Draft. This siddur is waiting for a rav's review. For a halachic question, ask your rav.
Hebrew, then English. Open "What it means" under any line for the explanation.
צדיקים
Title: The righteous
The righteous. (The title of this blessing.)
Why does this blessing come right here? The blessing before it asks for an end to those who do wrong. The Gemara (the rabbis' discussions built on the Mishnah) says: once the wrongdoers are gone, the horn (a sign of strength) of the righteous rises, quoting Tehillim 75:11. It then asks where it rises, and answers: in Jerusalem. That is the next blessing.
Megillah 17bעַל הַצַּדִּיקִים וְעַל הַחֲסִידִים וְעַל זִקְנֵי עַמְּךָ בֵּית יִשְׂרָאֵל
Upon the righteous and upon the devoted and upon the elders of Your people the House of Israel
Upon the righteous, upon the devoted, upon the elders of Your people, the House of Israel,
Who are "the elders"? The Gemara's list of the blessings (Megillah 17b) does not say. Elsewhere, the Gemara reads the word "elder" in the verse about honoring an elder (Vayikra 19:32) as a wise person, not just an old one. Rabbi Yose HaGelili (a sage of the Mishnah) says an elder is someone who has acquired wisdom.
Kiddushin 32bוְעַל פְּלֵיטַת סוֹפְרֵיהֶם וְעַל גֵּרֵי הַצֶּדֶק
and upon the remnant of their scholars and upon the righteous converts
Upon the remnant of their scholars, and upon the righteous converts,
Why converts here? The Gemara says the blessing includes them with the righteous because the verse about honoring an elder (Vayikra 19:32) is followed right away by the verse about a newcomer living among you (19:33).
Megillah 17bוְעָלֵינוּ יֶהֱמוּ נָא רַחֲמֶיךָ יְיָ אֱלֹהֵינוּ
and upon us please let Your compassion stir Hashem our God
וְתֵן שָׂכָר טוֹב לְכָל הַבּוֹטְחִים בְּשִׁמְךָ בֶּאֱמֶת
And give a good reward to all who trust in Your Name in truth
Give a good reward to everyone who trusts in Your Name in truth.
Abudarham (a commentary on the prayers, Spain, about 1340) reads "in truth" as: people who know the truth of Hashem's Name, from Tehillim 9:11. He says "a good reward" echoes Tehillim 31:20, "How great is Your goodness that You have stored up for those who fear You."
Abudarham, Weekday Prayers, Amidahוְשִׂים חֶלְקֵנוּ עִמָּהֶם וּלְעוֹלָם לֹא נֵבוֹשׁ כִּי בְךָ בָטָחְנוּ.
And place our share with them and we will never be ashamed because in You we trusted
Place our share with them, and we will never be ashamed, because we trusted in You.
Ashamed of what? Abudarham says it means we will not be ashamed of our own deeds. He says the pairing of trust and shame comes from Tehillim 25:2, and that "place our share with them" echoes a line in the Gemara: "May my share be with the righteous in the Garden of Eden."
Abudarham, Weekday Prayers, Amidahבָּרוּךְ אַתָּה יְיָ מִשְׁעָן וּמִבְטָח לַצַּדִּיקִים.
Blessed are You, Hashem support and trust for the righteous
Abudarham ties the two closing words to verses. "Support" comes from Yeshayahu 10:20, "will lean on the Holy One of Israel in truth." "Trust" comes from Tehillim 40:5, "Happy is the person who makes Hashem his trust."
Abudarham, Weekday Prayers, AmidahThe Tur (a code of Jewish law from the 1300s) says this blessing holds the whole alef-bet. He reads that as a hint to the words "for the sake of the righteous who study Your Torah, treat us with kindness." He also counts 42 words. Our text has 43, but one is na, "please," and the Arukh HaShulchan (a code of Jewish law from around 1900) says it is not needed. Without it the count is 42. Every letter does show up.
Tur, Orach Chaim 118; Arukh HaShulchan, Orach Chaim 118:4The Tosefta (an early collection of rabbinic teachings) lists blessings that were "included" inside others: the converts' blessing inside the elders' blessing, and David's inside Jerusalem's. The Jerusalem Talmud quotes a similar list and puts the elders and the converts inside "Trust of the righteous." The Rambam (Rabbi Moshe ben Maimon, 1100s) wrote out a version with no elders and no scribes. He has "the remnant of Your people, the house of Israel."
