page 75. The Supreme is there 
 declared to be " high above all the blessings and con- 
 solations which are uttered in the world " a phrase 
 in which, we are assured, we must discern an allusion 
 to the religious discourse. 
 
 The introduction of the Kaddish into the Service 
 was of later date. Of later date also is the practice 
 
 * Gottesdienstliche Vortrdge (and ed.), pp. 348, 385.
 
 39 
 
 in accordance with which it is recited by mourners. 
 How this custom arose can be easily explained. The 
 central element of the Kaddish is the exclamation: 
 "Let His great name be blessed for ever and to all 
 eternity," and, as we have seen, to join loudly and 
 fervently in its utterance secures for the worshipper, 
 according to the Talmud, the Divine grace and, in 
 particular, everlasting bliss. It modifies in his 
 favour, moreover, the heavenly decrees already pro- 
 nounced against him. From the living its beneficent 
 influence was extended to the dead. An intercessory 
 value came to be attributed to the ejaculation, and 
 the Kaddish thenceforth was recited by orphans as 
 a means of redeeming the souls of their parents from 
 purgatory. 
 
 To-day, however, the Kaddish is invested with a 
 nobler meaning. It has become an expression of 
 faith in the Divine justice, and of dutiful acceptance 
 of its decrees. The Jew is enjoined* to praise God 
 equally for the evil as for the good, seeing that the 
 evil, being the ordinance of rectitude and mercy, must 
 itself be good. The Talmud emphasises this beautiful 
 truth; but it was set forth long before the Talmudic 
 age by the author of the Book of Job. It is thus quite 
 in keeping with the genius of Judaism that the 
 mourner, instead of pouring out his laments at his 
 affliction, should rather praise God in a spirit of 
 noble submission for a dispensation which, though it 
 has chastened him sore, has yet been sent in love. 
 
 The Kaddish, in the form in which it appears in 
 existing orthodox liturgies, is for the most part in 
 Aramaic, the language spoken by the common people 
 in Palestine two thousand years ago. The second para- 
 graph, which, as I have said, forms the central, and 
 possibly the oldest, part of the prayer, is in Aramaic. 
 There are scholars who hold that the Kaddish was 
 * Berachuth, 33, b.
 
 4 o 
 
 originally written in Hebrew throughout, and Zunz* 
 mentions that as late as the fourteenth century it was 
 the custom to recite it almost entirely in the sacred 
 language in certain congregations in Spain. But the 
 fact remains that at an early period the essential part 
 of the Kaddish was read in the vernacular. Just 
 because the prayer was considered so important it 
 was deemed desirable that the multitude should under- 
 stand it. We have seen already how, in still earlier 
 times, the public reading of the Scriptures in Hebrew 
 was accompanied by an Aramaic translation. Both 
 regulations rose out of that broad-minded desire to 
 adjust the form of public worship to the needs of the 
 people, which actuated the rulers of the Synagogue in 
 ancient times. May I, without indiscretion, express 
 the opinion that it is a policy which deserves to be 
 attentively and sympathetically noted in our own day. 
 Let me now take you back to the first page of your 
 Prayer Books, where you will find the familiar poem 
 of Yigdal. It was written by Daniel ben Jehudah 
 Dayan, a poet of the fourteenth century, as a para- 
 phrase of the Thirteen Creeds embodied by 
 Maimonides in his commentary on the section of the 
 Mishnah known as Sanhedrin. That this paraphrase 
 should have obtained so firm a place in the liturgy is 
 a notable fact. When we remember that the formula- 
 tion of any scheme of Jewish dogma was strenuously 
 resisted by Maimonides 's contemporaries, and indeed, 
 has found opponents in every age, this hymn of 
 Yigdal is an eloquent witness to the great master's 
 power. But it does not stand alone. As Professor 
 Schechter tells us,t almost every country where Jews 
 live can show a poem or a prayer founded upon the 
 Thirteen Creeds. A German Rabbi of the fifteenth 
 century speaks of songs in the German language, the 
 
 * Ritus, p. 13. 
 
 f Studies in Judaism, p. 200.
 
 burden of which was the Thirteen Articles songs 
 which were read by the common people with great 
 devotion. 
 
 The hymn Adon Olam, which immediately follows 
 Yigdal in your Prayer Books, next claims our atten- 
 tion. Of the date and authorship of this fine poem we 
 Icnow absolutely nothing. That it is of no great an- 
 tiquity is certain. Nor does it form part of the Daily 
 Service in all communities. In Worms, Zunz says,* 
 it is reserved for recital on the evening of the Day of 
 Atonement only; and, according to the same authority, 
 it was only on that occasion that it was originally 
 recited in any Synagogue. The same remark, I may 
 add, applies to Yigdal and to the "Unity Hymns." 
 And, as you will remember, all three still form the 
 concluding part of the Kol Nidre Service, according 
 to the German rite a reminiscence of the original 
 practice. Like Yigdal, too, the Adon Olam is a gift 
 from the Sephardim to the German Jews. But, 
 though its authorship is unknown, there is nothing 
 obscure about the poem itself. Its language is 
 simple, and equally simple, yet elevated withal, are 
 the thoughts it expresses. Moreover it breathes just 
 that lofty adoration of the Supreme, and that child- 
 like submission to His will, which are at once the 
 noblest and the most instinctive sentiments of the 
 prayerful heart. 
 
