[HANASHIR:5539] RE: Adonai s'fatai tiftakh

[Klein, Jonathan, Rabbi <jklein...>]

Hi Eric et.al.
With all due respect to my colleague, Eric Conzius, and while I wish it were
true that the line from Psalm 51 preceding the Amidah were a tangible result
of Lurianic Kavvanot (I, too, Eric, am a Reform Chassid of sorts!), the text
actually has been a part of liturgical practices for close to 2000 years.
In the Talmud (B. Brachot 4b), it says (pardon my poor translation; my
aramaic is not so strong), "Behold, Rabbi Yochanan said, 'At the beginning
[of the Amidah], one says "Adonai S'fatai Tiftach..."  and at the end, one
says, "Yihiyu l'ratzon Imrei fi..."

This is brought up in the discussion which says that one may not make a
break between "g'ulah" (Mi Chamocha and its elements) and "t'filah" (the
Amidah).  What becomes interesting from this is that the
first-person/second-person plural of the Amidah is sandwiched by two
sentences (and, actually, an entire paragraph at the end called "T'fillat
Mar") that is in the first-person singular.  It suggests that the Rabbis,
too, recognized that prayer serves a multiplicity of purposes, both for
community and also for the individual.

It is my prayer that everyone find it in their ability to pray on both
levels; both for the self and for the community.

Rabbi Jonathan Klein
Director, KESHER (UAHC College Education Department)
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soul of all true art and science.  He to whom this emotion is a stranger,
who can no longer wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead.  To know
that what is impenetrable to us really exists, manifesting itself as the
highest wisdom and the most radiant beauty, which our dull faculties can
comprehend only in their most primitive forms, this knowledge, this feeling
is at the center of true religiousness.  In this sense, and in this sense
only, I belong to the ranks of devoutly religious men."    Albert Einstein
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