Abstract
The image of the non-Jewish Other stands at the center of the ancient Jewish prayer, Alenu. In it, the Other is contrasted with the Jews as the only worshipers of the true God. Alenu juxtaposes the correctness of Israel’s religion with the erroneousness of the Other’s religion. Jewish interpretations of Alenu, over time and across various geographical locations, form an interesting bellwether of Jewish approaches to the Other in general. The earliest versions of the prayer – in the Hekhalot Literature and in the Rosh ha-shanah liturgy – did not shy away from the severe image of the Other. The medieval commentators too continued the trend of acknowledging the anti-Other content of Alenu in a straightforward way and several medieval versions even amplified the negative image. Beginning with the early modern period however, and the commencement of even partial acceptance of Jews into non-Jewish society, all of the commentaries attempted to diminish that negative image to one degree or another. Contemporary Jewish commentaries produced for popular audiences (and some produced for academic audiences) softened the image of the Other in their interpretations of Alenu and all of the prayer books produced for contemporary American Jews that were surveyed similarly played down the negative depiction of the Other in this prayer. All of these trends in the way Jewish interpreters viewed the non-Jewish Other reflected the Jewish perception of non-Jews in the various periods.
Highlights
Alenu in the Hekhalot LiteratureMa’aseh Merkavah depicts Rabbi Akiva as narrating the details of his mystical ascent to Rabbi Yishmael
At the center of the ancient Jewish prayer, Alenu, stands the image of the non-Jewish Other, whom it contrasts with Jews, the only worshipers of the true God
We find Rabbi Aaron Chorin (1766-1844) who advocated for the complete removal of Alenu from the prayer book, insisting from his pulpit in Hamburg “repeatedly that Jews were required to treat Christians as ‘brothers’ no less than fellow Jews.”[65]. Still, the general tendency was to emphasize universalism and to downplay Jewish particularism
Summary
Ma’aseh Merkavah depicts Rabbi Akiva as narrating the details of his mystical ascent to Rabbi Yishmael. Rabbi Akiba’s immediate turn from personally experiencing the reality of Israel’s God in the most palpable, forceful, compelling, and persuasive way to declaring, over and over, the falsity of nonJewish nations’ worship constitutes a most rhetorically powerful condemnation of the non-Jewish Other. 27 On deriving meaning from a text’s setting, see Yitshak Heinemann, The Ways of the Aggadah [Hebrew] (Jerusalem: Magnes, 1970), chapter 12; Richard Hays, Echoes of Scripture in the Letters of Paul (New Haven/London: Yale University Press, 1989), 2f.; Daniel Boyarin, Intertextuality and the Reading of Midrash (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1990), especially 1-19 This is consistent with the negative view of the Other in this early form of Jewish mysticism. What the Hekhalot tradition adds to the biblical and rabbinic views is its cosmic element: are the nations not the chosen of God, but Rabbi Akiba’s experience testifies that from the vantage point of the highest heaven, from the seat of God himself, their worship is false and misguided
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