 The poem exists in at least three variants the one 
 in your Prayer Books; secondly, the Sephardi form, 
 with two additional lines immediately after the sixth, 
 running thus : " Without equal, without like, beyond 
 change or alteration, not to be associated or divided, 
 He is supreme in strength and might"; and a third, 
 which contains yet another verse, as follows : " Our 
 Physician He, and Medicine, our Watchman and our 
 
 Help." 
 
 * A'itits, p 69
 
 42 
 
 If you analyse the poem you will find it to be a 
 miniature compendium of essential religion, cast in a 
 devotional mould. It consists of three parts, of which 
 the first sets forth the majesty of God, the second 
 portrays Him as the Father of mankind, in close and 
 beneficent touch with the souls He has made, while 
 the third expresses the peace of the heart that rests. 
 in the Divine care and goodness. 
 
 Especially striking is the broad theology of the 
 poem. It is entirely free from what is styled particu- 
 larism. It contains no reference to Israel or to 
 Israel's religion. The creed it avows is the common- 
 creed of humanity. It is a purely theistic hymn, 
 which might appropriately find a place in the Service 
 of any religious denomination. If the universal 
 Church, of which we Jews dream, is ever established, 
 and God's House becomes indeed a House of Prayer 
 for all peoples, then it is impossible to think of any 
 utterance with a stronger claim to a place in its form 
 of worship than this noble hymn. Pope wrote what 
 has variously been called "The Universal Prayer" 
 and' "The Deist's Prayer." It has many points of 
 resemblance to our poem. 
 
 Father of all. in ev'ry age, 
 
 In ev'ry clime ador'd, 
 
 By saint, by savage, and by sage, 
 
 Jehovah, Jove, or Lord 
 
 so it begins. And two of its concluding stanzas are 
 as follows: 
 
 Mean, though I am, not wholly so, 
 
 Since quick'ned by Thy breath ; 
 
 Oh lead me wheresoe'er I go. 
 
 Thro' this day's life or death. 
 
 This day, be bread and peace my lot : 
 
 All else beneath the sun 
 
 Thou know'st if best bestowed or not ; 
 
 And let Thy will be done. 
 
 At least one of the poets of the Synagogue was 
 beforehand with Pope. In the Aden Olam we have 
 the Deist's Prayer without any high-sounding title,
 
 43 
 
 indeed, without any title at all. Moreover, so modest 
 is the author that he has not tried to perpetuate his 
 memory by weaving his name into his verse, as the 
 composers of the .piyutim were, as a rule, fond of 
 doing. How one longs to know who he was what 
 sort of man, and whether he wrote anything else 
 worthy to rank with this beautiful production of his ! 
 
 Mark the height to which he soars. The God whose 
 glory he celebrates is not the God of any one sect or 
 nation, not even the God of humanity, but the Lord 
 of the universe, who reigned before ever humanity 
 existed, for whom time has no meaning, the Eternal, 
 the Alone, without associate and beyond compare. 
 But majestic as He is, He is yet immanent in human! 
 life. He orders men's destinies; but He orders them 
 in love. He is God, but man's Redeemer, too; a 
 sure rock in the day of trouble, when everything seems 
 crumbling away into nothingness, Healer, Watchman, 
 Helper, the banner of hope for the soul, its one 
 refuge, its one portion in its prayerful hour. Into His 
 hand the poet, borrowing the Psalmist's phrase,* 
 commits himself, body and spirit, both by night 'and 1 
 day, asleep, awake. For with God he knows himself 
 safe. There is no room for fear when the Everlasting 
 Arms are about him. *& 
 
 Such is the poem; truly one of the gems of the 
 Prayer Book ! A writer on the liturgyt has pointed 
 out that its last two verses would seem to indicate 
 that the author intended it to be recited at night, 
 before the worshipper laid himself down to sleep. 
 And, indeed, it forms part of the Night Prayers also. 
 But in truth its general tenor makes it suitable for 
 use at any time. Rightly, then, has it won a firm 
 footing in the Morning Service. From the place it 
 has thus conquered it will not easily be dislodged. 
 
 * Psalm xxxi. 5. 
 
 f Baer in his Abodath Yisrael.
 
 44 
 
 Proceeding now to the third paragraph on page 4, 
 \ve find three prayers which were originally intended 
 to be recited in connection with the study of the Scrip- 
 tures,* an exercise in which every pious Jew engaged 
 every day before beginning his morning devotions. 
 One is a benediction breathing gratitude for the com- 
 mand to engage in that sacred study; the second is a 
 supplication for the sincere and loving spirit whose 
 fruits are a positive delight in God's law; the third 
 is a thanksgiving for the gift of the Word, and is 
 the same as that recited by those called to the public 
 reading of the Pentateuch, which takes place later 
 on in the Service on Sabbaths and other occasions. 
 In order to give practicality to these three prayers the 
 two next passages are added, one being a selection 
 from the Pentateuch, the other an extract from the 
 Mishnah. Thus the worshipper not only utters his 
 thanks for the Law, but at once proceeds to recite 
 :some passages from it. As to the first passage the 
 priestly blessing its selection has been accounted for 
 by the fact that it contains sixty words, which corre- 
 spond to the number of the divisions of the Talmud. 
 More probably, if I may venture upon an explanation 
 of my own, it is a reminiscence of the blessing daily 
 pronounced by the priests at the close of the Morning 
 Service in ancient times. Later on on page 9 and 
 the following pages you will find further selections 
 from Scripture and the Talmud, which have likewise 
 been introduced into the Service in order to acquit the 
 worshipper of his duty of daily religious study. 
 
