Le'olam Yehei Adam

Was it written for people in hiding?

Why "in private"? One explanation comes from Rabbi Binyamin, whose brother wrote Shibbolei HaLeket (a book of law and custom from Rome in the 1200s). He says these words were first said to a generation under persecution, when saying Shema was forbidden by decree. They could not fear God in the open. So they were urged to accept God's rule in private. His proof: the passage leads straight into Shema.

Look up, then look down

The passage comes from Tanna DeVei Eliyahu, a midrash written in the voice of the prophet Eliyahu. Just before it, the midrash gives an exercise. Look up and ask who made the stars and gave each one its path. Then look down, see how many towers the empires built, and ask who knocked them to the ground. "From here they said: a person should always fear Heaven." Then comes nearly the whole prayer we say. The Tur (a law code from the 1300s) saw it in the siddur of Rav Amram Gaon, from the 800s.

A line from the last hour of Yom Kippur

"What are we? What is our life?" may sound familiar. The Gemara asks what Neilah is, the closing prayer of Yom Kippur. Shmuel, one of the first great teachers of the Gemara in Babylonia, answers with these exact words: mah anu, meh chayeinu. They are still in the Neilah Amidah, and the lines that follow there match ours, down to "for everything is a breath." So every weekday morning you say a piece of the last prayer of Yom Kippur.

Rav Safra's price

"Speaks truth in his heart" is from Tehillim 15, which asks who may live in God's tent. The Gemara's example is Rav Safra. The story is in the commentary printed as Rashi (the classic commentator, died 1105). A note there says his student Rabbi Yehudah ben Natan wrote these last pages. Rav Safra had something to sell. A buyer named a price while he was saying Shema, so he did not answer. The buyer took that as a no and raised it. After Shema, Rav Safra said: take it at your first price. In my mind I had agreed.

A line from Daniel's prayer

"Not because of our good deeds do we lay our pleas before You, but because of Your great compassion." Daniel said this in exile, praying for Jerusalem while it lay in ruins. Seder HaYom (a guide to the daily prayers by Rabbi Moshe ben Machir, who lived near Tzfat, printed in 1599) says a person should open his prayers this way. He is asking for kindness, not for something he earned. So no accuser has room to object to the prayer.

"All the nations are like nothing"

This line is hard to hear, and the sources do not all read it one way. It quotes Yeshayahu 40, a chapter about how vast God is: next to Him, nations are a drop from a bucket. Radak (a commentator from Provence, around 1200) explains: so no nation can stop Him from bringing Israel out. Seder HaYom is sharper: as the soul differs from the body, Israel differs from the nations. The prayer has just said "like nothing before You" about every mighty person, us included. The morning blessings have an essay on this verse.

Three fathers, three titles

Each father gets a title from Tanach. Avraham is "the one who loved You," as God calls him in Yeshayahu 41:8. Yaakov is "Your firstborn son": God sends Moshe to tell Pharaoh, "My firstborn son is Yisrael." Yitzchak started an argument. Some texts, including the Rambam's (Maimonides, the 12th-century authority), say "Your only one." Others objected: the Torah calls Yitzchak the only one of Avraham, not of God. Some dropped the word. Others changed one letter and said "his only one." That is what we say.

First small, then tall

Rebbe Nachman of Breslov (a Chassidic master who died in 1810) once told a man to say Tehillim as if every psalm were about himself. The man asked about the lines where King David praises himself. Find one good point in yourself, Rebbe Nachman answered, and then he pointed to this prayer. In the morning we first say "What are we? What is our life?" and make ourselves tiny. Then we say "But we are Your people," and we strengthen ourselves, lift ourselves up and speak of our greatness. That, he said, is how a person has to act in serving God.

וְאָנוּ מַקְטִינִים עַצְמֵנוּ מְאֹד, וְאַחַר־כָּךְ אָנוּ אוֹמְרִים: אֲבָל אֲנַחְנוּ עַמְּךָ בְּנֵי בְרִיתֶךָ וְכוּ', שֶׁאַחַר־כָּךְ אָנוּ מְחַזְּקִים עַצְמֵנוּ וּמְרִימִים אֶת עַצְמֵנוּ

Truth from outside, truth from inside

Rav Kook (the first Chief Rabbi of the Land of Israel, who died in 1935) reads the two truth phrases as a pair. "Admits the truth" is about a truth that reaches you from outside, from people who see further than you do. You might push it away to protect who you are, because you did not think of it yourself. Take it in anyway, he says. Then comes the opposite danger: leaning on other people's truth so much that you stop listening to your own soul. "Speaks truth in his heart" means drawing truth up from your own depths too.

יחד עם ההודאה על האמת הרחבה, הבאה מאפקים כ"כ רחוקים, יהיה דובר אמת בלבבו, לדלות את מי האמת ממעמקיו הוא.

