#aleinu

Because I'm a sucker for 19th-century cheese, the music of “Hark! The Herald Angels Sing” has always played on my emotions, in spite of my decided un-Christian-ness. Somehow I did not find out until this year that it was composed by Felix Mendelssohn, who (as you may know) was of Jewish descent, though he was baptized and raised (sort of) Christian.

Because I like the melody (and I was singing a lot of Christmas carols in choir concerts), I have decided to reclaim it in honor of his grandfather Moses Mendelssohn, who famously entered Berlin as a pauper through the gate designated for taxing livestock and Jews, then ended up becoming the most celebrated philosopher in Berlin (Kant expressed admiration several times in his writings), the best friend of the prominent writer and public intellectual Gotthold Ephraim Lessing (and the inspiration for his play Nathan the Wise), and the leader of the Haskalah -- the Jewish Enlightenment happening in parallel to the broader Enlightenment in Europe. Grandpappy Moses did not deserve the perfidy of his descendants.

I had the idea to set a Jewish prayer to the melody of “Hark! The Herald Angels Sing,” and as I was running various candidate prayers through my head, I decided the Aleinu seemed the most promising. So here’s a rough translation of the Aleinu, to be sung to Felix’s unfairly moving melody. (Gendered pronouns referring to God can be switched around or changed to They/Them; I just stuck with He/Him for the 19th-century vibe.)

We must praise the Lord of all and Magnify the Creator’s name, For among the earthly nations He did not make us the same. So we bow and bend the knee To the Sovereign, bless'd be He, King of kings, the Holy One; Render thanks to Him alone. We must praise the Lord of all, On our knees before Him fall.

if that was indeed a scribal error, it's one of the best damn ones i've heard of

It’s an error, and Aleinu is the most popular place where this phrase appears, but the scribe did not create the idea.

1. The error is a small one, and an understandable one.

The original piyyut speaks of "establishing the world under God's kingship".

The verb 'establish' is spelled tav-kaf-nun (t-k-n), and is not a common verb.

The scribe probably thought it was a mistake, and fixed it to say "improving the world under God's kingship"

The verb 'improve (fix)' is spelled tav-quf-nun (t-q-n), and is quite common.

I'd say this is something like taking "Wherefore art thou, Romeo?", and 'fixing' it to say "Where art thou, Romeo?". 

It just looks like a mistake, and many people understand it the wrong way anyway.

Specifically, regarding t-k-n vs. t-q-n, I’ve seen other cases of this mistake.  People are just not familiar with the former root, and automatically assume it’s the latter.

2. The phrase “Tikkun Olam” does appear in the Mishna, in the context of Rabbinic enactments that 'set right' certain issues.  The existence of this phrase is quite possibly why the scribe made his mistake.

But Aleinu is said every day, three times a day, and has much more influence as to language than a few mishnayot.

3. Regardless of the exact phrasing, the idea itself is intrinsic to Judaism.

A famous midrash relates how a Roman asked a Jewish scholar why Jews circumcise their sons.  Don't Jews think that God's creation is perfect?   In Hellenist culture, the body was perfect, and circumcision was something they simply could not understand.

The scholar answered with his own question (thereby proving he's Jewish):  What's better, raw wheat or bread?

The Roman answered that of course bread is much better than raw wheat.

The Jewish scholar then explained that just because God gave us wheat, does not mean that we’re expected to eat it as is.  God gave us this world in order for us to improve it and make it better.  

I have also heard that following the French Revolution, some Jews thought that Israel's task on earth has been fulfilled.   If a non-Jewish country can raise the flag of "liberty, equality and fraternity ", then maybe the world doesn't need Jews anymore.

What Goes On in a Jewish Service? (Especially for Beginners)

Image: A Torah is lifted during the Shabbat service at the Reconstructionist Synagogue of Montreal (Canada). Photo by Geneviève Afriat via Wikimedia. A reader asked: “Is there a general pattern to the service, or not?” The Jewish service may seem aimless to a newcomer. We stand, we mumble, we sit, we sing, we repeat a prayer from earlier, we do something that looks suspiciously like the…

It’s interesting comparing the Aleinu we do at CBST, to the versions in Mishkan T’filah (Reform), Sim Shalom (Conservative), and Orot – Kol Sason (Sephardic). None of them are quite the same. There’s textual Hebrew differences btwn the Sephardic and Sim Shalom, and while CBST includes the whole על כן נקוה לך part in the text, we never sing it, and we skip to ואמר והיה יהוה. Both CBST and Sim…

It’s a din in shluchan aurch Not a minhag

I think it used to be a wider-spread minhag, but now it's primarily a Lubavitch one (though quite possibly there are other groups that also do it).

There's a line that, if I remember correctly, used to be in all versions of Aleinu:

שהם משתחוים להבל ולריק, ומתפללים אל אל לא יושיע

For they [the nations of the world] prostrate themselves before vanity and nothingness, and pray to a god that cannot save.

However, there was a whole debacle back in the day that led to the line being censored in Xian areas. I believe there are still a lot of people that don't include it at all to this day. I haven't davened Nusach Ashkenaz in an extremely long time so I had to go check, but the Artscroll siddur has the full line but it's in parentheses. I'm not sure what the story is with Nusach Sefard.

The Chabad siddur has the first half of the line (שהם משתחוים להבל ולריק/For they prostrate themselves before vanity and nothingness) but not the second. The spitting comes right after ולריק/nothingness. The how can vary depending on the person/context. Some people are blatant about it, others are subtle. Some spit onto the floor, some spit into a handkerchief or something. When I'm davening at home (which is most of the time) and there aren't any guests around that would be alarmed by it (which is also most of the time) I turn my head to the side a little and spit loudly onto the floor. However my mouth is pretty dried out by that point in davening so it's not like a giant gob of spit going all over the carpet or anything. When I'm at shul or someone else's house I either don't spit at all or do it very subtly (i.e. only barely turn my head, don't make any noise), because I don't want to freak anyone out (my shul and most people I know are Yeshivish so they probably mostly haven't heard of this minhag or if they have don't do it for a reason).

The reason for the minhag is because when it comes to idolatry we don't want to derive benefit even from something as insignificant as the saliva produced while speaking those words about it. So instead of swallowing the saliva, we spit it out.