 A beautiful prayer awaits us on page 5, that begin- 
 ning : " My God, the soul which Thou hast given me 
 is pure." This is an ancient prayer, for it is found, 
 virtually word for word, in the Talmud, t As I have 
 already explained, it was originally a private prayer, 
 
 * See Maimonides : Hilc. Tphillah, vii. ro. 
 t Berachoth, 60, b.
 
 45 
 
 which the pious Israelite was directed to repeat every 
 morning on awaking from his sleep. It is really a 
 confession of belief in the doctrine of the Resurrection. 
 The soul is pure ; it has been breathed into the bodily 
 frame by God Himself. But it has been placed there 
 for a time only. At death God will take it back. 
 But again only for a time. For in the hereafter He- 
 will recall the dead to life, and breathe the spirit anew 
 into the vivified body. And so the passage, as it is 
 found in the Talmud, concludes with the benediction, 
 "Blessed art Thou, O Lord, who restore st the souls, 
 to the bodies of the dead." 
 
 This prayer, as I have said, is to be repeated by the 
 Israelite immediately he awakes. It is a happily con- 
 ceived ordinance. For sleep, as the Rabbins them- 
 selves say, is a type of the sleep of death, and to- 
 awake from it is to have a foretaste of the great 
 awakening. And so the devout Jew, on coming back 
 from the land of dreams to the world of realities,, 
 bethinks himself of the Resurrection that is to set him,, 
 after death, once more in this earthly sphere. 
 
 To-day the prayer has acquired a somewhat modified' 
 significance. It has become for many a proclamation 
 of their faith, not in a physical revival, but in that 
 spiritual resurrection which is all that they associate 
 with the future life. And so in the Prayer Book of 
 my Synagogue we have altered the wording of the final 
 benediction, so that it offers praise to God as the 
 Being who gives back the souls to "the dead," and 
 not to "the bodies of the dead." For this change 
 a precedent may possibly be found in the Rabbinical 
 literature itself, which in one place* fashions the 
 benediction thus : " Blessed art Thou, O Lord, who 
 givest life to the dead," which you will all recognise 
 as identical with the concluding sentence of the second 
 paragraph of the Amidah. 
 
 * Pesikta Rabbathi (ed. Friedmar.n) 168, b.
 
 46 
 
 But the prayer is something more than a confession 
 of faith in immortality. It is an act of homage to the 
 God of the spirits of all flesh. " So long as the soul 
 is within me I will give thanks unto Thee, O my God." 
 The thought of the indwelling spirit in its house of 
 clay admonishes us of our duty to the great Spirit 
 of the Universe. We will bow before Him in adora- 
 tion ; we will serve Him duteously. All this the soul 
 silently bids us do ; for the soul is of God, making us 
 akin to Him, and therefore is a constant exhortation 
 to the godly life. Nay, it has to go back to God, 
 and therefore we must see to it that it goes back to 
 Him pure. 
 
 Of the string of benedictions which immediately 
 follow this prayer I have spoken already, and therefore 
 I need say little about them now. To the thanksgiving 
 for not having been made a heathen, or a slave, or a 
 woman, there seems to have been an inclination on 
 the part of the pious worshipper in olden times to 
 add a blessing "113 ^B>y &6t2> for his not having been 
 made ignorant and uncouth. But this tendency is 
 rebuked by the authorities. On the other hand, into 
 some ancient liturgies, notably that of R. Amram, the 
 benediction D*7DB> rV3JD " who raisest up the lowly, " 
 found its way, but quite improperly. This has been 
 eliminated from most editions of the Prayer Book. 
 More curious still is another circumstance. All these 
 blessings, as you will recollect, were originally private 
 prayers which the worshipper recited in his bed- 
 chamber every morning. When he opened his eyes 
 he said : " Blessed art Thou who openest the eyes of 
 the blind." Whilst dressing he said: "Blessed art 
 Thou who clothest the naked." When putting on his 
 turban he said : " Blessed art Thou who crownest Israel 
 with glory." This last benediction is still retained 
 with the others; but there were authorities who 
 favoured its omission on the ground that many Jews,
 
 47 
 
 having migrated from the East, wore turbans no 
 longer. They would have substituted for it the words, 
 "who raisest up the lowly " just mentioned.* 
 
 Proceeding now to page 7, we reach the beautiful 
 prayer "May it be Thy will." It is taken from the 
 Talmud. t In the original, however, it is phrased in 
 the singular : " May it be Thy will to make me 
 familiar with Thy Law, to make me cleave to Thy 
 commandments," etc. ; and in the earlier liturgies \ it 
 is given in this form. The change to the modern form 
 has not been unattended with loss. We have too few 
 individual or personal prayers in the Synagogue Ser- 
 vice. As to expressions like, " Lead us not into 
 temptation," and "Subdue our inclination so that it 
 may submit itself unto Thee," they recall similar 
 utterances in New Testament prayers. I must mention, 
 however, that the second of these two phrases does 
 not occur in the version of the prayer given in the 
 existing editions of the Talmud. Further, it is in- 
 teresting to know that in some variants of this prayer 
 the concluding words are more universalistic than the 
 usual ones. The blessing runs : " Blessed art Thou 
 who bestowest lovingkindnesses upon Thy creatures," 
 not "upon Thy people Israel," as your Prayer Books 
 have it. 
 
 The next passage is also Talmudic. And, in 
 passing, let me mention that in the version of it given 
 in R. Amram's Prayer Book there is no reference 
 to Satan. 
 
