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SEPTEMBER 10, 2021 | The Jewish Home OCTOBER 29, 2015 | The Jewish Home
Avinu Malkeinu Our Father, Our King BY REBBETZIN DR. ADINA SHMIDMAN
T
he prayer of Avinu Malkeinu plays a central role in our tefillot over the ten day period of repentance. The words drum on our lips and in our minds as we repeat line after line of this powerful prayer. What is it about the significance of the expression of Our Father, Our King that we repeat these words again and again? Studying the history and authorship of this prayer will perhaps answer this question. The Gemara (Taanit 25b) describes times of terrible drought, when the Jewish people gathered in fasting and prayer beseeching Hashem for rain. On one occasion Rabbi Eliezer, one of the leaders of his generation, led the community in davening for rain. He recited the Shemoneh Esrei, adding six brachot reserved for times of great need. Still, there was no sign of rain. Rabbi Akiva, Rabbi Eliezer’s stu-
dent, tried. He recited fiver brief sentences beginning each one with the words, Avinu Malkeinu, Our Father, our King. As soon as Rabbi Akiva finished his simple prayer, clouds formed and it began to rain. A miracle! The people began to murmur how Rabbi Akiva, the student, must be greater than Rabbi Eliezer, his teacher. To stop such talk, a voice came from heaven saying that Rabbi Akiva forgives those who do not honor him, while Rabbi Eliezer must be strict to protect the honor of the Torah and the Jewish people. What was it about Rabbi Akiva’s simple prayer that caused the rain to fall? As human beings, we have limited ability to perceive others in multiple ways simultaneously. We look at people through the lens of our primary relationship with them. Our behaviors
and interactions are filtered through this lens. For example, a mother may be a professor who has spent many years training and practicing her craft and yet her child relates to her as a daughter rather than as a student. Just as in our human interactions we see only one “side” or aspect of a person at one given moment, so, too, we perceive Hashem in our limited human capacity in the mode in which He interacts with us. Working with this reality of the human condition, Rabbi Eliezer formulated a text based on the words of the Anshei Knesset HaGedolah, the Men of the Great Assembly, who threaded the Shemoneh Esrei prayer with the many unique aspects of Hashem. Hashem’s manifested greatness is captured in descriptions that include King, G-d, Father, Savior, Almighty, Exalted, Supreme Being, Omnipotent,
Omnipresent – to name but a few. If Rabbi Eliezer, in fact, captured all these aspects of Hashem’s Dominion through the recitation of Shemoneh Esrei, what then was the uniqueness of Rabbi Akiva’s formulation? The greatness of Rabbi Akiva is not that he introduced us to the notion that G-d is our Father and our King. In fact, Rabbi Eliezer himself referred to Hashem as both Avinu and Malkeinu as he recited the bracha of Slach Lanu as it appears in the Shemoneh Esrei, invoking both the titles of Our Father and Our King. The blessing reads, “Forgive us our Father because we have sinned, have compassion upon us our King because we have transgressed.” The novelty of Rabbi Akiva’s approach is that he fused the Father and King roles together. In doing so, he demonstrated to us that we are able
