Et Tzemach David

The Messiah has a second name

The Talmud Yerushalmi (the Talmud of the Land of Israel, about 1,600 years old) records a debate about the Messiah's name. Rabbi Yehoshua ben Levi says it is Tzemach, "sprout," the word in this blessing. Eichah Rabbah (an early collection of teachings on Lamentations) gives his verse: "Here is a man whose name is Tzemach" (Zecharyah 6:12). Rabbi Yudan says the name is Menachem, "comforter." Chananya, son of Rabbi Abbahu, says they do not disagree: the two words have the same numerical value, 138.

Born the day the Temple fell

The same passage tells a story. A farmer's ox bellows, and a passing Arab says to unhitch his plow, because the Temple was destroyed. The ox bellows again, and the Arab says to hitch it up, because the king Messiah was born. The farmer becomes a seller of baby clothes and finds the baby's mother. She wishes him dead, because he was born the day the Temple was destroyed. The farmer answers that through this child it was destroyed and through him it will be rebuilt. Later she says storm winds snatched the baby away.

A great sage backed the wrong man

The Rambam (Maimonides, who died in 1204) says the Messiah does not need to do miracles or bring the dead back to life. His proof is Rabbi Akiva, one of the greatest Sages, who carried the weapons of King Bar Kozibah and said he was the Messiah. The other Sages of his generation thought so too, until Bar Kozibah was killed. Then they knew he was not. They had never asked him for a sign or a wonder.

A tree that was cut down

A tzemach grows up out of the ground. Yeshayahu 11:1 says: "A shoot will come out of the stump of Yishai," David's father. Radak (Rabbi David Kimchi, a Bible commentator in southern France, around 1200) explains the picture. A tree that is cut down can send up new shoots from its stump and roots. Israel's kingship was cut off like that tree, but the stump and roots stayed, so there is still hope. On Tehillim 132:17 he adds that "sprout" is used even though it had dried up.

Was it ever part of the Jerusalem blessing?

The Tosefta (a collection of teachings from about the year 200) says the eighteen blessings can be counted with David's request included in the Jerusalem blessing. It adds that someone who says them separately has still done his duty. The Yerushalmi quotes this same teaching while discussing the count of eighteen. The Gemara (the Babylonian Talmud) says these eighteen are really nineteen, since the blessing against heretics was added at Yavneh. In this siddur David has his own blessing.

A question asked at judgment

Rava (a sage in Babylonia) says that when a person is brought in for judgment (usually read as the judgment after death), one question is "Did you look forward to salvation?" Rashi (the main medieval commentator on the Gemara, France, 1000s) adds: according to the words of the prophets. The Hebrew word there, tzipita, has the same root as the last words in Sefard, "u'metzapim liyeshua," "and we watch for salvation."

The sprout is already growing

Rabbi Shlomo of Radomsk (a Chassidic master in Poland in the 1800s) asks why this prayer speaks of a sprout. His answer: the seed was planted when the world began. He cites the teaching that the first light God made in Bereishit is the light of the Messiah. A seed that is planted and not ruined will surely grow. The prayers and tears of the Jewish people are like rain on it, so the Messiah is growing every day. That is why the prophets speak of him in the present and past tense. Now read "cause to sprout" again.

ועל הטפות גשמי נדבות ותפלות ודמעות שבנ"י מבקשים עליו בכל עת הנה הוא צומח ועולה בכל יום ויום

Why does the ending sound like it is happening now?

The blessing ends "who makes a horn of salvation sprout," in the present tense, not "will make." Rabbi Tzadok HaKohen of Lublin (a Chassidic thinker in Poland in the 1800s) says prayers like this were worded in the present because they really are answered all the time. Each person, he writes, already sees and feels some of that joy in their heart, as much as they long for it inside. He points to a saying of the sages, also in the present tense: whoever mourns for Jerusalem "merits and sees its joy."

נתקנו כל נוסח התפלות בלשון הווה בונה ירושלים מצמיח קרן ישועה... מפני שבאמת המה נענים בתמידיות

The willow has no taste and no smell

On Hoshana Rabbah, the seventh day of Sukkot, there is a custom of taking willows. The Midrash (early rabbinic teachings on the Torah) says the willow, with no taste and no smell, stands for a person with neither Torah nor good deeds. The Sefat Emet (the teachings of the Gerer Rebbe, a Chassidic master in Poland in the late 1800s) asks what such a person is worth, and answers: only that he waits for salvation. That waiting makes him a vessel ready to be saved. He calls this David's quality, which is why David's sprout sits in this blessing.

א"כ מה החשיבות רק להיות מצפה לישועה. ואז הוא כלי מוכן להיות נושע בה'

Every day it comes a little closer

Rabbi Natan of Breslov (the main student of Rebbe Nachman, a Chassidic master who wrote in the early 1800s) says we are not allowed to calculate when the final redemption will come. What we can do is our part each day. Every day it comes closer according to what each person does, "just as we bless every day: who makes a horn of salvation sprout." In the end, he says, all that work gets gathered together, and the redemption comes.

שֶׁבְּכָל יוֹם מִתְקָרֶבֶת הַגְּאֻלָּה כְּפִי הָעֲבוֹדָה שֶׁל כָּל אֶחָד וְאֶחָד שֶׁעוֹבֵד אֶת ה' יִתְבָּרַךְ וּכְּמוֹ שֶׁאָנוּ מְבָרְכִין בְּכָל יוֹם מַצְמִיחַ קֶרֶן יְשׁוּעָה

It grows back from a hard kernel

Rav Kook (the first Chief Rabbi of the Land of Israel, who died in 1935) uses this blessing's own words, "the sprouting of the horn of salvation." He writes that when the time for the nation's rebirth comes, a strong force of denial wakes up. It burns away whatever is dim in the way people understand God. For a while it can look as if truth, good character and commandments are being swept away. But in the end, he says, everything will sprout again, pure and strong, from a hard, pure kernel that no denial can reach.

סוף סוף הכל יצמח בטהרה וגבורה, בקדושה עליונה, מגרעין האיתן, הטהור והמרומם, שכל שלילה לא תגיע אליו

The leader is repeating the Amidah. What do I do at this blessing?

Stay quiet and listen to the whole blessing. The Shulchan Aruch (the main code of Jewish law, 1500s) rules that you answer Amen after every blessing, with the thought that it is true and you believe it. The Mishnah Berurah (a central commentary on daily Jewish law, written around 1900) adds that for a request like this one, you also pray that it comes true. The Shulchan Aruch forbids idle talk then, and the Mishnah Berurah warns against studying.

David is named in the Jerusalem blessing too. Can I skip that line?

Not according to the Kaf HaChaim (a Sephardic law commentary, early 1900s). Copying the Arizal's text of the Amidah (Rabbi Yitzchak Luria, the Kabbalist of Tzfat, 1500s), he says to say "and the throne of David Your servant" there. He rejects those who skip it on the grounds that David belongs to this blessing. The same passage tells that the Arizal once told a man he had never said a complete Amidah, because he skipped these words. The Jerusalem blessing covers the separate debate about "Your servant."

What should I have in mind at "we hope for Your salvation all day"?

The Chida (Rabbi Chaim Yosef David Azulai, a Sephardic rabbi born in Jerusalem in the 1700s) writes in Kesher Gudal, a short book of his rulings, that at "for Your salvation we hope all day" you should have in mind that you are looking forward to salvation, because a person is asked about this. He is pointing to Shabbat 31a, where "Did you look forward to salvation?" is one of the questions put to a person at judgment. The Story section tells that passage.