 The next paragraph, " At all times let a man fear 
 God, in private as in public, acknowledge the truth, 
 and speak the truth in his heart," may properly detain 
 us for a few moments. The passage is clearly not a 
 
 * Seder R. Amram (Warsaw, 1865), I, b and notes. 
 
 f Berachoth, 60, b. 
 
 \ In R. Amram's Prayer Book, for example. 
 
 Baer, ad loc.
 
 48 
 
 prayer, but a moral reflection. Originally it was 
 prefixed as a sort of admonitory introduction to the 
 prayer which immediately follows it, " Sovereign of 
 all worlds, not because of our righteousness do we lay 
 our supplications before Thee, but because of Thine 
 abundant mercies." This is a prayer such as the 
 God-fearing man would utter a prayer breathing a 
 chastened sense of human frailty on the one hand and 
 of the Divine majesty* on the other. And as it was. 
 meant to be said in private, it was ushered in by the 
 admonition or ethical rubric to which I am referring. 
 But when, in the process of time, the prayer was in- 
 corporated into the liturgy, the rubric was incor- 
 porated with it, and was read as an integral part of 
 the Service. 
 
 No one will grudge to these introductory words the 
 favoured position to which they have thus attained. 
 For they are a valuable witness to the deep religious 
 sincerity which Judaism sets before its followers as 
 the first condition of the worthy, nay, of the prayerful 
 life. They warn the Jew, in effect, that mere outward 
 religion is unmeaning unless it be the expression of 
 inner godliness. Very finely, very appropriately, does 
 it put an exhortation to inwardness on the very 
 threshold, so to speak, of the Daily Service. For all 
 prayer is useless, is the worst of blasphemies, which 
 has not had a way prepared for it by some effort after 
 the cleansing of the heart and the ennobling of the 
 life. And thus it is that, in some old liturgies,* all 
 the benedictions are omitted from the early part of 
 the Morning Service, and for them is substituted 
 Psalm xv., the song of the moral life: "Lord, who- 
 shall sojourn in Thy tabernacle? Who shall dwell in 
 Thy holy hill? He that walketh uprightly and 
 worketh righteousness and speaketh the truth in his 
 
 * E.g. in the Order of Prayer appended by Maimonides to the 
 second section ( Ahabah) of his Yad Hachazakah.
 
 49 
 
 heart." There could not be a more beautiful or a 
 more effective preparation for the solemn act of com- 
 munion, by way of prayer, with our Father in Heaven. 
 Nor could there be a more striking witness to the 
 ethical idealism which plays so large a part in the 
 Jewish religion. 
 
 The next paragraph: "Sovereign of all worlds," is 
 a combination of two Talmudic prayers originally em- 
 bodied in the Neila/i, the Concluding Service of the 
 Day of Atonement, and the second part of the para- 
 graph beginning, "What are we?" still finds a place 
 in the Amidah of that Service. In the Sephardi ver- 
 sion there are added to the closing phrase, "All is 
 vanity," the impressive words "save the pure soul, 
 which is destined to render an account and reckoning 
 before Thy glorious throne." 
 
 The four paragraphs which immediately follow are, 
 for the most part, amplifications of Talmudic or 
 Midrashic utterances. Unlike " Sovereign of all 
 worlds," which is an unsectarian prayer, they are 
 specifically Jewish. They set forth the doctrine of 
 Israel's election; they extol the exclusively Jewish 
 duty and privilege of daily reciting the Shemang, of 
 proclaiming, that is to say, the Divine Unity ; and 
 they supplicate for the advent of the time when the 
 Divine name will be revered and sanctified by all 
 mankind, and Israel's mission be accomplished. 
 
 We have thus reached the end of the first part of 
 the Morning Prayer. Let me now ask you to turn to 
 page 1 6, where an entirely new section begins. It 
 consists very largely of Psalms, and Psalms of an es- 
 sentially joyous character. Hence the name given to 
 this section of the Service, fconn 'plDQ, " verses of 
 song." This section is introduced and closed by a 
 benediction one, on page 16, "Blessed be He who 
 spake," the other on page 36, "Praised be Thy
 
 5 
 
 name." One common characteristic unites all these 
 Psalms praise of God for His might and His good- 
 ness. Writers on the liturgy account for their presence 
 at this stage of the Service by citing the old Rabbinic 
 maxim* which declares that a man should first offer 
 praise to God and then set forth his requests. For 
 prayer should chiefly be offered up to the glory of 
 God ; the satisfaction of the worshipper's personal 
 needs should be only a secondary object. But it is 
 not improbable that these " verses of song ' ' owe their 
 introduction into the Morning Prayer to the fact that 
 the chanting of Psalms by the Levites to the accom- 
 paniment of musical instruments formed part of the 
 daily Service in the Temple. 
 
 The Psalms before us group themselves into two 
 categories : those recited on Sabbaths and Festivals 
 only, and those that form part of the Service for 
 every day in the year. The latter include Psalm c. 
 and the last six Psalms of the Psalter, from Psalm 
 cxlv. to Psalm cl., and they are chosen because they 
 are the gladdest songs in the entire collection. Of 
 Psalm cxlv. the Talmud declares! that he who 
 recites it thrice daily is sure of Heaven. The last five 
 Psalms are the Hallelujah Psalms, each of which 
 begins and ends with that jubilant word. The Psalms 
 specially chosen for the Sabbath those beginning on 
 page 20 and ending on page 28 have been selected 
 because they sing the praise of God either as the 
 maker and the life of the universe or as the wise and 
 merciful guide of Israel. When we remember that 
 the Sabbath is, as it is declared to be in the two 
 versions of the Fourth Commandment, a twofold 
 commemoration, a memorial both of the Creation and 
 
 * Berachoth, 32, a. 
 f Ibid., 4, b.
 
 of the Exodus, we shall see at once how happily 
 this second group of Psalms has been selected. 
 
