Table Of ContentJewish Prayer
The Origins of the
Christian Liturgy
by
Carmine Di Sante
Translated
by
Matthew J. O’Connell
PAULIST PRESS
New York/Mahwah, N.J.
Di Sante. Carmine, 1941-
jewieh l t.h®
origins of the
Copyright © 1985 by Casa Editrice Marietti. Originally published in Italian
as LA PREGHIERA DI ISRAELE. English translation copyright © 1991 by
The Missionary Society of St. Paul the Apostle in the State of New York.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in
any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy¬
ing, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system without
permission in writing from the Publisher.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Di Sante, Carmine, 1941-
[Preghiera di Israele, English]
Jewish prayer: the origins of the Christian liturgy/by Carmine
di Sante; translated by Matthew J. O’Connell,
p. cm.
Translation of: La Preghiera di Israele.
Includes index.
ISBN 0-8091-3207-9
1. Judaism—Liturgy. 2. Prayer—Judaism. 3. Liturgies, Early
Christian. I. Title.
BM660.D5213 1991
297.4—dc20 90-22369
CIP
Published by Paulist Press
997 Macarthur Boulevard
Mahwah, New Jersey 07430 3 1223 04207 0780
Printed and bound in the
S.F. PUBLIC LIBRARY
United States of America
Contents
Preface ...vii
Introduction: The Rediscovery of Judaism .1
An Important Turning Point 1
The Voice of Our Origins 3
The Liturgical Universe 4
Jesus and the Jewish Liturgy 6
Chapter 1. The Sources of the Jewish Liturgy.9
I. Information in the New Testament 10
1. The Temple and the Synagogue 10
2. The Sabbath 12
3. Passover and Pentecost 13
4. Huts or Tabernacles 15
5. The Feasts of Dedication (Hanukkah) and
Atonement (Yom Kippur) 15
6. The Prayer of Benediction (Berakah) 16
7. The Prayer “Hear, O Israel” (Shema‘ YisTa’eJ]
and the Eighteen Benedictions (TefillahJ 18
8. The Our Father 19
II. Sources in the Mishnah 23
1. The Liturgical Tractates of the Mishnah 24
2. The Talmud 26
III. The Siddur or Prayer Book 27
1. The First Official Prayer Books 28
2. Before the Siddurim of Rav Amram Gaon and Rav
Saadia Gaon 29
3. Recent Siddurim 30
Chapter 2. The Structure of the Jewish Liturgy.33
I. The Importance and Meaning of the Berakah 34
1. The Parable of the Alphabet 35
2. A Benediction for Everything 38
3. The Berakah for the Torah 39
in
Contents
IV
4. Berakah and Miracle 40
5. Berakah and Awe 41
6. Berakah and Gift 42
7. Berakah and Sharing 44
8. Berakah and Joy 45
9. The Connection Between Berakah and Petition 46
10. The Berakah Formula 48
II. The First Structural Unit: The Shema‘ Yisra’el 49
1. Composition and Origin 49
2. The Supreme Creed of Judaism 52
a) Confession of the Oneness of God 52
b) Acceptance of the “Yoke of the Kingdom of
God” 55
cj The Jewish People, Witness to God 56
3. The Three Passages from the Bible 57
a) Obedience and Freedom 58
b) Abundance and Fruitfulness 59
c) The “Signature” of God 61
4. The Morning Benedictions 63
a) The Miracle of Creation 63
b) The Gift of the Torah 66
cj The Yes of Obedience and Fidelity 68
5. The Evening Benedictions 72
a) The Gates of Dawn and Dusk 72
b) The Purpose of Life 74
cj The Fidelity of God 75
dj Prayer for Peaceful Repose 76
III. The Second Structural Unit: The Tefillah 78
1. Three Different Names 78
2. Origin and Structure 81
a) The Principal Historical Testimonies 82
b) The Tefillah on Feast Days and Weekdays 83
c) The Structure of the Tefillah 85
d) Manner of Recitation 87
3. The Text and a Commentary 89
a) The Three Benedictions of Praise 89
b) The Thirteen Intermediate Petitions 94
c) The Three Benedictions of Thanksgiving 103
4. The Birkat ha-minim 107
a) The Rabbinical Source and Its ,
Interpretation 107
Contents
v
b) Variations in the Text 109
c) Intolerance of Evil 110
IV. The Third Structural Unit: The Qeri’at Torah 112
a) The Tree of Life 113.
