The prayers within the Siddur - our classical prayer book - enable us to grow spiritually, provided that we chant these words with the proper consciousness, and not just by rote. One aspect of this spiritual growth can come from the prayers that we chant on behalf of all peoples and all creatures.


Before the reading of the Torah during the morning service on Mondays and Thursdays, we chant special prayers,

As the Crusaders made their way to the Holy Land, they offered us the following choice: "The cross or death!"

 including the following excerpts, which request deliverance from the suffering of our lonely exile among the nations:


"Our Father, the compassionate Father, show us a sign for good and gather in our dispersed from the four ends of the earth; let all the nations recognize that You are HaShem, our God. And now HaShem, You are our Father; we are the clay and You are our Molder, and Your handiwork are we all. Save us for Your Name’s sake, our Rock, our Sovereign, and our Redeemer. ...In Your abundant compassion, HaShem, our God, pity, have mercy, and save the sheep of Your pasture.... Do not forsake us, HaShem, our God, be not distant from us, for our soul is diminished by sword and captivity, pestilence and plague, and every distress and woe."


In the midst of these anguished supplications, we add: "O Compassionate and Gracious God, have compassion on us and on all Your works, for there is none like You."


"And on all Your works" - in his commentary on these words, Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch writes: "Even in a world that is turned against us in hostility, we beseech God’s compassion not for ourselves alone, but for all His creatures." (Hirsch Siddur, Feldheim Publications)


A universal perspective in the midst of suffering was expressed during the Middle Ages. It was during this period that the Christian Crusaders massacred entire Jewish communities, especially in Germany. The worst massacres took place during the weeks between Passover and Shavuos. When the Christian Crusaders attacked our People as the Crusaders made their way to the Holy Land, they offered us the following choice: "The cross or death!" Tens of thousands of Jewish men, women and children chose death rather than abandon their belief in the Divine oneness and unity.


In the book, The Collected Writings of Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch (Volume 1, Iyar 2), we find a description of the great brutality of the Christian Crusades. Rabbi Hirsch writes: "A blind bloody mania had taken hold of the nations to spill the blood of the brethren of their 'god' in a frenzy of murder and proselytism." The suffering caused by the Crusades is described in piyutim - poetic prayers - which were composed by Torah sages of that era.


Rabbi Hirsch cites quotes from these piyutim, including the following statement where the nation of Israel expresses her faith in the midst of the Christian persecution:


"Strangers speak with proud haughtiness to me: 'You are placing your trust in the wind! You remain driven about like a frightened deer! What hope have you, tortured nation?' I say: 'My hope is in the word of truth, in justice which is offended; in the foundation of my faith.... Depart from me, you evil doers! I remain with the mandate of my God.'"


Rabbi Hirsch also points out that during this barbaric period, the Torah sages in Europe instituted the custom of chanting the following psalm during the period between Passover and Shavuos, for this psalm reminds us of the universal goal of our history:


"To the One Who grants victory through the power of music -- a psalm, a song. May God favor us and bless us; may He illuminate His countenance among us, Selah. To make known Your way on earth, Your salvation among all the nations. The Peoples will acknowledge You, O God; the Peoples will acknowledge you -- all of them! Regimes will be glad and sing for joy, because You will judge the Peoples fairly and guide with fairness the regimes on earth, Selah. The Peoples will acknowledge You, O God; the Peoples will acknowledge You -- all of them! The earth will then have yielded its produce, and God, our God, shall bless us. May God bless us, and may all the ends of the earth revere Him." (Tehilim/Psalms 67)


Regarding the decision of the sages to chant this universal psalm during a period of brutal persecution, Rabbi Hirsch writes:


"They saw the nations everywhere goaded by a spirit of madness, brutality, bloodthirstiness, and greed. Enslaved by this spirit, the nations degenerated, and everywhere the Jewish People found themselves bleeding as the first victim. Still they found solace in the certainty that this mania would eventually vanish. They knew that in spite of bloodthirstiness and greed, brute force and injustice, the good, the humane, and the Godly in the human breast would work their way through." (Collected Writings, Volume 1, Iyar 2)


Some leading Torah sages and Kabbalists who fled the brutal Christian persecution of the Jewish People during

These psalms express our People's yearning for the redemption of the entire world.

the Middle Ages settled in the holy city of Tsfat (Safed), which is located in the north of the Land of Israel (then under the control of the Muslim Ottoman Turkish Empire). In Tsfat, these sages instituted the custom of chanting a special group of psalms to welcome the arrival of Shabbos. These psalms express our People's yearning for the redemption of the entire world. For example, one of these psalms proclaims the following message regarding the Messianic age of universal redemption:


"The fields and all that is therein will exult; then all the trees of the forest will sing with joy - before HaShem, for He will have arrived, He will have arrived to judge the earth. He will judge the world with righteousness, and peoples in His faithfulness." (Tehillim/Psalms 96:12-13)


There is an ancient work, Perek Shirah (Chapter of Song), which lists verses that express the special song of various aspects of creation. According to Perek Shirah, the song of the trees is expressed in the following words from the above passage: "Then all the trees of the forest will sing with joy - before HaShem, for He will have arrived, He will have arrived to judge the earth."


Rabbi Nosson Scherman, in the ArtScroll edition of Perek Shirah, offers the following commentary on this song of the trees:


"Where there has been disarray, a judge must restore order and replace chaos with justice. When the world is in turmoil, and justice is perverted, even the trees of the wild suffer, for the earth’s resources are abused and depleted. When the rule of the Ultimate Judge is acknowledged and accepted, even the trees will express their joy by waving their branches ecstatically, because the health of nature will be restored."


copyright (c) 2008 by Mr. Yosef Ben Shlomo HaKohen