 But, as I have said, gladness is the dominant char- 
 acteristic of both groups. I remember a non-Jewish 
 minister, after attending one of our Sabbath Services, 
 expressing to me his admiration of its joyousness. 
 That was the feature which especially impressed him. 
 And, indeed, when one remembers what Israel's life- 
 story has been, how heavily charged with sorrow, the 
 gladness of his worship is a wonderful fact. Out of 
 his grief-stricken heart he could for ever praise God, 
 the dispenser of his lot. But it is on the Sabbath that 
 Jewish worship is especially joyful. On that delight- 
 some day the Jew is enjoined to put away all grief 
 from his thoughts, to forget his struggles, to forget 
 even his sins. The Sabbath, with its benign magic, 
 is to make him oblivious of everything except the 
 glad and ennobling truth that he is a son of God. To 
 use Heine's famous figure, once in the week the dog 
 is changed by beneficent sorcery into a prince. Thus 
 it is that in the Sabbath Service you will find no word 
 of grief, no confession of umvorthiness, no prayer for 
 pardon. All the shadows are swallowed up in the 
 light with which God's day floods the soul. 
 
 The use of the Psalms in the Morning Prayer is 
 ancient; but in their selection considerable latitude 
 was originally allowed. Maimonides* expressly tells 
 us that in various congregations different customs pre- 
 vailed in this respect. The only Psalms which appear 
 to have been in general use in his time at this stage 
 of the Service were those at the end of the Psalter, of 
 which I have just spoken, with the possible addition 
 of the string of verses on page 28, beginning, "Let 
 the glory of the Lord." 
 
 The recital of the Psalms closes with the para- 
 
 * In his Order of Prayer, already cited. 
 
 D 2
 
 52 
 
 graph: "Blessed be the Lord," on page 33. It con- 
 sists of four doxologies taken from various parts of 
 the Psalter, and they appropriately round off the re- 
 petition of the Sion plDB. Of later introduction 
 and of inferior authority are the next paragraphs, 
 which are additional utterances of praise, taken from 
 the books of Chronicles and Nehemiah. 
 
 Now comes the Song of Moses, which has been 
 added to the Morning Service in fulfilment of the 
 Biblical command to the Israelite to remember the 
 deliverance from Egypt all the days of his life. But 
 its incorporation into the Prayer Book is of compara- 
 tively recent date. In the time of Maimonides it had 
 not yet found a place among the fixed constituents of 
 the liturgy. In some congregations the other Song 
 of Moses, his "swan song," in the thirty-second chap- 
 ter of Deuteronomy, was substituted ; in others, both 
 were recited; in others, again, neither was used.* In 
 the order of Service included by Maimonides in his 
 great Rabbinical code the Song of Moses is con- 
 spicuous by its absence. 
 
 The Song of Moses is followed on Sabbaths and 
 Festivals by the prayer of Nishmath, " The breath of 
 every living being," on page 125. 
 
 This ancient and noble hymn is styled by the Tal- 
 mudt " the blessing of song," an apt description of the 
 jubilant gratitude it expresses. In the Talmudic 
 age it does not appear to have found a place in the 
 ordinary Prayer Book. That came later. But the 
 prayer was already included in the Haggadah, the 
 order of Service used in the home on the Eve of Pass- 
 over. And we have only to glance at this magnificent 
 composition in order to see at once its appropriateness 
 to the great Festival. The deliverance from Egypt, 
 
 * Maimonides, Hilc. T*phillah, vii. 13. 
 f Pesachim, 118, a.
 
 53 
 
 with all its miracles and mercies, is the starting-point 
 of the author's meditations. But his song quickly 
 takes a wider sweep and becomes a celebration of the 
 Divine might and goodness generally. It praises the 
 Supreme for all His providential guidance of Israel, 
 but for individual benefits, too. Its note broadens 
 even into universalism. For the Being it glorifies is 
 the Eternal, the God of all creation, the loving Father 
 of mankind, " who governeth His world with benevo- 
 lence and His creatures with mercy." And so the 
 poet, turning from the present, can project his gaze 
 into the distant future, and see in imagination the 
 glorious day when " every mouth shall acknowledge 
 the Almighty, every tongue praise Him, every eye 
 look for Him, every knee bend before Him." Again 
 a train of thought appropriate to the Passover, whose 
 message bids us behold in the redemption of our 
 fathers the type and the promise of a yet grander 
 deliverance which is to bless all mankind with true 
 freedom and joy. 
 
 It was a happy idea to add this glad song to the 
 glad Service of the Sabbath day. Moreover, it speaks 
 of God both as the Lord of the universe and as the 
 Guardian of Israel, the twin-truth which, as I have 
 already pointed out, it is the especial purpose of the 
 Sabbath to present vividly to the mind. 
 
 With the end of the next prayer, rQW " Praised 
 be Thy name," on page 127, we reach the obligatory 
 portion of the Morning Service. That section, as you 
 will remember, consists of the Shemang, with the 
 blessings immediately before and after it, and the 
 Amidah, all of which is comprised within the next 
 fifteen pages, from page 128 to page 142. 
 
