The Censorship of Aleinu in Ashkenaz and Its Aftermath Ruth Langer

The Censorship of Aleinu in Ashkenaz and Its Aftermath

Ruth Langer

Scholars have devoted significant attention to the question of the origins of the Aleinu and its transfer in the medieval period from the High Holy Day liturgy to the conclusion of daily worship. Fewer have paid attention to the process of the censorship of this prayer and its conse- quences. In part, this was due to the difficulties involved in assessing the data presented by individual liturgical manuscripts and early editions, texts that prior generations could examine reasonably compre- hensively only by extensive travel to the various libraries of the world. In part, this was also due to the general tendency of Jewish liturgists to focus on earlier periods, whether that of the origins of rabbinic prayer or of the Cairo Genizah. Today, with thanks due to the influence of Menahem Schmelzer, liturgists have also begun to study the medieval and modern periods, including the impact of censorship on Jewish liturgy, more seriously.1 This work is aided by access to larger collec- tions of manuscripts and editions, like that of the Jewish Theological Seminary where Professor Schmelzer served many years as librarian, and the Institute for Microfilmed Hebrew Manuscripts at the National Library in Jerusalem2 with its centralization of the information held in the world’s individual libraries. Today, of course, we are beginning to reap the benefits of the digitization of these texts as well. The data I present here results primarily from my research in these two libraries, and I thank them and their staffs for their support.3 It presents a story

1 See, for example, the bibliographic essays included in his Studies in Jewish Bib- liography and Medieval Hebrew Poetry (New York: The Jewish Theological Seminary of America, 2006), and especially his discussion of censorship in Germany in “Hebrew Printing and Publishing in Germany, 1650–1750: On Jewish Book Culture and the Emergence of Modern Jewry,” 50–51. 2 Henceforth, JTS and JNUL respectively. 3 The details I present here, particularly as we move into the later centuries, are not comprehensive, but they represent a fuller survey of the data than has hitherto been attempted. Most printed editions that come from other libraries are available in microfilm at the National Library or at Harvard. 148 ruth langer of resistance to censorship that could only have emerged with access to large numbers of texts. Aleinu is ancient, though its precise origin is obscure. It is not men- tioned directly in the Talmud or related literature;4 it appears first in medieval liturgy as an introduction to the Malkhuyot section of the Rosh Hashanah musaf.5 In literary style, it is consistent with the earli- est forms of rabbinic-era liturgical poetry from the land of Israel: it shows significant continuity with biblical forms, in that it is unrhymed, has parallel paired stichs of approximately four beats each, and relies heavily on biblical language.6 An intriguingly close parallel to Aleinu’s text appears in Ma’aseh Merkavah, from the Heikhalot literature, but it is unclear which came first, or whether they both draw on a com- mon model.7 Aleinu’s focus is Israel’s obligation to praise God for choosing her and bringing her into special relationship with her true sovereign, the Creator of Heaven and Earth, in contrast to the other nations “who bow down to vanity and emptiness and pray to a god who will not save.” Precisely this statement of contrast attracted medieval Christian ire, resulting ultimately in censorship. But is it necessarily directed at Christians and Christianity? After all, Jews also recited it in countries where their neighbors were polytheists or Muslims. The language of this particular line, like most of the poem, is almost entirely biblical, here a conflation of Isa 30:7, “Vanity and emptiness [will help

4 Many understand the references to the t’ki’ata d’-Rav in the Jerusalem Talmud and midrash to refer to Aleinu. Many of these references do include fragments of what is or became the equivalent poem introducing zikhronot, the second cluster of verses inserted into the musaf prayer of Rosh ha-Shanah. But they do not preserve any of the language of Aleinu itself. See y. Rosh Hash. 1:3, 57a; y. Avod. Zar. 1:2, 39c; Lev. Rab. 29:1; P’sikta d’-Rav Kahana 23:1. 5 first in the ninth-century Seder Rav Amram Ga’on, ed. Daniel Goldschmidt ( Jeru- salem: Mosad ha-Rav Kook, 1971), 141, ##113–114, where it is probably among the original texts. “Malkhuyot” is the name of the first of three thematic sets of verses incorporated into the Rosh ha-Shanah musaf. This set of verses refers to God’s sovereignty. 6 See Aharon Mirsky, “Ha-shirah bi-t’kufat ha-Talmud,” Y’rushalayim 2 (1967): 161–179; repr. in Ha-piyut: Hitpatuto b’-eretz Yisra’el u-v’-golah ( Jerusalem: Magnes, 2000), 72–74. For a detailed discussion of this style of poetry, see Joseph Yahalom, Piyut u-m’tzi’ut b’-shilhei ha-z’man he-atik (Tel Aviv: Ha-kibbutz ha-m’uad, 1999), chap. 5, “Mi-tikbolet l’-aruz.” 7 For discussions of this and references to earlier discussions, see Michael D. Swartz, “ ‘Alay Le-Shabbea’: A Liturgical Prayer in Ma’aseh Merkavah,” JQR 77 (1986– 1987): 179–90; Meir Bar-Ilan, “M’korah shel t’filat ‘Aleinu l’-shabea,’ ” Da’at 43 (1999): 5–24.