Chavurat Lamdeinu
Prayer - Study - Community
Zochreinu L'Chayim
Erev Kol Nidre
Chavurat Lamdeinu
10 Tishrei 5767
October 1, 2006
Rabbi Ruth Gais                Zochreinu L’Chayyim

In Germany in the late 10th Century, the leading halachic authority was Rabbeinu
Gershom, also known as Me’or Ha’Golah, the Light of the Diaspora, because of his
great knowledge and his ability to resolve disputes within his own community of
Mainz and those in the greater world of Ashkenazic Jewry. Once he was asked
this question: In the liturgy of Rosh HaShanah and of Yom Kippur, we insert an
special, additional prayer in the Avot, the first blessing of the Amidah, zochreinu l’
chayyim, melech hofetz ba-chayyim; v’chotveinu b’sefer ha’chayyim, l’mancha
elohim chayyim – remember us for life, King desiring life, and inscribe us in the
book of life, for your sake, God of life ( p. 425 pm, p. 496 am- you know this. It even
has a special tune; just hear it and you know that you’re in the High Holidays), but
why do we add this? The question came up because we learn in the Talmudic
tractate Berachot (34a) that Rav Yehudah declared that a person should not
petition God in the first three blessings of Amidah or the last three, which are
reserved for praise and thanks, but only in the middle blessings.
The Amidah, the standing prayer, is also called Ha Tefillah, THE prayer. This is the
moment in our service that we and God have been waiting for. The first part of the
liturgy is meant to position us spiritually to be able to encounter God one on one.
When we enter a sacred space, first we need to separate ourselves from our
ordinary life, and allow the otherness of this time and space to take hold. We
achieve this separation by songs, prayer, and silence that allow us to remember
who we are and who God is and why we need each other. By the time this part of
the service is finished, we’re ready first to say the Sh’ma – which is at one level
our way of introducing ourselves as believers to God – and then we can go on to
have our closest encounter with God: Ha Tefillah, The prayer.
The model of our liturgy is that of a humble petitioner at the court of God, the
supreme ruler, Adonai Tzvaot, the Lord of hosts, God the merciful judge. So as we
begin THE prayer, we take three steps back, three forward, stand with our feet
together, and bow to the sovereign. In the first blessing, the Avot, we remind God
of God’s special favor towards our ancestors, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, Sarah,
Rebecca, Rachel and Leah, and hope that God will continue to extend God’s grace
to us. But in this blessing and in the two that follow, the Gevurot that affirms God’s
unique power, and the Kiddushah,  the affirmation of God’s holiness, we do not
ordinarily ask for anything. That would seem very out of place. So why, back to the
question asked Rabbeinu Gershom,, do we ask God, zochreinu ,  to remember us,
l’chayyim, for life? Isn’t that a request, and a really big one at that?
Rabbeinu Gershom acknowledged the problem and the inconsistency but came
up with an answer. He said that while yes indeed, praying “zochhreinu L’chayyim”
was a petitionary prayer, it was different from the kind of petitionary prayers that
could be said in the middle blessings – prayer for health, wealth, justice, -
because those were individual requests- but,he declared,  zochreinu l’chayyim is
a communal request, remember US, nor remember ME – a prayer from all of us
for the tzorchei tzibbur- the welfare of the community and therefore could be
included in the first blessing.
That reasoning though, doesn’t really work very well. What does it mean to ask
God to remember us for life for the welfare of the community? Certainly the
community needs its members – without which there would be no community.
We need farmers, doctors, teachers,  shopkeepers, plumbers, engineers,
watchmakers, even lawyers and politicians to keep the community alive. And
certainly entreaties for the means to sustain our lives and physical well-being,
jobs, money, food, shelter,health are as much a part of our High Holiday liturgy as
prayers for forgiveness and mercy. But Rabbeinu Gershom’s answer seems a
little forced and flabby, to me. The force of the prayer is goes beyond a cry for just
our physical well- being.  The truth of the matter is that people, ordinary people,
once they heard this prayer, and we know of its existence from at least the 8th
Century, liked it and soon minhag (custom) made it part of the liturgy. Rabbeinu
Gershom was trying to find a justification for its inclusion because popular
sentiment wouldn’t let it disappear. So this little prayer affects us somehow; I don’
t think it’s just because we’re thinking of the welfare of the community. .
A later authority, R. Menachem Meiri in the 12th Century, also trying to justify its
inclusion in the first blessing, argued that this prayer was different because it
doesn’t ask for material goods as the petition of an individual often would, but  
asks for life itself.
Life is,in fact, the most repeated word in this short prayer:
zochreinu l’chayyim: remember us for life
melech hofetz ba-chayyim; King desiring life
v’chotveinu b’sefer ha’chayyim and inscribe us in the book of life
l’mancha elohim chayyim, for your sake, God of life or living God

