Hebrew Daily Prayer Book. Jonathan Sacks
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and Thursdays is also ancient. Already in the Second Temple period, Mondays and Thursdays were days on which the pious would fast. According to tradition, Moses began his ascent of Mount Sinai to receive the second tablets on a Thursday and descended forty days later on a Monday (the tenth of Tishri, Yom Kippur). The second tablets were a sign of GOD’S forgiveness. Hence these days were seen as “days of favour". They were also market days when people would come from villages to towns. Congregations were larger; the Torah was read; law courts were in session. The heightened atmosphere was the setting for more extended penitential prayer.
One of the classic biblical instances of supplication was Daniel’s prayer on behalf of the exiles in Babylon (Daniel 9). Sections of that prayer, together with other verses from the prophetic books and Psalms, form the core of these paragraphs. There are three sections, each containing eighteen mentions of GOD’S name: thus we say them quietly, standing, as if they were forms of the Amidah.
A tradition, found in the Gaonic literature, dates these prayers to the period of persecution under the Romans, when three exiles crossed the Mediterranean, found temporary refuge and then suffered renewed oppression. Some passages may have been added in the wake of the Gothic and Frankish persecutions in the seventh century. Their mood bespeaks the tears of Jews throughout the centuries of exile who experienced persecution, expulsion, humiliation, and often bloodshed at the hands of those amongst whom they lived. Even in times of freedom, we continue to say these prayers, keeping faith with our ancestors and remembering their tears.
What is remarkable about the prayers is the absence of anger or despair. If we ever doubt the power of prayer to transform the human situation, here we find an answer. Despite being treated as a pariah people, Jews never allowed themselves to be defined by their enemies. They wept and gave voice to pain: “GOD, see how low our glory has sunk among the nations. They abhor us as if we were impure.”
Yet they remained the people of the covenant, children of the Divine promise, unbroken and unbreakable. Prayer sustains hope, and hope defeats tragedy. In these profound and moving words, Jews found the strength to survive.
With its intense penitential mood, Tachanun is not said on days of festive joy; nor is it said on the Ninth of Av or in the house of a mourner.
LORD, do not rebuke me: A psalm of intense emotional power, spoken out of fear’s heart of darkness. The Lord has heard my pleas – from the deepest pain, strength is born, when prayer becomes the ladder on which we climb from the pit of despair to the free air of hope.
READING OF THE TORAH
From earliest times, the public reading of the Torah has been a constitutive element of the spiritual life of Israel. At Mount Sinai, to confirm the covenant between the people and GOD, Moses “took the Book of the Covenant and read it aloud to the people” (Exodus 24:7). The penultimate commandment of the Torah specifies that every seven years (on Sukkot following the sabbatical year) there should be a national assembly at which “the people, men, women, children and the strangers in your communities” were to hear the Torah proclaimed “so that they may listen and learn to fear the LORD your GOD and observe faithfully all the words of this Torah” (Deuteronomy 31:12).
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