 Of these blessings, all of which have undergone 
 expansion with the progress of time, the first is a 
 thanksgiving for the light, a very natural utterance
 
 54 
 
 to put in the forefront of the Morning Prayer. It is 
 followed by words of adoration of the Supreme as the 
 Being who creates the world anew every morning. " In 
 mercy Thou givest light to the earth and to them 
 that dwell thereon, and in Thy goodness renewest the 
 creation every day continually." The second idea is 
 a favourite one with the Fathers of the Synagogue.* 
 Waking every morning to a new miracle, they felt 
 themselves in the presence of a fresh manifestation of 
 the Divine energy. The night seemed to have hurled 
 all things back into the primeval chaos ; -but at the 
 Divine command the world stands forth once more 
 orderly and beautiful, as it did in the first, far-off 
 morn of the Beginning. 
 
 Having thus offered praise for the marvels of the 
 external universe, the devout Israelite is led to fix his 
 thoughts upon the equally wondrous world within him- 
 self. "With abounding love "so runs the second 
 blessing, on page 131 "hast Thou loved us, O Lord 
 our God, with great and exceeding pity hast Thou 
 pitied us. O our Father, our King, for our fathers' 
 sake, who trusted in Thee, be also gracious unto us. 
 Enlighten our eyes in Thy Law and let our hearts 
 cleave to Thy commandments, and unite our hearts to 
 love and fear Thy name." Thus the Israelite prays for 
 a continuance of God's love so signally manifested in 
 the past. But how has it been manifested? The 
 answer is remarkable. It has been manifested in the 
 very bestowal of the Divine commands and in man's 
 power to receive and obey them. The prayer, then, 
 is a supplication for no material boons, for no satis- 
 faction of selfish desire, but for the choicest of all 
 gifts, for that illumination of the mind, that consecra- 
 tion of the will, which are the essential constituents 
 of all faithful service of God. A wonderful supplica- 
 
 See Chagigah, 12, b.
 
 55 
 
 tion indeed ! And upon it there appropriately follows 
 a recognition of the Divine grace evinced in the fact 
 of Israel's election, and an implied request for wisdom 
 to realise the responsibilities of that favoured condi- 
 tion, and strength to fulfil them. And so the prayer 
 ends with the words : " Blessed art Thou, O Lord, 
 who hast chosen Thy people Israel in love." The 
 appointment of Israel, with all the obligations it en- 
 tails, is the crowning token of the Divine affection !* 
 
 Then comes the Shemang, the central portion of the 
 Service, in its three well-known Scriptural paragraphs. 
 In your Prayer Books you will find it introduced by 
 the Talmudic exclamation, "God, faithful King," 
 which, however, is recited only by the worshipper who 
 prays privately. What is the origin of this practice ? 
 There is nothing in the words which makes them 
 especially appropriate to private prayer. They might 
 be used with equal fitness in public worship. Old 
 Jewish writers offer a quaint explanation. 
 
 In congregational prayer the Reader, after finishing 
 the Shemang, exclaims, " The Lord your God is 
 true," thus repeating the last two words of the 
 Shemang and adding the first word of the next prayer, 
 "True and firm," on page 134. He thus brings up 
 the number of words in the Shemang to 248, the exact 
 number of the members of the human body, all of 
 which should be consecrated to the fulfilment of the 
 Divine commands. The private worshipper, not 
 having the advantage of listening to a Reader, com- 
 pletes the magic number by introducing the 'Shemang 
 with the phrase, "God, faithful King."t It is a 
 
 * Zunz, in his Gottesdienstliche Vortrdge (2nd ed., p. 382), gives 
 what he considers to be the original form of this prayer. It consisted 
 of 63 words. All the three blessings accompanying the morning 
 Shemang, together, consisted of 153 words only. 
 
 f See Tanchuma (ed. Buber) to Levit. xix. 2, with note thereon.
 
 56 
 
 rather lame explanation, however, seeing that there 
 is nothing to prevent the worshipper, when praying 
 alone, from being his own Chazan, and closing the 
 Shemang after the Chazan 's manner. At any rate, 
 it did not commend itself to all Jewish minds, for 
 Zunz mentions communities in which the phrase was 
 never recited. 
 
 The reason for the selection of this ejaculation as 
 an introduction to the Shemang is perhaps suggested 
 by the words which you will find towards the end 
 of page 134: "It is true, the God of the Universe is 
 our King." This utterance is wrung from the wor- 
 shipper after his recital of the Shemang, the proclama- 
 tion of the Divine Kingdom. And it is not difficult to 
 conceive that he would appropriately prepare himself 
 beforehand for that solemn act by the utterance of a 
 similar exclamation. And so the words, " God, faith- 
 ful King," i.e., the true King, were prefixed to the 
 Shemang. 
 
 The first verse of the Shemang is immediately fol- 
 lowed by the words: "Blessed be the name of 'His 
 glorious kingdom for ever and ever." (I adopt the 
 more familiar translation.) This sentence, which is 
 similar in character and significance to those I have 
 just mentioned, has, unlike them, been interpolated 
 into the Shemang itself. The Talmud* expressly 
 states that it is an ejaculation which the worshipper 
 was accustomed to repeat in the Temple after hearing 
 the Divine name pronounced, and especially in 
 response to the High Priest at three points in the 
 Service on the Day of Atonement. Among the many 
 legends about its origin there is one which affirms that 
 when Moses went up to God, on Mount Sinai, he heard 
 the angels singing it, and he taught it to Israel.! 
 
