What Does The Prayer Really Say?
W D T P R S

You have heard by now that it is strongly rumored that Pope Benedict will by his supreme authority make a change to the texts of the 1962 Missale Romanum and alter the prayer for the Jews on Good Friday.

Lot’s of you will be confused by this, some will not care, some fewer will be hysterical.

I frankly have never thought we should them, but I have such great respect for Pope Benedict that I am forced to think more deeply about this possibility.  I have to get my head around it.  He wouldn’t do this simply because he want to go to the Roman Synagogue or to Israel in 2009, etc.  It goes beyond his respect for Jewish thinkers, such as the one who influence him in his book Jesus of Nazareth.

Before going on, let’s find some clarity about what the old prayers for the Jews on Good Friday really say. 

On Good Friday the Church has always prayed for civil authorities, ourselves as Catholics, non-Catholics and non-Christians.  Let it be said that prayer for others is a work of mercy and is performed out of charity, not malice.

The more ancient form of the prayer for Jews, all the way back to the 1570 editio princeps, went like this:

Oremus et pro perfidis Iudaeis: ut Deus et Dominus noster auferat velamen de cordibus eorum; ut et ipsi agnoscant Iesum Christum Dominum nostrum. ... Let us pray also for the unbelieving Jews: that God and our Lord take away the veil from their hearts; that they also may acknowledge Jesus [as] Christ our Lord.

Omnipotens sempiternae Deus, qui etiam iudaicam perfidiam a tua misericordia non repellis: exaudi preces nostras, quas pro illius populi obcaecatione deferimus; ut agnita veritatis tuae luce, quae Christus est, a suis tenebris eruantur.  Per eundem Dominum.  ... Almighty eternal God, who does not reject even Jewish unbelief from Your mercy: graciously hear the prayers which we are conveying for the blindess of that people; so that once the light of Your Truth has been recognized, which is Christ, they may be rescued from their darkness.

Tenebrae, plural in form, is "darkness". According to the mighty Lewis & Short, it can imply, literal darkness, or darkness of the mind, the darkness of death, ("death shades")or even the infernal regions.  So, one could translate the above as a prayer to "rescue" or "pluck out" the Jews from death which is hell.  With the imagery of Christ as the light, it concerns illumination of the intellect and heart.  The "veil" also recalls not just blindness, but how at Christ’s death the great curtain in the Holy of Holies tore asunder. 

It bears repeating that, just as Pius XII explained, perfidus in this context has nothing to do with being "faithless" in the sense of "shifty" or "untrustworthy".  It means "faith-less" in the sense that they don’t have Christ faith, they do not believe, they are unbelieving.  It is not a pejorative, as I hear it.

There was no genuflection for this prayer in the old day as with others because, as I understand it, Jews had mocked Christ by kneeling to Him.  However, Pius XII put one in when he reformed the order of Holy Week.  If the reason for omitting it is true, then Pius putting the genuflection in was actually an ecumenical gesture!

By 1959 this prayer was changed by John XXIII.  The words perfidis and perfidia were excised:

Oremus et pro [...] Iudaeis: ut Deus et Dominus noster auferat velamen de cordibus eorum; ut et ipsi agnoscant Iesum Christum Dominum Nostrum. 

Oremus.  Flectamus Genua.  Levate.  ... Let us pray.  Let us bend our knees.  Arise!

Omnipotens sempiternae Deus, qui Iudaeos ["the Jews"] etiam a tua misericordia non repellis: exaudi preces nostras, quas pro illius populi obcaecatione deferimus; ut agnita veritatis tuae luce, quae Christus est, a suis tenebris eruantur.  Per eundem Dominum.

Also in 1959 Pope John eliminated from the rite of baptism the phrase used for Jewish catechumens: Horresce Iudaicam perfidiam, respue Hebraicam superstitionem ... Dread Jewish unbelief, spurn Hebrew superstition!

Horresco has to do with your hair standing on end at something terrible.  Respuo is literally "to spew out".

Given that Catholics believe that not believing in Christ puts you in danger of eternal hell, it was actually a good thing to pray for all these different groups, including Catholic themselves and also the Jews.  The language is powerful, but the words actually mean something.  There are layers of meanings possible as well. 

The hearer is going to perceive something different, if he is educated enough to get the nuances. 

When you now see these prayers, you will know a little more about them.

As I looked into these Good Friday prayers again, I started thinking about some of the prayers Jews pray which could be offensive to non-Jews.   After all, turn about is fair play, right?

Consider the commonly prayed "blessing prayer" to be recited by Jewish men, thanking God that they were not non-Jews, Gentiles.

Observant Jews laudably pray constantly during the day, every day, not just one day of the year. They say berakhot or blessing prayers at different times and in various rites.  (There are various spellings of berakhot verging on barucha, etc.)

