A real patriot is the fellow who gets a parking ticket and rejoices that the system works. -- Bill Vaughan
Having recently completed tours of duty in Afghanistan and Iraq, a United States marine enrolled in college. One day, one of his professors—an avowed atheist—declared in class, “G-d, if you’re real, I give you 15 minutes to knock me off this lectern.” Ten minutes passed without incident. As the 15 minutes neared conclusion, the marine stood up, approached the professor, and decked him. The other students were speechless.
“What’s the matter with you?” yelled the professor.
The marine replied calmly. “G-d was too busy today protecting American soldiers who are safeguarding your right to act like a fool. So he sent me.”
The aftermath of recent events in Ferguson and Staten Island underscore just how grateful we ought to be to those who keep us safe. While reasonable people can differ on the minutiae, this much is clear: we are safe thanks to their efforts.
Even when the Jewish people were subjected to cruel and anti-Semitic host governments, they understood that anarchy is a fate far worse than an antagonistic régime. “And it was in the course of many days that the king of Egypt died, and the Jewish people sighed and cried from their slave work” (Shemos 2:23). Paroh’s death created an anarchistic vacuum, with the Jewish people left to the antipathy of the masses. And so the Jewish people cried, not because Paroh was a benevolent despot (he was not), but because even a bad ruler is better than no ruler at all (Divrei Eliyahu ad loc.; Mishlei 29:4).
Of course, one should generally show gratitude to local government (Bereishis Rabba 79:1; Shemos Rabba 5:15; Devarim 23:8), and there is a related obligation to obey the laws of our host countries—“dina d’malchusa dina”—so long as they are not inconsistent with the Torah (Gittin 10b).
But we are also told to pray for our host governments for an entirely different, far more self-serving reason. “R’ Chanina, Deputy of the Kohanim, said: ‘Pray for the welfare of the government; for if not for fear thereof, each man would swallow his neighbor alive’” (Avos 3:2; Avoda Zara 4a). In a democracy, this includes praying for the welfare of all governmental authorities—presumably even police forces (see Tiferes Yisroel, Avos 3:2).
The notion of praying for our host government originated when the Jews were exiled to Babylon with the destruction of the first Bais HaMikdash. G-d, speaking through the prophet Yirmiyahu, instructed the Jews to “seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile; pray to G-d for it, for your welfare depends on its welfare” (Yirmiyahu 29:7). The first formulation of such a prayer dates back to at least the 14th century, when the Abudraham included this prayer in his Siddur, noting that it is the “custom to bless the King, and to pray to G-d that He may give him victory” (Abudraham, Laws of Torah Reading; see also Kol Bo 20; Magen Avraham 284:7; Aruch HaShulchan 284:15).
Some regarded this not merely as a recommendation but an absolute obligation (Meiri, Avoda Zara 4a; Seder HaYom [regarding the obligation to pray for government as a rabbinic quasi-commandment]). Indeed, the Chasam Sofer states unequivocally that Jews have a greater obligation to show respect for the government than their non-Jewish counterparts, and he likens one who refuses to recite the prayer to one who refuses to don tefillin (Chasam Sofer 5:190 [hashmatos]).
Anecdotal evidence seems to support this understanding. Once, the cantor in the Kriniki synagogue omitted the prayer for the government when R’ Yisrael Salanter was present. R’ Yisrael turned to the wall and recited the prayer himself, in apparent fulfillment of the obligation to pray for the government (see HaMeoros HaGedolim; K’dosh Yisroel pg. 104).