 * Taanith 16, b ; Yoma 35, b. 
 
 t See Buber's note on the Tanchuma to Levit. xix. 2.
 
 57 
 
 Hence, according to the traditional explanation, it is 
 repeated in an undertone, for it has been filched from 
 Heaven. But on the Day of Atonement, when Israel 
 is pure as the ministering angels, it is boldly recited 
 aloud. 
 
 To understand the reason for its introduction into 
 the Shemang some explanation is necessary. The 
 opening words of the Shemang, " Hear, O Israel, the 
 Lord is our God, the Lord is one," are a proclamation 
 of the Divine unity. That act, in Talmudic phrase, 
 is a declaration, an acceptance, of the kingdom, that 
 is the rule, of the true God. Every Jew, in repeating 
 these words, affirms his faith in the sovereignty of 
 Israel's God. It is his most solemn act of worship. 
 Hence it is that the Shemang has, from time im- 
 memorial, formed the essential constituent of the 
 Jewish Service. It is, moreover, the first devotional 
 utterance taught to the Jewish child; it is the last 
 framed by the lips of the dying. It is the battle-cry 
 which countless Jewish martyrs have hurled at their 
 torturers, and with it the Sage Akiba breathed out 
 his soul at the stake. To recite the Shemang, then, 
 with all possible fervour, was to accept the yoke of the 
 Kingdom of Heaven. The pious Jew knows and 
 feels this truth. He has accepted and proclaimed 
 God's rule. But the very mention of that rule fires 
 all his ardour and enthusiasm. And so he cries : 
 "Blessed be the name (i.e., the mention) of God's 
 glorious kingdom for ever and ever."* 
 
 * According to M. Friedmann these words were inserted into 
 the Shemang during the period of the Roman rule in Palestine as 
 a protest against the idea of human sovereignty. They constituted 
 an affirmation of the theocracy. At first the words were said in an 
 undertone in order to avoid offence to the Government, but later, 
 when the Christians read their specific theology into the first verse 
 of the Shemang, the exclamation was ordered to be said aloud.
 
 58 
 
 But the declaration of the Divine Unity is only 
 part of the contents of the Shemang. They include 
 other precious elements, too the duty of love, as the 
 mainspring of the service of God, the duty of reli- 
 giously training the young, the truth of human 
 responsibility and Divine recompense, the importance 
 of ritual as an aid to the religious life. All these 
 are further, though subsidiary reasons, which explain 
 the prominent place occupied by these three 
 paragraphs in the Synagogue Service. 
 
 The Shemang is followed, on page 134, by the third 
 benediction, ending : " Blessed art Thou, O Lord, who 
 hast redeemed Israel," with its thanksgiving for the 
 Shemang itself, "the true, good and beautiful word," 
 and for the Egyptian deliverance. And then comes 
 the Amidah, the second great constituent of the statu- 
 tory Service. Of this I have already spoken. It is 
 enough to remind you that the first three blessings 
 on page 137 and the three last on pages 140, 141 and 
 142, are the most ancient. The intermediate section 
 varies with the occasion. On Sabbaths it is limited 
 to one benediction only, with its beautiful phrases, on 
 page 134: "Accept, O God, our rest; sanctify us by 
 Thy commands; purify our hearts so that we may 
 serve Thee in truth." On week days it is expanded, 
 as you know, into thirteen benedictions, making nine- 
 teen altogether. It concludes with the beautiful 
 prayer, on page 142: " O my God, guard my tongue 
 from evil," a Talmudic composition, with which one 
 of the Rabbins was accustomed to close his devotions.* 
 
 (See Friedmann's note on the Siphre to Deut. vi. 4, and Weiss : 
 Jewish Tradition, L, 22 1 seq.} 
 
 * Berachoth, 17, a.
 
 59 
 
 The sentences beginning: " Do it for the sake of Thy 
 name," which detract from its beauty, are, however, 
 not in the original. They are a later addition. 
 
 At this point in the week-day Morning Service come 
 the propitiatory prayers known as Tachanun. If you 
 turn back to page 62, you will find that they include 
 Psalm vi. It may interest you to know that in 
 some liturgies notably the Sephardic Psalm xxv., 
 " Unto Thee, O Lord, do I lift up my soul," is substi- 
 tuted. There can be no question which is the more 
 beautiful Psalm, and it is to be regretted that the 
 practice of reciting Psalm xxv. at morning prayer 
 has not become general in Israel. 
 
 With the reading from the Law, which comes next 
 in the Service, we reach the third great constituent of 
 public worship. It is followed by prayer for the 
 congregation and its religious guides and, on Sabbaths 
 and Festivals, in accordance with both Scriptural and 
 Rabbinic precept, by prayer for the head of the State 
 also. The repetition at this point of Psalm cxlv. , 
 on page 155, is explained by the high value which, 
 as I have already mentioned, was attached to this 
 Psalm by 'the Talmudic doctors. As to the prayer: 
 "May the Father of mercies," on the same page, 
 with its cry for vengeance, which has been the subject 
 of so much criticism in modern times, it is evidently 
 the fruit of a period of dire persecution and attendant 
 agony. It has never had a place in the Sephardic 
 Prayer Book, and is properly disappearing from the 
 modern Service. 
 