The case for the word "and"

Rabbi Moshe Teitelbaum (a Chassidic master in Hungary who died in 1841) knew two versions of the first line. What he calls the Ashkenaz wording says "in private as in the open." What he calls the Sefard wording, the one printed here, says "in private and in the open." He prefers it. Being pure when nobody is watching is easy. Doing good in front of people for the same reason you would alone is much harder, and he calls it the highest level. So do not advertise the good you do, he says, and do not hold back from it because people can see.

שבסתר דבר קל הוא להיות זך בלי סיג, אבל בפרסום ובגלוי דבר קשה מאוד הוא

A fortune you did not earn

The Tanya (the main book of Chabad Chassidut, by Rabbi Shneur Zalman of Liadi, who died in 1812) quotes the line "how beautiful our inheritance" and says it was set for every morning on purpose. Picture someone who inherits a huge fortune they never worked for, and how happy they are. We should be that happy, and far more, about what our ancestors handed down to us. And what is the inheritance? Knowing that God is one in the full sense: even here on earth there is nothing apart from Him. Look at what you say next: Shema.

כְּמוֹ שֶׁהָאָדָם שָׂשׂ וְשָׂמֵחַ בִּירוּשָּׁה שֶׁנָּפְלָה לוֹ הוֹן עָתֵק שֶׁלֹּא עָמַל בּוֹ, כֵּן וְיוֹתֵר מִכֵּן לְאֵין קֵץ, יֵשׁ לָנוּ לִשְׂמוֹחַ עַל יְרוּשָּׁתֵנוּ שֶׁהִנְחִילוּנוּ אֲבוֹתֵינוּ

What makes a person more than an animal?

The prayer borrows a hard line from Kohelet (the book of Tanach also called Ecclesiastes): a human has no advantage over an animal. Rav Kook explains how that can be true. Creation climbs like a ladder, and each rung is a preparation for the one above it. A preparation is only potential. The animal is the rung below the human. But a person who never does what a person is here for also stays potential and nothing more, so the two come out equal. That, he says, is what "hevel" means: something that could have been and never became real.

ואם האדם ג"כ לא ימלא את תפקידו, ולא יביא את מציאותו לכלל תכלית, הרי נשאר גם הוא רק בתור יצירה כחנית

Do I say the first line, or is it an instruction?

The custom is to say it, even though it reads like an instruction: get up early and say what follows. The Rema (Rabbi Moshe Isserles, 1500s), in his notes on the Tur (a law code from the 1300s), reports that in our siddurim it is said before "Master of all worlds." Shibbolei HaLeket (a law book from Italy in the 1200s) records that Rabbeinu Shlomo, its name for Rashi, had people skip it. People were puzzled: only "in private," and not in the open? It then quotes another authority: it is proper to say it.

My friend's siddur says only "in private." Who is right?

Three wordings are in print. The old law books have baseter alone, "in private." The Tur quotes it that way, and the Chabad siddur keeps it. In Shibbolei HaLeket, the author's brother Rabbi Binyamin writes not to change it. This siddur and Nusach Ashkenaz add uvagalui, "and in the open." The Aruch HaShulchan (a law code from around 1900): "that is how it should be said." Sephardic siddurim print the wording of the Arizal (Rabbi Yitzchak Luria, Kabbalist of Tzfat, 1500s): kevagalui, "in private as in the open."

Do I say it on Shabbat and holidays?

The siddurim we checked print it for those days too. The Chabad siddur marks the prayers before and after the Akedah "not said on a day when Tachanun (the weekday prayers of pleading) is not said," and puts no mark here. The Nusach Sefard machzor (holiday prayer book) for Rosh Hashanah has a Shabbat and Yom Tov note on the prayer just before this one, and none on this. One siddur prints it in full in its Shabbat morning service. We did not find a law book that discusses it.

Nobody can see me. Does the law still apply?

Yes. The Shulchan Aruch (the main code of Jewish law) writes, about getting dressed: "Do not say: I am in my innermost room, who sees me?" The Kitzur Shulchan Aruch (a short law guide, 1860s) adds "and in the dark." The Biur Halacha (notes by the author of the Mishnah Berurah, a central commentary on daily law) lists fear of God among six mitzvot that apply every moment. When a chance to sin comes, you must remind yourself right then that God sees what people do, even in the dark, and holds them to account.

I decided something in my head. Am I bound by it?

Sometimes. The Kitzur Shulchan Aruch builds a law on "speaks truth in his heart," from Tehillim 15: a God-fearing person should keep even a thought. Decided on a price, or on a favor you are able to do? Keep to it. Peninei Halakhah (a modern law guide by Rabbi Eliezer Melamed) calls this a practice of the pious, and limits it to a final decision. Charity is stricter: the Rema rules that if you decided in your heart to give, you must. He notes a view that an unspoken thought does not bind, and sides against it.

The prayer says we get to shul early. Is that a law?

Yes. The Shulchan Aruch rules: "A person should get to shul early, to be counted among the first ten." The Gemara says why: even if a hundred come later, each of the first ten is rewarded like all of them together. The Mishnah Berurah adds that it counts only if you pray there with them. He notes that the Arizal was not among the first ten: he had a health reason, and he wanted to walk to shul in tallit and tefillin, which cannot be done before daylight.