On unique occasions, the prayer was even be recited publicly. The Chasam Sofer kept a journal in the year 1809, in which he recorded that, at the outbreak of the War of the Fifth Coalition—which pitted a coalition of the Austrian Empire and the United Kingdom against Napoleon’s French Empire and Bavaria—the Jewish community held a special service to pray for the welfare of the government (Book of Remembrances of the Chasam Sofer, pg. 14-15). In 1910, the “Kollel Austreich Galitzia” in Yerushalayim recited a public prayer at the Western Wall for the welfare of Franz Joseph I in honor of his 80th birthday. And based on notices posted in Yerushalayim during the 19th and early 20th centuries, it appears that public prayers for the welfare of the government were held for both the Sultan of the Ottoman Empire (Mehmed V) and for Great Britain.
Others more cynically saw the prayer as nothing more than an appeasement of host regimes, proof that the Jewish people were not anti-government. For instance, in the introduction to his Yam Shel Shlomo, R’ Shlomo Luria notes that his negative references to non-Jews do not refer to the non-Jews of his day because the Jewish people even went so far as to pray for the non-Jewish authorities—proof positive that the Jewish community harbored no ill will (Yam Shel Shlomo, Hakdama). A work by R’ Menasheh ben Israel was instrumental in securing the return of Jews to England after many centuries of banishment, when Oliver Cromwell read the book and discovered just how pro-government the Jewish people can be (see Teshuas Yisrael, Chapter 3).
But not all authorities were so agreeable. It is told that the Sochatchover Rebbe (Avnei Nezer) was forced to flee his community because he refused to recite the prayer for the welfare of the government on the day Alexander III was anointed Emperor of Russia. Similarly, R’ Mordechai HaChazan was the cantor in Mogilev for forty years, when the government decreed that all shuls recite the prayer for the welfare of the government. When R’ Mordechai refused to do so, he was summoned to a din Torah before R’ Chaim Berlin who ruled that he must recite the prayer. That Shabbos, R’ Mordechai arranged for a choir to hum when he reached the words “He shall glorify and make great” so that he could insert the words “You should uproot and break.”
Throughout the generations, there have been countless formulations of the text of the prayer.[1] Today’s most commonly accepted version is actually a composite of verses (see Tehillim 145:13 and 144:10; Yeshaya 43:16; Yirmiyahu 29:7; Yeshaya 59:20), and begins with “Hanosen teshu’a”—“He who grants salvation.” Though it later was hijacked and mutated into a prayer for the welfare of the evil, false “messiah” Shabsai Tzvi, this iteration has existed since the 15th century (see e.g. Sh’yarei Knesses HaG’dola, Orach Chaim 284:5).
In keeping with the more cynical or oppositional views of the prayer as an institution, it has been suggested that the context of the verses comprising “HaNosen teshua” belies its stated intent (Writings of R’ Yosef Kapach, Vol. 1, pg. 492-493). The first of its verses is Dovid HaMelech’s explanation of why he cannot trust non-Jews (Tehillim 144:10-11), while the second is a precursor to G-d’s destruction of evil armies (Yeshaya 43:16-17). Some maintain that this text was chosen to appease local authorities while offering a hidden, distrustful message for the Jewish people.
There is a difference of opinion as to whether one should recite the prayer in the vernacular or in the language of the verses from which it is derived. While those of the latter opinion see no reason to deviate from the general text of our prayers (Lev HaIvri pg. 109), others maintain that if the prayer is to appease local authorities, it ought to be recited in a language those authorities could understand (see Kesser Shem Tov pg. 420 [R’ Shem Tov Gagin, Chief Rabbi of the Spanish and Portuguese Communities in England circa 1934]).
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Regardless of whether it is mandatory, regardless of the motivation, regardless of the precise formulation, and regardless of the language employed, it is times like these when we realize just how fortunate we are for the government and the police, how much we depend on them, and how we ought to recognize the good they do. We would do well to keep these thoughts in mind the next time a prayer for the welfare of the authorities is recited—if not for their benefit, then for our own.
[1] R’ Shimon Sofer suggests that the blessing of “V’lamalshinim” in the Shemoneh Esrei fulfills the requirement to pray for the government because it too is a request that society’s enemies be uprooted (Michtav Sofer, Orach Chaim 1).