עלינו | An Alternative Opening for Aleinu, by Rabbi David Seidenberg (neohasid·org)

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3 November 2013 under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike (CC BY-SA) 4.0 International copyleft license

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21st century C.E., 58th century A.M., עלינו Aleinu, universalist

This version of the Aleinu recognizes that all nations play a role in God’s plan for humanity. It offers an alternative to the traditionally particularist liturgy, “שֶׁלֹּא עָשָֽׂנוּ כְּגוֹיֵי הָאֲרָצוֹת וְלֹא שָׂמָֽנוּ כְּמִשְׁפְּחוֹת הָאֲדָמָה: שֶׁלֹּא שָׂם חֶלְקֵֽנוּ כָּהֶם וְגֹרָלֵֽנוּ כְּכָל הֲמוֹנָם:‏ (“since God has not made us like the nations of other lands, and has not placed us like other families of the earth, since God has not assigned for us a portion as for them, nor a lot as unto all their multitude”). — Aharon Varady

Source (Hebrew)

Translation (English)

עָלֵינוּ לְשַׁבֵּֽחַ לַאֲדוֹן הַכֹּל
לָתֵת גְּדֻלָּה לְיוֹצֵר בְּרֵאשִׁית,‏
שֶׁהוּא עָשָׂה גוֹיִם רַבִּים
וְכוּלָם חֲפֵצִים
לְהַבְחִין בִּדְרָכָיו,‏
וְנָתַן לָנוּ גּוֹרָל מְיוּחָד
שֶׁגִלָּה לָנוּ אֶת מִשְׁפָּטָיו׃
וַאַנָחְנוּ כּוֹרְעִים…

It is up to us to praise the Foundation of all,
to attribute greatness to the One who formed creation,
who made many nations,
all of whom seek
to perceive God’s ways,
and who gave to us a unique destiny
by revealing to us Divine laws.

David Seidenberg

Rabbi David Seidenberg, founder of NeoHasid.org, teaches text and music, Jewish thought and spirituality, in their own right and in relation to ecology and the environment. With smikhah (ordination) from the Jewish Theological Seminary and from Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi, he has taught at over 100 synagogues, communities, retreats and conferences across North America (and a few in Europe and Israel). Rabbi Seidenberg's teaching empowers learners to become creators of Judaism through deep study and communion with texts and tradition. Areas of specialty include Kabbalah and Ḥasidut, Talmud, davenning, evolution and cosmology, sustainability, Maimonides, Buber, and more. Rabbi Seidenberg has published widely on ecology and Judaism and is the author of Kabbalah and Ecology: God's Image in the More-Than-Human World (Cambridge University Press, 2015).

Neohasid·org

NeoHasid.org, founded October 2005, was first created by Rabbi David Seidenberg to help folks integrate ḥasidic song, learning, and nusaḥ into their davenning and communities and to explore embodied Torah. It evolved to focus on eco-Torah and to share liturgy that honors our relationship with the Earth and/or expresses gender parity.

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“Reeds catch some winter sunlight along the river Tamar on the Devon/Cornwall border” (credit: Markles55, license: CC BY)

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ויהי נעם אדני אלהינו עלינו ומעשה ידינו כוננה עלינו ומעשה ידינו כוננהו׃ (תהלים צ:יז) · "May the pleasantness of אדֹני our elo’ah be upon us; may our handiwork be established for us — our handiwork, may it be established." (Psalms 90:17)

Jeremy Milgrom

2013-11-04 at 7:44 am · Reply.

I’m not sure there’s a connection between Israel’s ritual laws, beyn adam lamakom, (be they divine or man made) and its destiny; as for beyn adam lahavero, I prefer to see us as partners with all of humanity. In other words, I don’t resonate to the particularism of Alenu, something Zalman achieves by reading the “lo”s of the Alenu (shelo asanu, etc.) with a vav instead of with an aleph

davide

2016-11-12 at 4:49 pm · Reply.

interesting aleinu really