Memorial prayer
I will be singing next week at one of the communal commemorations for the Holocaust next Wednesday night. At first I was going to only be singing with the Sydney Jewish Choral Society (my usual Wednesday night entertainment), but they invited me also to sing El Male Rachamim (the memorial prayer) alone.
Not only do I have to work out the tune, but there seem to be a variety of texts for the purpose. This chart compares a few samples. Any bits people particularly like or don’t like??
- Is God a dweller on high, or a father to orphans?
- Should God procure space upon or under the wings of His presence?
- Do we mourn “6 million Jews”, or “our brothers, Children of Israel”, or “multitudes of thousands of Israel”, or the “holy and pure”?
- Do we specify “men, women and children”?
- Do we state that their death was “in the sanctification of God’s Name”?
- What different means of death should we list?
- Do we name the holocaust, or list the camps, or mention Germans, or Nazis, or that their name should be erased?
- Do we give attribution to our prayer for them, or to our charity on their behalf?
- Do we mention that among them were the righteous and learned?
- And why is יום pluralised irregularly as ימין when it follows the word קץ?
Do we state that their death was “in the sanctification of God’s Name”?
this one i’ve always found extremely offensive from any perspective
Comment by Michael — 24 April, 2008 @ 12:16 pm
And yet it’s so popular. And what of blotting out names?
Comment by Joel — 24 April, 2008 @ 3:20 pm
[…] updated the chart linked from my previous post to include an English translation. Thought that might help some […]
Pingback by JoelNothman.com » Memorial prayer — now in English — 24 April, 2008 @ 9:58 pm
I guess it’s popular because it imposes some kind of “purpose” on the Holocaust.
Blotting out names — pointless and goes against learning from history but fun — reminds me of one of the funniest (unintentionally) passages in the Torah: “You must blot out the memory of Amalek from heaven. Do not forget!”
Comment by Michael — 25 April, 2008 @ 11:55 pm
Reminding you of Amalek is very intentional (it’s the same wording of course)… And in turn that too is ironic.
Comment by Joel — 27 April, 2008 @ 8:31 pm
on the Amalek comment: That’s really amusing and rather contradictory/ironic too.
If the popularity of attributing the deaths to the “sanctification in God’s name” is supposed to give “purpose” to the Holocaust… I’m not actually sure what it is I think of that, but it seems nothing short of disgusting, and as you said earlier Michael, offensive.
Comment by Naomi — 28 April, 2008 @ 4:07 am