Tosefta Berakhot 3:25; Jerusalem Talmud Berakhot 4:3; Rambam, Order of Prayer 2:14The prayer asks compassion for "the remnant of their sofrim." Today a sofer is a scribe who writes Torah scrolls. But the Gemara says the earliest generations of teachers were called sofrim because they counted every letter in the Torah. It even gives examples, such as the vav in the word gachon, which it calls the middle letter of a Torah scroll. The Gemara is not talking about our prayer here. It shows that for the sages, sofrim was a name for the earliest teachers of Torah, not only for people who write scrolls.
Kiddushin 30aAbudarham (a Spanish commentator on the prayers, about 1340) matches each group to a verse. The righteous: "Hashem's eyes are on the righteous, and His ears are open to their cry" (Tehillim 34:16). The devoted: "Therefore every devoted person will pray to You" (Tehillim 32:6). The converts: "Love the stranger, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt" (Devarim 10:19).
Abudarham, Weekday Prayers, AmidahIn the Gemara, "may my share be with..." is how a sage says whom he wants to be near. Rabbi Yose says: with those who get people to sit and learn in the study hall, not with those who announce that it is time to stop and eat. And Rabbi Elazar, after he finished his prayer, added one that asks: "Put our share in the Garden of Eden, and give us a good friend." Our line uses the same words, "put our share," and asks for it "with them." Abudarham reads "them" as all who trust in God's name.
Shabbat 118b and Rashi there; Berakhot 16b; Abudarham, Weekday Prayers, AmidahRead the list again. The righteous, the devoted, the elders, the scribes, the converts. Then one short word at the end of the list: "aleinu," upon us. That is where the person praying stands.
Abudarham notes that the blessing names four groups: the righteous, the devoted, the converts, and us. To explain them he uses the Mekhilta (an early collection of teachings on the Book of Shemot), which reads Yeshayahu 44:5 as four kinds of people answering God. One says "I am Hashem's," meaning wholly His, with no sin mixed in. One takes the name Yaakov, and these are converts. One writes "of Hashem" on his hand, and these are people who came back after sinning. One takes the name Israel, and these are people who fear heaven.
Abudarham matches the prayer to these four. The righteous are the ones who never sinned. The devoted, in his reading, still worry about wrong they did. Then come the converts, and then "us." He says we still say "upon us," even though we do not claim to be people who serve God out of love. We are people who fear heaven.
So the prayer does not pretend. It never says you are righteous. It asks for compassion on you, and then asks that your share be placed with them.
Two cautions. Matching the devoted to people who returned is Abudarham's own reading, not the plain meaning of the word. And his four groups leave out the elders and the scribes. He does not comment on them.
Abudarham, Weekday Prayers, Amidah,Mekhilta DeRabbi Yishmael, Nezikin 18,Yeshayahu 44:5The Gemara asks why the Amidah blessings come in this order, and answers each one from a verse. For this one the chain is: once the wicked are gone, the strength of the righteous is lifted up (Tehillim 75:11). Then it adds that the blessing "includes the righteous converts with the righteous." Its proof is two neighboring verses in Vayikra. First: "Rise before the aged, and honor the old." Right after it: "If a stranger lives with you in your land, do not wrong him."
The Tosefta (an early collection of rabbinic teachings) says it another way. The converts' blessing is included in the elders' blessing. The Jerusalem Talmud puts both inside "Trust of the righteous." That places converts in this blessing in some of our earliest sources.
Abudarham gives the Torah's side. For the converts he points to "Love the stranger, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt." He also says the Torah warns many times to love converts, and that God loves them too.
The Gemara treats it as law, too. In Bava Metzia the rabbis teach that someone who hurts a convert with words breaks three commandments, and someone who oppresses a convert in other ways breaks two.
Put together, the sources give three ways in: two neighboring verses, an early list of blessings, and a love the Torah commands.
Megillah 17b,Tosefta Berakhot 3:25,Jerusalem Talmud Berakhot 4:3,Abudarham, Weekday Prayers, Amidah,Vayikra 19:32-33,Devarim 10:19,Bava Metzia 59bThe blessing asks God to "give a good reward to all who trust in Your name in truth." But Pirkei Avot (the Mishnah's chapters of sayings from the sages) quotes a teacher named Antigonus of Socho: "Do not be like servants who serve the master in order to receive a reward. Be like servants who serve without that. And let the fear of Heaven be upon you."