To get an idea of how this works, consider the following order for the recitation of morning prayers:

Siman 46 . The Laws of the Morning Blessings

46.1: When one wakes up from one’s sleep, he should say ‘My G-d, the soul etc.’. When one hears the sound of a cock crowing, he should say the blessing ‘Who gives the heart [the ability] to distinguish between night and day’. When one dresses, he should bless ‘Who clothes the naked’. When one places one’s hands on his eyes he should bless ‘Who gives sight to the blind’. When one sits he should bless ‘Who releases the bound’. When one stands up he should bless ‘Who straightens the bent’. When one puts his feet on the ground, he should bless ‘Who spreads out the earth over the waters’. When he ties his shoes he should bless ‘Who has provided me my every need’. When one walks he should bless ‘Who firms [prepares] man’s footsteps’. When one ties his belt he should bless ‘Who girds Israel with strength’. {wears trousers (pants) that separate the heart from the groin}. When one puts his hat on his head he should bless ‘Who crowns Israel with splendor’. When one washes his hands he should bless ‘regarding washing the hands’. When one washes his face he should bless ‘Who removes sleep from my eyes etc.’ ‘And may it be Your will etc.’ until ‘Blessed are you Hashem, Who bestows beneficient kindnesses on His people Israel’. One should not answer ‘Amen’ after ‘Who removes sleep from my eyes’ until the conclusion, ‘Who bestows beneficient kindnesses on His people Israel’ because it is all one blessing.

These are wonderful, really.  I wonder what we Catholics would be like were we to pray in this manner during the day.  But wait… we do have prayers for during the day, and they obtain indulgences in the proper circumstances… but I digress.

One prayer observant Jews must pray is:

Baruch atah Hashem Elokenu melech haolam, shelo asani goy … Blessed are You, L-rd our G-d, King of the universe, who did not make me a Gentile.

The prayer is from a Tana’itic source and it is in Rabbinic rather than Biblical Hebrew.   "Goy" means an individual Gentile.

What is the context of this prayer for an observant Jewish man?

Siman 46:4: A person must say the Blessings shelo asani goy (Who did not make me a non-Jew), shelo asani aved (Who did not make me a slave), and shelo asani isha (Who did not make me a woman) every day.

In fact, some commentators on these berakhot say that if you skip the blessing that you are not a slave or a woman, you should not go back to them after the blessing that you are not a Gentile, because, in logical order, it is worse to be a Gentile than a slave or a woman. The thinking is that even Jewish slaves and women can perform mitvos (roughly, meritorious pious works), and it would be better to be them than a Gentile who can’t.  Also, converts to Judaism are not to say this blessing because they did not belong to Jewish people or race.  So, there is a racial aspect, not merely one of choice or faith.

Frankly, the rules for these prayers are pretty complicated.

I can fully understand how a pious and observing Jew would pray the prayer about Gentiles, if he is truly convinced in his faith.  I am not in the least offended by it and the racial issue interests not even a little bit.  Some reforming Jews, I understand, have changed their prayer to say something like "Thank you for making me a Jew" rather than "not a non-Jew".  Traditional Jews seem to reject this.  

Should there be some world-wide campaign on the part of Catholics to convince observant Jews not to pray this berakhah according to their conviction and tradition?  

No.

Should there be a world-wide campaign that similarly puts pressure on male Jews to thank God that they were not made women?

That’s up to women, I guess.  Jews understand that men and women pray differently, please God in different ways, etc.  Their prayers reflect that reality with which I generally agree.  I don’t know about the whole issue of equality for Jewish women.   I’ll leave this for Jews to sort out themselves, it being not really my business.

If Jews are convinced in their faith, why shouldn’t they pray this way?  If Catholics are convinced in their faith, why shouldn’t they pray for the conversion of the Jews?  

I frankly have a hard time getting my head around this issue. 

However, going back to those Jewish morning prayers….

Read them again.

Consider them now in light of the imagery of the Good Friday prayers. 

Perhaps I am over analyzing… perhaps not… after all… some think this blog isn’t very analytical    o{];¬)   but I am getting a sense of how hearing the Latin prayers or reading translations of those Good Friday prayers might, just might, for an observant Jew who says his morning prayers and other berakhot, be struck pretty close to his heart.  They could be disturbing.

The Jewish morning prayers, in rapid succession, deal with light and blindness and washing the eyes clear, the heart having the ability to distinguish night from day, etc.

Now think of the old Good Friday prayers.

I haven’t looked at all the berakhot, but there is something more going on in the conflict than mere contrasts of religion. 

The way we pray has a power affective dimension. 

Centuries of power, disastrous, tragic and supremely affective experiences have shaped the way Jews hear what others pray. 

After all, they hear what they hear in their mode of hearing, not the Catholic mode of praying it.

I offer this as food for thought.