Some of you have noticed that while we do chant the Aleinu (Aleinu l’shabeiach la-Adon ha-Kol…), more often than not I ask Ron to skip the second paragraph (Sheh-hu noteh shamayim…). Personally I’d like to skip the first paragraph altogether as well, preferring the English found in previous prayerbooks, “Let us adore the everliving God, and render praise to the One…”
This is why…
I wrote about mantras a while back (mi sheberach, mourner’s kaddish) which have the tendency to be more appealing, shall we say, for the melody than the meaning, for the rhythm, for their familiarity, and I’m sure for other personal reasons. It’s similar to what we call Mi-Sinai (pronounced mee-Seenai) tunes: the traditional Sh’ma, Ein Keloheinu, and others) because we believe, as I’ve mentioned before, that Moses brought them down along with the Ten Commandments. And that’s good because it means you attend worship enough to join in whether in our synagogue or others.
But sometimes we have to focus on words and try to chew on their meaning and significance, as is the case with the way the Reform movement has dealt with Aleinu.
The point of Aleinu is the acknowledgment of God’s sovereignty, similar to the Sh’ma, but with the added hope that all humanity will one day fall under the yoke of that sovereignty (Ba-yom ha-hu yi-h’yeh…) To what purpose? That’s where the movement’s selections excel in their expression of the Messianic Age.
One reads, “…a world where poverty and war are banished, where injustice and hate are gone.” Another, “…let violence be gone; evil shall give way to goodness, when war shall be forgotten…” And yet another, this one from one of the first editions of the Union Prayer Book, a version familiar to many since it barely changed in all the UPB’s iterations: “…when corruption and evil shall give where to purity and goodness; when superstition shall no longer enslave the minds, nor idolatry blind the eyes…”
The Messianic Age is not a time when, like the Coca Cola song of decades ago, “I’d like to teach the world to sing in perfect harmony…” – although that would be nice – rather, “I’d like to have the world’s people teach everyone to work, for that great day when all shall be in perfect harmony” (Try it; it fits the melody, I think!). Yet so many cantors, rabbis, choirs, songleaders, far too many, sing Aleinu and skip the English moving right into Ba-Yom ha-hu…”On that day…” So, it seems perfectly reasonable to ask, On WHAT day? And the answer is found in that English paragraph!
(Speaking of the day when “the Lord shall be one,” An arrogant young rabbi whose nose was always in the air, began his duties at a new congregation. At the first service, the cantor began a prayer with the word “Lord” and all the congregants stood. “What is the meaning of this impertinence?” shouted the rabbi, “I gave no one permission to rise!” The cantor stuttered, “B-b-but, Rabbi, the word ‘Lord’. We’re. supposed to…” “Don’t but me any buts,” the rabbi interrupted, “Who’s in charge here – me or the Lord?”)