b) The Qeri’at Torah Three Times Weekly 113
c) Torah, Targum, and Midrash 114
d) The Reading of Scripture in the
Synagogue 119
e) Historical Problems 121
f) The Benedictions for the Torah 122
g) Example of a Midrashic Homily 125
Chapter 3. Private and Communal Phases of
Jewish Prayer.133
I. Benedictions by Individuals 133
1. On Waking in the Morning 134
2. On Retiring in the Evening 137
3. During the Day 138
4. On Special Occasions 139
II. The Domestic Liturgy 141
1. The Birkat ha-mazon 141
a) The Symbolism of Eating 142
b) The Birkat ha-mosi 144
c) The Birkat ha-mazon 145
2. The Feast of Shabbat 150
a) The Image of the Bride 151
b) The Lighting of the Lamps 153
c) The Qiddush 154
d) The Havdalah 157
3. The Passover Seder 159
a) The Structure of the Seder 159
b) From Exodus to Promised Land 161
c) The Four Models of the Human Person 164
d) Dayyenu 166
III. The Liturgy of the Synagogue 169
1. Weekdays 170
a) The Qaddish 171
b) The ‘Alenu 173
2. The Sabbath 175
a) The Gabbalat shabbat 175
b) Nishmat kol hay 178
VI Contents
c) The Reading of the Torah 180
d) The Musa/ 182
3. Special Events 182
a) The Berit-mila 183
b) The Bar miswah 184
c) The Rite of Marriage 185
d) Funerals 186
e) The Admission of Proselytes 188
Chapter 4. The Celebration of Feasts .189
I. The Pilgrimage Feasts 189
1. The Meaning of “Feast” 190
2. The Agricultural Feasts and Their
Historicization 192
3. The Feast of Pesah: The Splendor of the
Beginnings 195
4. The Feast of Shavu'ot: The Gift of the Firstfruits 197
5. The Feast of Sukkot: The Joy of the Harvest 201
6. Addition of a New Feast Day in the Diaspora 205
II. The Austere Feasts 206
1. Bosh ha-shanah 208
2. Yom kippur 213
III. The Minor Feasts 218
1. Hanukkah 219
2. Purim 221
Conclusion: From Ignorance to Understanding and
Cooperation .225
Jewish Liturgy and Christian Liturgy 225
Jews and Christians Pray to the Same God
and for the Same Kingdom 228
Notes.233
Indexes.244
1. Author Index 244
2. Subject Index 245
3. Principal Hebrew and Aramaic Terms 247
4. Scripture Index 254
Preface
“The doors of prayer are never closed,’’ says Deuteronomy
Rabba 11, 12. These simple words show human beings the way to
direct dialogue with God.
In his study of the Jewish liturgy Carmine Di Sante gives us a
clear picture of how this way has been conceived and lived by Ju¬
daism, in its beginnings, down the centuries, and in our own day.
This is probably the first Catholic attempt, at least here in Italy,
to enter into the spirit of Jewish prayer as embodied in its daily and
festal structures. The author’s purpose is to stimulate the attention of
Christians and get them thinking about common liturgical origins,
although he does not actually compare the Jewish and Christian
liturgies.
As the author himself says, the aim of his study is to present the
Jewish liturgy in its “original freshness,” so that all, both Jews and
Christians, may realize “how greatly Jesus and the original Christian
community were indebted” to it. This aim is all the more relevant
today in light of the recently published Vatican document, “Notes on
the Proper Way to Present the Jewish Faith” (1985), which says with¬
out qualification: “Jesus was and always remained a Jew. . . . Jesus is
fully a man of His time and of His environment—the Jewish Pales¬
tinian one of the first century, the anxieties and hopes of which he
shared.”1
An effort at reevaluating the liturgical Jewishness of Jesus was
made a few years back by Robert Aron in his book The Jewish Jesus.
Di Sante is, in a sense, taking over Aron’s discovery and turning it
into a Christian discovery by presenting, in a theological and her¬
meneutical (rather than historical and critical) form, the salient exis¬
tential contents of the vast range of prayers and celebrations that,
beginning with Exodus 13, have given the Jewish religious outlook
its vital characteristics.
For a Jewish reader, the Introduction and Chapter 1 will perhaps
be the most important parts of the book since their purpose is to
make clear the original relationship between the contents of the
Jewish liturgical universe and those of the Christian, as seen in the
persons of Jesus and the apostles. In the process, the author seeks,
vii
Vlll Preface
from the very beginning of his book, to show in the Jewish liturgy the
interior spirit of loving communion with God, which Christians for
centuries refused to admit it possessed.
In my opinion, the real merit of the book is to have rediscovered
and shown, in the wording of Jewish prayers, the sincerity and feel¬
ing, or what the Hasidim calls the hitlahavaut (fervorj, that have
always characterized the relationship of Jews with God. It was with
this in mind that the rabbis of the time of Jesus said: “When thou
prayest make not thy prayer a fixed form, but [a plea for] mercies and
supplications”;2 and again: “He that makes his prayer a fixed task,
his prayer is no supplication.”3 It was precisely to keep prayers from
becoming “fixed forms” that they were for many centuries not writ¬
ten down: “He who puts a prayer into writing commits the same sin
as if he has burned the Torah” (Tosefta Shabbat 14, 4).
Perhaps because he is concentrating on grasping and bringing
out the inner meaning of prayers, the author fails to emphasize the
fact that in the end the prayers were in fact written down and thus
became a “religious institution.” It must be added, however, that
Jewish interpretation of these set prayers has been no less rich, down
the centuries, than interpretation of free prayer had been. In this
context, J. Leibovich, a contemporary scholar and defender of fixed
prayers, has this to say: “The greatness and power of prayer, of the
obligatory set prayers of the halakah, consists in the rejection, by
human beings conscious of their position before God, of all selfish
interests and personal motives that would demand concrete fulfill¬
ment in various forms and ways ... a denial of the human will when
faced with the duty of serving God.”4
Without going into the merits of the author’s careful study of the
several parts of the liturgy (that is a critique which a rabbi who is
expert in the liturgy could do more satisfactorily than I can), I shall
simply call attention to the existential and anthropological interpre¬
tation which the author gives of the interior meaning of the individ¬
ual prayers (the berakot [benedictions], the shema‘ [“Hear, O
Israel”], the tefillah [“prayer”], the qeri’at Torah [“reading of the
Torah”]).
When the author suggests that the berakah has the power to
“make us see the world as replete with a spiritual radiance” or that it
“transforms the profane into the sacred,” or when he writes that
“benedictions prevent us from claiming the rights of ownership over
things,” so that we attribute ownership to God and hol4 ourselves in
readiness for the gifts he gives us—in all these instances he pene¬
trates to the essence of the Jewish benediction, which by its nature
