Year: 2017

re: I Did Not Know What to Answer

An attempted answer from Rabbi Avi Grossman as to why some Brachoth of the Amida mention Israel at the end and some do not:

1. See the Siddur Eretz Yisrael and Rav Lior’s introduction therein. Many of the nusha’oth are fluid, and there is no hard and fast rule. For instance, the final blessing “Who blesses His people Israel with peace,” is always replaced with “Who makes peace.”

2. If we assume some rule, then often it is the idea that the text of the prayer reflects biblical idiom.

3. Moreover, some blessings don’t need mention of Israel. How would it be worked into, e.g., “Bonei yerushalyim,” and “Melech oheiv tzedaka umishpat,” or “M’vareich hashanim?”

Keep up the good work.

Guess Who Said This: Hegel or Rabbi Kook?

… All the worth which the human being possesses, all spiritual reality, he possesses only through the State.

OK. So it was not Rabbi Kook. But it could have been.

(Technically, he appears to say something like this in one place, although… but I’m not going to go into it.)

He further states:

  1. In the history of the World, only those peoples can come under our notice which form a state.
  2. The State is the Divine Idea as it exists on Earth.
  3. Those who found states are justified, meritorious heroes, however “rude” these “may have” been.

And it gets worse.