Vehu Rachum (part 4)

Many lines are quotes

Much of this is borrowed. "Look down from heaven" opens Yeshayahu 63:15. "Scorn and derision" is in Tehillim 44:14 and 79:4, "counted as sheep" is Tehillim 44:23, and "led to the slaughter" is Yeshayahu 53:7. "To kill and to wipe out" are two of the three verbs in the decree Haman, the villain of the Purim story, sent out against the Jews (Esther 3:13). "Weary, given no rest" is Eichah 5:5, "Where is their God" is Tehillim 115:2, and "a few out of many" is Yirmiyahu 42:2. The last paragraph is Tehillim 79:9.

Said by the leader, answered by everyone

Part 3 showed that the Machzor Vitry (a prayer book put together in northern France around the year 1100) already has this passage. For this section it also says how it was said: on Mondays and Thursdays the leader says it "with a pleading heart and with focus," and the whole congregation answers after him. It also has a stanza our siddur does not: "Our mouth is put in the dust... we are full of bitterness and soaked in wormwood."

"Look down from heaven" starts as a complaint

In Yeshayahu 63:15 the prophet asks God to look down, and then asks: "Where is Your zeal and Your might? The stirring of Your insides and Your mercy toward me are held back." Radak (Rabbi David Kimchi, a commentator from southern France who died around 1235) hears him quoting God's own words back at Him: "My insides stir for him, I will surely have mercy." Where is that stirring now? The siddur keeps the call to look and says what it wants God to see.

Moshe's "what will they say?" argument

The refrain is Moshe's plea after the Golden Calf, and his reason is not "we deserve it." It is: why should Egypt say God took them out for evil, to kill them in the mountains? A later paragraph makes the same move: "Why should the nations say, Where is their God?" On the same question in Tehillim 79:10, Radak calls it "the desecration," because God's honor is being profaned among the nations. Moshe used this argument again after the spies (Bamidbar 14:13-16).

"A few out of many" and what came next

"We are left a few out of many" is from Yirmiyahu 42:2, where the people left in Judah after Babylon took Jerusalem ask the prophet to pray for them. God's answer through him: stay here, do not fear Babylon, I am with you. Their leaders called him a liar, and they all went to Egypt, taking him with them (Yirmiyahu 42:10-11, 43:2-7). The prayer borrows only their plea. The stars come from the same chapter as the refrain, Shemot 32:13, where Moshe reminds God of that promise.

I have never been treated like this. Why say it?

The Gemara (the rabbis' discussions built on the Mishnah) says that when the community is in trouble, a person should not go home and say "peace on you, my soul." Instead he should share the trouble. Its model is Moshe in the battle with Amalek, who sat on a stone while his hands grew heavy, as if to say: Israel is in pain, so I will be in pain with them. Whoever does that, it says, will also see the community's comfort. That passage is about a time of distress, not an easy day.

There is no such thing as giving up

The prayer quotes strangers: "There is no hope." Rebbe Nachman of Breslov (a Chassidic master who died in 1810) says the opposite. He is talking about one person who feels far from where he should be, not about the Jewish people. Even someone who has fallen far, he writes, should not give up on himself. As long as he holds on to something, he still has hope of returning. The book records that Rebbe Nachman stretched out the words "there is no despair at all" and said them with great force, for every generation.

כִּי אֵין שׁוּם יֵאוּשׁ בָּעוֹלָם כְּלָל... עֲדַיִן יֵשׁ לוֹ תִּקְוָה לָשׁוּב

Noah prayed too late

The Zohar Chadash (a companion book to the Zohar, the central book of Kabbalah) tells of Noah stepping out of the ark and weeping over the ruined world: "You should have had mercy." God answers that He spoke gently to Noah so that Noah would ask mercy for the world. But once Noah heard he would be saved, the world's evil did not enter his heart. Only now, when it is gone, does he plead. Rabbi Shlomo of Radomsk (a Chassidic rebbe in Poland, died 1866) hears Moshe's "turn from Your anger" as "remember the flood." Now notice when Moshe says it.

בְּדִיל דְּתִבְעֵי רַחֲמִין עַל עָלְמָא... וּכְעָן דְּאִתְאֲבֵיד עָלְמָא, פָּתְחֵית פּוּמָךְ לְמַלָּלָא קֳדָמַי בַּעְיָין וְתַחֲנוּנִין

The one point that stays

Rabbi Avraham Yehoshua Heschel of Apta (a Chassidic master who died in 1825) writes in his book Ohev Yisrael that in a hard time, for a people or for one person, much of what lit a person up pulls away. But one point inside stays. He hears it in this line: "Despite all this, we have not forgotten Your name." From that point a person can return, and even climb higher than before. The way back, he says, is to accept God's rule, see honestly how low you are, cry out to God, and return fully.

עדיין בכל זאת שמך לא שכחנו... ובזו הנקודה יוכל האדם לחזור למדריגתו ביתר שאת ורום המעלות

God smiles when He loses

The prayer asks, "Why should the nations say, Where is their God?" (Tehillim 115). Rabbi Levi Yitzchak of Berditchev (a Chassidic master who died in 1809) notes how the psalm goes on: "Our God is in heaven, He does whatever He wants." In heaven, yes. Down here, he says, the prayers of righteous people can cancel God's decrees. He calls that one of God's delights, like a father who enjoys it when his son beats him. He points to the Gemara's story of a debate the sages won, where God smiles and says, "My children have defeated Me."

וזה אחת משעשועי הבורא ברוך הוא שברא בריאות נשמות צדיקים שמבטלין גזירותיו... קא חייך ואמר נצחוני בני

On a fast day, why does the Torah reader wait while everyone says this verse?

This refrain is built on a verse from Moshe's plea after the Golden Calf (Shemot 32:12), which is read from the Torah on public fast days. The Mishnah Berurah (a central commentary on daily law, around 1900) says the congregation says it as a request, and the reader waits until they finish, then reads it. Sefer Chasidim (a medieval German book of piety) says a reader may not read in the style of a request. The Arukh HaShulchan (a law code, around 1900) adds that he reads it again, since they said it by heart.

Can I lean on a table or a wall while I stand for this?

The Ben Ish Chai (Rabbi Yosef Chayim of Baghdad, died 1909) writes that the extra Monday and Thursday supplications are all said standing, without leaning on anything you would fall without, unless you are old or sick. The Shulchan Aruch (the main code of Jewish law) says, about the Amidah, not to lean on a pillar or a friend. The Mishnah Berurah (a commentary on daily law, around 1900) adds that on one view a light lean is fine if you would not fall without it. Another view bars any lean.