A Single Band:The Universal Call of the High Holidays

The Uvekhen Prayers

David C. Kraemer, Joseph J. and Dora Abbell Librarian and Professor of Talmud and
Rabbinics, JTS

Watch video of Dr. Kraemer sharing his thoughts on this topic.

The Amidah—the standing, silent prayer—is the central prayer of rabbinic tradition. During its 18 recitations on the six days of a normal week, it has an essentially unchanged form. But on Sabbath and holidays, the prayer changes, omitting the centrally placed daily requests and adopting a form appropriate to the occasion. These changes help us understand how the rabbis understood the nature of the holidays and other special times.

The Amidah for the High Holidays commences its central section—for any service on Rosh Hashanah or Yom Kippur—with a single formula: three paragraphs known for their opening words “and so” (uvekhen, a short word that is difficult to translate exactly).

The first of the paragraphs reads as follows:

And so, place Your fear, Lord, our God, upon all Your works, and Your awe upon all You have created; and all works will fear You, and all creatures will bow before You. And they will all form a single band to do Your will with a perfect heart. For we know Lord, our God that dominion is Yours, strength is in Your hand, might is in Your right hand. and Your Name is awesome over all You have created.  [Emphasis added.]

Oral performances, such as prayer, often emphasize their central theme through repetition, which the reciter or listener can’t help but notice. Unmistakably, the theme of this paragraph is that all creatures are God’s creatures, which leads to the hope that one day, at least, all creatures will unite in a single whole, in recognition of the single God. No Israel, no nations, just a single, unified humanity, embraced by and embracing the whole of God’s creation. It is difficult to imagine a more universalistic expression, one thoroughly appropriate to the day on which we celebrate the birthday of the world and everything in it.

The second paragraph assumes a very different focus:

And so, grant honor, Lord, to Your people, praise to those who fear You, good hope to those who seek You, and ease of speech to those who yearn for You, joy to Your land, gladness to Your city, the sprouting of promise to David, Your servant, and an array of light to the son of Jesse, Your anointed Mashiah [Messiah], speedily in our days.

This paragraph is about the Jews, the Promised Land, and Jerusalem. It anticipates the messianic redemption, when Jews will be honored for their loyalty to the true God. Given its narrowness of focus, is this an abandonment of the universal tone of the first paragraph in favor of a particularistic sensibility, one more appropriate for a Jewish holiday?

The third paragraph makes it clear that the triumph of the Jews and their Messiah is not the hoped-for end:

And so, the righteous will see [this] and rejoice, and the upright will be jubilant, and the pious will exult with joyous song; corruption will close its mouth, and all the wickedness will vanish like smoke, because You will remove the rule of evil from the earth.

In this vision of the perfected, redeemed world, it is not Jews who will rejoice at the downfall of evil, but the righteous, the upright, and the pious. Any person can attain this status, especially in the messianic stage of history. Yes, Jews will, in this world, be relieved of their humiliation, but so will others who do what is right and just. And Jews who do evil will find no more place in this world than evildoers of other peoples. In the end, as at the beginning, there will be only one humanity.

Why is this theme emphasized on the High Holidays? The answer lies in the recognition that the High Holidays are a New Year festival, commemorating and celebrating the creation of the world in its entirety. On its birthday, the world—and everything in it—faces judgment. Sins committed during the prior year must be erased and the world cleansed anew. Rosh Hashanah is the occasion of judgment; Yom Kippur, the occasion for mercy, the time when God forgives repentant sinners and purifies the world of their sins. This cleansing accomplished, the world may rejoice, as Jews do on the “time of our joy,” Sukkot. And though it is Jews who perform this drama, it is the whole world who are its subjects. Jews on these holidays perform a universalistic function.

The three “and so” paragraphs offer a quick outline of the progress of this history: The world begins as one. It then divides into tribes and families, some of whom dominate and some of whom suffer humiliation. The hope is for a universal reunification, the formation of a single band, bound together by our common creatureliness. Perhaps this is what the lulav is meant to symbolize: the binding together of our many types into a single, inseparable whole. This would be a fitting symbol, indeed, for the end of our yearly New Year festival.

Whether or not we read the symbolism of the lulav this way, the words of the High Holiday Amidah demand that we view the world this way. Today we may be divided against one another. But we were once one, and it is to that oneness that we long to return. It is our sins that divide us. We must struggle to leave those sins behind to forge a new unity. When we return (teshuvah), we will return to ourselves.