The sages knew this saying could be misheard. Avot DeRabbi Natan, an early collection of the sages' teachings, says Antigonus had two students who taught his words to their own students, and those students taught theirs. Then they looked closely at the words and reasoned: would a worker labor all day and not be paid in the evening? If our fathers had known there is another world and that the dead will live again, they would not have said this. So they left the Torah, and two breakaway groups, the Sadducees and the Boethusians, came from them.
The Rambam (Rabbi Moshe ben Maimon, 1100s) tells his own version of the story in his commentary on Avot, and says the students did not understand. Antigonus meant serving from love, not in order to get something back. But the Rambam adds that he did not cancel fear: "even when you serve from love, do not drop fear completely."
Now back to the blessing. Abudarham says the "us" in it are people who fear heaven, not people who serve from love. He ties "good reward" to Tehillim 31:20: "How great is Your goodness that You have stored up for those who fear You."
The sources do not settle this with one rule. They give the ideal, a warning about hearing it wrong, and a prayer whose commentator says openly that its speakers are people who fear heaven, not people who serve from love.
Pirkei Avot 1:3,Avot DeRabbi Natan 5:2,Rambam on Pirkei Avot 1:3,Abudarham, Weekday Prayers, Amidah,Tehillim 31:20Short ideas from the Chassidic masters, the Kabbalah and the Mussar teachers.
The Arizal (Rabbi Yitzchak Luria, a Kabbalah master in Safed in the 1500s) asks the skeptic's question: "place our share with them" looks like a wasted prayer. We choose our own actions. If you are righteous, your share is already with them. If not, asking does not change that. His answer: when someone sins, the spiritual light made by his mitzvot cannot reach him for now. Some great righteous people refuse to benefit from what is not theirs. They hold it as a deposit and give it back when he repents. We ask that our share be placed with them.
שלכאורה נראין כתפלת שוא וברכה לבטלה
Arizal, Sha'ar HaKavanot (recorded by Rabbi Chaim Vital), Amidah, discourse 6Rabbi David Shlomo Eibeschutz, a Chassidic rabbi of the late 1700s and early 1800s, stops at "all who trust in Your Name." Someone who does not really trust God, he writes, is afraid to correct people, because he is afraid of them. Someone who trusts is not. He reads the prayer as a request: if our reward goes to a righteous person, let it go to one like that, who will speak up and set us straight. Then we become his partners, and we are not put to shame, left empty of our own mitzvot.
מי שאינו בוטח בה' ירא להוכיח הרבים כי ירא מפניהם
Arvei Nachal, Parashat VayeraThe Alter of Slobodka (Rabbi Nosson Tzvi Finkel, who founded the Slobodka yeshiva in Lithuania and died in 1927) says that even in a weak generation, great strength is hidden inside each person, and we could rise to the level of the great people before us. So he reads "place our share with them, and may we never be put to shame" simply: if our share is not with the righteous, it is a shame to us. Now read the line again with that in mind.
אם לא יהיה חלקנו עם הצדיקים בושה היא לנו
Alter of Slobodka, Ohr HaTzafun, Bereishit, part 4The Zohar (the central book of Kabbalah) takes the verse about the righteous growing "like a cedar in Lebanon." A cedar rises above all the trees, and everyone can sit under it. So it is with the righteous: everyone sits under them. The Zohar adds that the world stands on one righteous person, and quotes Mishlei (the Book of Proverbs): "the righteous is the foundation of the world." Now read the closing line again, where God is the support of the righteous.
ועלמא לא קיימא אלא על צדיק חד
Zohar, Parashat Lech LechaThe practical laws. For a final ruling, ask your rav.
Yes. The Shulchan Aruch HaRav (the code of law by Rabbi Shneur Zalman of Liadi, the first Chabad Rebbe) rules that this blessing must include righteous converts. His reason is the Gemara's: the verse about rising before an elder (Vayikra 19:32) is followed right away by the verse about a convert who lives with you (19:33). The Tur (an early code of Jewish law, 1300s) says the same.
Shulchan Aruch HaRav, Orach Chaim 118:2 (first edition); Megillah 17b; Tur, Orach Chaim 118Not if it was a mistake. Go back to the start of this blessing and say everything after it again, in order, even if you notice several blessings later. If you are still inside this blessing, go back only to where you slipped. Skipped it on purpose? Start the Amidah over. The Atah Chonen prayer gives this rule in full, from the Shulchan Aruch (the main code of Jewish law) and the Mishnah Berurah (a commentary on it from around 1900).