 We thus arrive at the Musaph, the Additional Ser- 
 vice. Of later origin than the Morning Service, it 
 was introduced, as I have already explained, in 
 memory of the additional sacrifices which were
 
 anciently offered in the Temple on Sabbaths and 
 Festivals. It is not only less ancient than the Morn- 
 ing Service, but possesses less authority. It was cus- 
 tomary in olden times to appoint a special Reader for 
 this Service; nor did all the worshippers feel 
 themselves bound to wait for it.* 
 
 The hymn, En Kelohenu, on page 167, is of un- 
 known date and authorship, but it was already in use 
 in the twelfth century. Originally, what is now the 
 second verse came first the logical arrangement, t In 
 some congregations the hymn is recited every day. 
 
 It is followed by the prayer, in two paragraphs, of 
 Alenu, on page 169, with which every Service closes. 
 In the Sephardic Daily Prayer Book it consists only 
 of the first paragraph. Of the history of this ancient 
 prayer we know little or nothing. Its authorship has 
 been attributed to various great personages, even to 
 Joshua, Moses's successor. The attempt to find a 
 distinguished parent for it is clear evidence of the im- 
 portance of the prayer. From the fact that, though 
 a supplication for the advent of the Messianic era, it 
 contains no reference to the restoration of the Jewish 
 State, Moses Mendelssohn was inclined to assign its 
 origin to a period earlier than the fall of the Second 
 Temple. The prayer forms part of the Additional 
 Service for the New Year, and it was perhaps there 
 before it found its way into the Daily Service. Some 
 scholars, however, hold that its present use represents 
 the original one, and that it was recited at the close 
 of the Daily Service by the congregation as they knelt 
 in the Temple. It is a superb composition, proclaim- 
 
 * Zunz, RituS) p. 2. 
 
 t See S. Schechter's article in the fewish Quarterly Review, 
 Vol. IV., p. 252 seq.
 
 6i 
 
 ing, like the Shemang, the empire of the one august 
 God, " the. seat of whose glory is in the heavens above, 
 and the abode of whose might is in the loftiest 
 heights." The second paragraph breathes the 
 Messianic hope. The one God will be acknowledged 
 in the coming time, not by Israel only, but by all 
 flesh. For the kingdom is His, and He will reign for 
 ever. Therefore, to Him the world must submit 
 itself at last. The day must dawn when God will be 
 acknowledged as one and His name as one. 
 
 This prayer, without a known author, has a history. 
 It has been a persecuted prayer. Following the words 
 in the first paragraph, "nor a lot as unto all their 
 multitudes," there was once added, and in some 
 modern Prayer Books there is still added, the sentence, 
 "for they worship vanity and emptiness, and pray to 
 a god who cannot deliver." These words were con- 
 strued by Christians as a calumny upon their religion, 
 and for the charge adroit support was evoked, by the 
 ingenuity of Jewish apostates, from an imaginary 
 cryptic meaning of the sentence. The numerical 
 value of the letters of the word P'l the Hebrew 
 translated by "emptiness," is, they pointed out, 316, 
 which is also the numerical value of 12>* the Hebrew 
 name for Jesus. What clearer proof could there be, 
 they triumphantly asked, that the calumnious words 
 were aimed at Christianity? The Jews, of course, 
 defended the prayer against these aspersions. How, 
 they inquired, could it be meant as an attack upon 
 Christianity when it was written before Jesus was born ? 
 But their arguments availed them nothing. The 
 offending words were expunged, and, so far as our 
 English-German liturgy is concerned, they have never 
 been restored. And it is well that they have not
 
 62 
 
 been. The notion of a secret allusion to Jesus was 
 ridiculous, of course. But that the words, in their 
 plain meaning, might not unreasonably be misunder- 
 stood as a reflection upon Christianity is not to be 
 denied. All such misleading expressions are rightly 
 excluded from the Prayer Book. 
 
 To the intrinsic solemnity of this magnificent prayer 
 are to be added the touching memories that cluster 
 about it. There was a time when it was sung by 
 Jewish martyrs on their way to execution. " The death 
 of the Saints," so we are told (I quote from Dr. 
 Kohler's article in the Jewish Encyclopaedia), " was 
 accompanied by a weird song, resounding through the 
 stillness of the night, causing the Christians who 
 heard it from afar to wonder at the melodious strains, 
 the like of which they had never heard before." This 
 song was the Alenu.* 
 
 With this reference to one of the most impressive 
 and characteristic utterances of the Synagogue, one 
 whose living significance will always endure this side 
 of the Golden Age, I close the present course of 
 lectures. I would fain hope that I have not alto- 
 gether failed in my main purpose, but have helped you 
 to a clearer idea of the history of the Prayer Book 
 and to a deeper admiration for its beauty. The 
 Prayer Book is not the Ark of the Covenant, merely 
 to touch which is sacrilege. It is the product of 
 human minds and of earthly conditions. But it is 
 also the product of the human spirit, of Israel's 
 spirit. In it are expressed some of the finest aspira- 
 tions after God and duty that have uplifted the Jewish 
 
 * The writer is indebted for some of the facts relating to this 
 prayer to the article on the subject in Hamburger's Real-Encyclo- 
 padie as well as to Dr. Kohler's article.
 
 A 000174335 
 
 soul. In it, moreover, is embodied, as in a microcosm, 
 the chequered and deeply moving history of our 
 race. Therefore, the utmost reverence and love are 
 its due. Not superstitious veneration should we give 
 it, but, what is far more precious, the respect and 
 affection that spring from a reasoned appreciation of 
 its story and its sublimity.