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I’ve updated the chart linked from my previous post to include an English translation. Thought that might help some people.

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?

Regularly on shabbat in the small synagogue that I usually attend, Or Chadash, we get to the point in the service in which a prayer for the leaders of Australia (and for the State of Israel, and for its soldiers) are recited. If Rabbi Freedman is there, he usually has with him the new United Synagogue Siddur (or “the Sacks Siddur”, whose superior translation I would really like to own), which contains a similar prayer for the British Royal Family and their government, and with a few changes (a reference to the Governor General, states and territories, etc.) we manage the usual prayer. On occasions where we lack the Rabbi or his siddur, the best we have to go off is a prayer for the President and leaders of the USA, as printed in the Artscroll’s Rabbinical Council Edition siddur. Sometimes, not given the resources we even just skip blessing the Queen. (Don’t tell any Royal Family members!)

Since the large Artscroll Siddur that we have at the pulpit doesn’t contain any of these prayers, and especially none specifically for Australia, I’ve put them together on a Letter-sized piece of paper, hopefully perfect to stick in on page 451 over the English translation of Yekum Purkan, which no one at the pulpit reads anyway. With the help of the Rabbinical Council Siddur, I have also attempted to translate the Prayer for Australia into Hebrew, as I have heard requests for that in the past when in other synagogues.

So here it is: Prayers for Australia, Israel and the IDF, ready for printing and pasting! (And hopefully without too many errors!)

Now I just have to remember to do that myself before the coming weekend.

On festivals, before Kohanim bless the congregation, Ashkenazim insert an alternative nusach for the “avodah” beracha of the amida prayer:

ותערב לפניך עתירתנו כעולה וכקרבן. אנא, רחום, ברחמיך הרבים השב שכינתך לציון עירך, וסדר העבודה לירושלים. ותחזינה עינינו בשובך לציון ברחמים, ושם נעבדך ביראה כימי עולם וכשנים קדמוניות. ברוך אתה ה’ שאותך לבדך ביראה נעבוד.

May our petition be pleasing before you as a sacrificial offering. Please, the Merciful, in your great mercy, return your presence to Zion your city, and the temple service to Jerusalem. And may our eyes see your return to Zion with mercy, and there we shall serve you in awe as in ancient times and earlier years. Blessed be you, Lord, for you alone will we serve in awe.

As well as being a beautiful prayer and, it seems, having an interesting history, I was alerted a few days ago to a variation in the vowels of the first word. We find:

וְתֵעָרֵב – v^etēʿārēv

in Artscroll

וְתֶעֱרַב – v^eteʿĕrav

in “Adler”, “Birnbaum”, Hebrew Publishing Co. 1928, Koren, Meforash, Routledge, Shilo, “Singer”

The meaning is apparrently unaffected by the change of vowels. I have become used to the Artscroll version, and yet I prefer the alternative, and not just because it is much more popular. Rather, here’s why…
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