Shulchan Aruch, Orach Chaim 119:3 and 114:7; Mishnah Berurah 119:13-15The Kitzur Shulchan Aruch (a short guide to daily law, 1860s) says to pray from your own nusach (your community's version of the prayers) and not mix in words from another, since each one's words are counted. This Sefard text, like Chabad and Sephardic siddurim, says "yehemu na rachamecha," where "na" means "please." Ashkenaz siddurim leave it out. The Tur counts this blessing at 42 words, and the Arukh HaShulchan (a code of law from around 1900) says that to fit that count, careful siddurim leave out "na."
Kitzur Shulchan Aruch 18:5; Tur, Orach Chaim 118; Arukh HaShulchan, Orach Chaim 118:4Some say yes. The Kaf HaChaim (a Sephardic law commentary from the early 1900s) says to have in mind a request: if my sins cost me my share in the World to Come, God forbid, let it go to a righteous person who does not want to benefit from what is not his, who will give it back when I repent. He cites Sha'ar HaKavanot, which records the teachings of the Arizal (Rabbi Yitzchak Luria, a 1500s kabbalist of Safed). The Chida (Rabbi Chaim Yosef David Azulai, 1700s) gives the same idea.
Kaf HaChaim, Orach Chaim 118:6; Chida, Midbar Kedemot, Tzadi 24וְכֵיוָן שֶׁכָּלוּ הַפּוֹשְׁעִים... מִתְרוֹמֶמֶת קֶרֶן צַדִּיקִים, דִּכְתִיב: ״וְכׇל קַרְנֵי רְשָׁעִים אֲגַדֵּעַ תְּרוֹמַמְנָה קַרְנוֹת צַדִּיק״. וְכוֹלֵל גֵּירֵי הַצֶּדֶק עִם הַצַּדִּיקִים
Once the wicked are gone, the strength of the righteous is lifted up, as it is written: "All the horns of the wicked I will cut off; the horns of the righteous will be lifted up." And it includes the righteous converts with the righteous.
ושל גרים בשל זקנים ושל דוד בירושלים
...and the converts' blessing is included in the elders' blessing, and David's in Jerusalem's.
ושל זקנים ושל גרים במבטח לצדיקים ושל דוד בבונה ירושלים
...the elders' and the converts' are in "Trust of the righteous," and David's is in "Builder of Jerusalem."
ויש בה כל האלפא ביתא לומר למען צדיקים עוסקי תורתך עשה עמנו חסד ויש בה מ"ב תיבות
It has the whole alef-bet in it, to say: for the sake of the righteous who study Your Torah, treat us with kindness. And it has 42 words.
לפיכך נקראו ראשונים סופרים שהיו סופרים כל האותיות שבתורה
That is why the earlier ones were called sofrim: they counted all the letters in the Torah.
"וְזֶה יִקְרָא בְשֵׁם יַעֲקֹב", אֵלּוּ גֵּרֵי צֶדֶק; "וְזֶה יִכְתֹּב יָדוֹ לַיי", אֵלּוּ בַעֲלֵי תְשׁוּבָה; "וּבְשֵׁם יִשְׂרָאֵל יְכַנֶּה", אֵלּוּ יִרְאֵי שָׁמַיִם
"Another shall call in the name of Yaakov": these are righteous converts. "Another shall write on his hand 'of Hashem'": these are people who came back after sinning. "And take the name Israel": these are people who fear heaven.
ועלינו יהמו נא רחמיך אע"ף שאין אנו חושבין כל כך אלא אנו יראי שמים ואין אנו מחזיקין עצמנו כעובדים מאהבה
"And upon us, may Your compassion stir." We say it even though we do not rate ourselves so highly. We are people who fear heaven, and we do not hold ourselves to be people who serve out of love.
ואמר רבי יוסי יהא חלקי ממושיבי בית המדרש ולא ממעמידי בית המדרש
And Rabbi Yose said: May my share be with those who seat people in the study hall, and not with those who make them stand.
אל תהיו כעבדים המשמשין את הרב על מנת לקבל פרס, אלא הוו כעבדים המשמשין את הרב שלא על מנת לקבל פרס, ויהי מורא שמים עליכם
Do not be like servants who serve the master in order to receive a reward. Be like servants who serve without that. And let the fear of Heaven be upon you.
אפשר שיעשה פועל מלאכה כל היום ולא יטול שכרו ערבית
Could a worker work all day and not take his wage in the evening?
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