Ve-la-malshinim

Summer break provides some catch-up time for blog questions, and so... Ma’ayanot alumna (!!!) Gabrielle Hiller asked:

I have always learned that when you're davening you are not supposed to pray for bad things to happen to people. For example, if there's a baseball game between the Yankees and the Red Sox and you support the Yankees, then you are allowed to pray for the Yankees to win, but you are NOT allowed to ask that the Red Sox should lose. How then can we say V'Lamalshinim in Shemoneh Esrei if it is clearly a negative tefillah? How can we pray for something bad to happen to people?thanks, Gabrielle Hiller

Perhaps a little bit of historical context for this berakha can help us understand why Hazal found it appropriate for inclusion in the Amidah.

Originally, the berakha began not with “And to the informers” (ve-la-malshinim) but rather with “And to the sectarians and heretics” (la-minim ve-la-meshumadim) – and hence it is called birkat ha-minim. The likelihood, based on its discussion in Masekhet Berakhot and corroborated by some Christian reports, is that it was introduced during the first century of Christianity. Its specific purpose was to prompt Christians – who had developed their own particular rituals but had not yet established their own distinct liturgy and houses of worship – to remove themselves and their apostasy from the synagogues. Over the centuries, it became clear that for the purposes of maintaining (or creating) civil relationships with their Christian neighbors, Jews needed to alter the text of this berakha, and so it evolved (actually over the course of various versions) into being aimed at Jews who informed against their fellow Jews to non-Jewish authorities.

Hazal implicitly acknowledged the point you bring up in your question – that this berakha unusually asks Hashem to bring about people’s downfall – in Midrash Tanhuma. There (in writing about the original incarnation of the berakha) they indicate that while in general a shaliah tzibbur who made mistakes while reciting hazarat ha-sha”tz would not have to go back and correct the relevant words, one who erred in reciting birkat ha-minim was forced to make the correction or leave. This was because if one were a “Jewish Christian”, then reciting this berakha would be tantamount to cursing oneself, and so the unwillingness to say it with precision would indicate that one was, indeed such a sectarian.

I write all this not as an apologist for asking (as you put it) for bad things happen to people. Rather, I think that the historical context can shed light on the uniqueness of Ve-la-malshinim. Written at one of the most difficult junctures in Jewish history, it reflects a community’s sense of crisis in witnessing the growing fissures in Rabbinic Judaism and its feeling of helplessness in watching its own members join a heretical sect of Judaism. Thus, I view its original intent as one of entreaty, of desperation. Furthermore, its newer version reflects one of the results, a relatively short while later, of this fissure: once the erstwhile sect became a powerful new religion, its impact on internal Jewish social and political dynamics was intense and, likewise, provoked a sense of desperation within the community.

It may be useful to consider one other phrase in the Shemoneh Esrei that invokes God’s power against people. In Elokai Netzor at the end of the silent Amidah, we mention those who think badly of us (implying, if I understand correctly, that they might also consider acting badly against us) and ask of Hashem: hafer atzatam ve-kalkel mahashavtam – essentially to undermine their intentions and destroy their negative thoughts.

Taken together, the assorted versions of Ve-la-malshinim as well as the line in Elokai Netzor (in addition to some other phrases throughout the tefillah) may suggest a category in which it is considered appropriate to pray for people’s downfall: when those people aim to harm individuals or rend the Jewish community. In those circumstances, we see recourse in Hashem.

I want to conclude by stating emphatically that although Ve-la-malshinim originated in opposition to Christianity, I do not believe it is appropriate to have such kavvanah when we recite the berakha today. While Jews have had a complex and often difficult history with the Church, I do not feel the current state of Jewish-Christian relations warrants a hearkening back to the origins of this berakha. Indeed, I think we should be grateful for the freedom we have here in the United States to observe Yahadut with hardly a threat, and that we should reserve our kavvanot in this tefilla for those who might truly seek to destroy us.