A TEMPLE PRAYER FOR FAST-DAYS'

DAVID LEVINE Schechter Institute if Jewish Studies,

The description of a fast-day prayer, its fonnat and content, com• mands the attention of three different sources brought together in m. Ta'anit 2:2-5. 2 The editor of this text collated these sources in order to establish-and elaborate on-a unique prayer structure. This paper will attempt to trace one element of this composite mish• naic construction, a liturgical text connected with the Temple precincts. Certain traits of the ritual associated with this text are explicitly described in other tannaitic traditions. 3 However, as presented in the , this Temple prayer has already been detached from its original context and integrated into the daily Eighteen , the Shemoneh Esre. Since the Mishnah most comprehensively describes the prayer under question, we will use it as a point of departure and later discuss elements of the Temple ritual alluded to elsewhere. The general picture emerging from the Mishnah is clear. The con• text of the daily Shemoneh Esre prayer (the weekday Amidah) was taken for granted by the editor of this composite text. The special fast-day were added on to this routine structure. The format of these additional was unlike that of the berakhot of the daily Amidah, and is therefore described in detail. While the daily texts use non-biblical wording, the fast-day blessings are based on biblical texts. Each fast-day is composed of three parts:

I This paper is based on a section from the second chapter of my doctoral dis• sertation, "Communal Fasts in Talmudic Literature-Theory and Practice" (Ph.D. diss., The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, 1998 [Hebrew]). During the prepara• tion of the dissertation, written under the supervision of Pro( David Rosenthal, I was assisted by fellowships from the Memorial Foundation for Jewish Culture, as well as the Institute for Jewish Studies and the Department of the Hebrew University. 2 For the reader's convenience, I have reproduced and translated this mishnaic text as well as the parallel baraita, t. Ta'an. I :9-13. See the Appendix for the texts, translations, and bibliographic information. 3 T. Ta'an. I: 11-13: b. Ta'an. 16b. 96 DAVID LEVINE

[1] The main section of each berakhah (n~1::ln :'jiJ) is comprised of a biblical passage, typically from Psalms, or of various individual verses with a common theme, e.g., the Zikhronot and Shqfarot para• graphs.4 [2] The concluding m.IJiD '0 ("May he who answered ... ") sentence alludes to a biblical figure who was in distress and was subse• quently saved by divine intervention. [3] The conventional concluding formula 11 nn~ li1::l (the batimah) is the final element of each berakhah.

The Mishnah does not describe the prayer as a continuous text, but presents two lists, each treating a different part of the prayer struc• ture. Mishnah 3 enumerates the biblical texts constituting the main part of the additional blessings [1], while Mishnah 4 details the con• cluding elements of each , the m.IJiD '0 sentence [2] and the batimah [3]. Mishnah 5, also dealing with the fast-day prayer, is of a different nature and will be considered later. I will ultimately suggest that crucial elements of the fast-day prayer betray a Second Temple setting. But for now we will postpone dis• cussion of the sources of this text, focusing instead on the common elements and the prayer as a whole.

M. Ta'anit 2:3- 4: A Realignment

The accompanying table correlates the six biblical references given in Mishnah 3 with the last six concluding formulae (#2-#7) listed in Mishnah 4. My re-ordering is based particularly on the affinity of the Zikhronot verses to the n1n~iDJn1~ir formula at the end of the second berakhah; and the essential connection between the Shqfarot verses and the concluding n.IJI1n .lJOiiD in the third berakhah. This cor• relation of the various elements results in a clear and coherent series of blessings, as emerges from a more detailed look at my proposal to realign blessings #2 through #7:

4 These two berakhot are found in the Rosh Hashanah liturgy as well (m. Rosh Hash. 4:5-6). For a bibliographic survey on the provenance of the Zikhronot, Shqfarot (and Malkhuyot) liturgies, see: D. Golinkin, "Rosh Hashanah Chapter IV of the Babylonian Talmud" (Ph.D. diss., The Jewish Theological Seminary of America, 1988), 31-40 and passim (Hebrew).