What kind of life are we asking for?
In the second chapter of Genesis we read: And The Lord God formed man from
the dust of the earth and blew into his nostrils nishmat chayyim, the soul of life,
and man became nefesh chayah, a living being. (Ber. 2:7)
There are, as the 19th Hasid known as the Sefas Emes tells us, three aspects to
each person revealed in this verse. We are dust from the earth. This is our
material, physical nature – if we are no more than that, we are to all intents and
purposes c’ilu met, as if we are dead. We are spiritually dead. Lumps of clay,
nothing more.
But God breathes into us nishmat chayyim, the soul of life, which comes from
God, the elohim chayyim, the living God, and we are animated with our soul which
is emanates from the living God.
Finally,  creatures of clay, a body housing a divine soul, the nishmat chayyim, we
become a living being, a nefesh chayah. This is who we are: creaturs who at time
desire to cling to the soul of life, and at times are overwhelmed by the needs of
the body. While we are not completely spiritual beings, we desire devekut,  
clinging, a longing to return to the life of the soul. Our prayer, zochreinu l’chayyim,
is a plea to God to help us liberate our soul from the prison of the body and allow
us to return to the life of the soul.
The life we seek is not just living, staying alive another year, but a life that is
connected to God.
We pray to God to inscribe us in the Book of Life, b’sefer chayyim. I always
imagined God with a huge ledger book in front of him, sort of like Ebenezeer
Scrooge and his account books, carefully writing in the names of all of us for the
new year. But this image, maybe even an updated image of God putting us in God’
s Blackberry, is too far from the important truth of the Sefas Emes’ teaching that
the life we want God to remember us for is not only that of being alive, but being
alive as God expects us to be alive.
A more profound interpretation of “inscribe us in the book of life,” again from the
Sefas Emes, says that our nishmat chayyim, our living soul, over the year, gets
overpowered, and hidden. Imagine your soul as a piece of paper, or a smooth
stone on which all that was from God and good has gotten a little worn away and
dirty over the year. Think of your soul like the tables of the law, the Ten
Commandments, which when first received had the writing upon them bold and
deep. But after time, the writing became faded and hard to read. So the book of
life is not far away, the book of life is within each of us. We pray to God to renew
what’s on the tablets of our hearts. We want God to write “life!” in big bold letters
on our hearts and by so desiring this, we commit ourselves to keeping the tablets
of our hearts free from the grime and dirt caused by living. It’s our job to be able to
read God’s commandments that are in our hearts.
The last part of the prayer, “l’mancha elohim chayyim, for your sake, God of life or
living God, tells God that we want life not just for our own sake. We remind God
that we understand that the purpose of our lives is not just living. As we are
taught in the Pirke Avot (6:11) whatever God created in God’s universe, is created
solely for God’s glory. That ‘s what our job is, to be alive to give God glory.
Whatever we do, eat breakfast, build a bridge, pray, go to the supermarket, make
love, pay the bills, we should strive to do ever mindful of God’s constant presence
inside us, in our nishmat chayyim. Ever mindful of the divinity within, our life each
day, lived right, gives glory to our Creator.

k.y.r.