The Hazara

1 Half a Gemara

The objection is old and it is sincere: why listen a second time to a prayer you have just said yourself? The Gemara asks exactly that question, and it answers it.

“Rabban Gamliel said to them: according to you, why does the reader go down before the ark? They said to him: to discharge the one who is not learned. He said to them: just as he discharges the one who is not learned, so he discharges the learned.” — Rosh Hashana 34b

Those who say “it is for the others” quote the first sentence. Rabban Gamliel answers in the second. The repetition is not a crutch for the weak: it is public prayer, and the public includes the learned.

The ruling settles it. Shulhan Arukh, Orah Hayim 124:3: “a congregation that has prayed and all of whom are learned in prayer — even so the reader goes down and repeats, in order to fulfil the enactment of the Sages.”

2 What talking actually does

People assume that talking during the repetition is bad manners. The Shulhan Arukh says something else, and says it twice.

“When the reader repeats the prayer, the congregation must be silent and direct their attention to the blessings he recites, and answer amen. And if there are not nine attending to his blessings, his blessings are close to being said in vain. Therefore every person should regard himself as though there were no nine besides him.” — O.H. 124:4

Whoever talks is not skipping an optional extra: he is removing one from the quorum that gives the reader’s blessings their standing. The damage is not his own — it is done to someone else.

“He shall not hold idle conversation while the reader repeats the prayer; and if he has spoken, he is a sinner, his sin is too great to bear, and he is rebuked.” — O.H. 124:7

That phrase, “hoteh hu vegadol avono minso”, is quoted word for word on the plaques of many synagogues. It is not a poster’s exaggeration: it is the text of the Shulhan Arukh.

3 The model: He wrapped Himself as a reader

Why such severity about this particular moment? The Gemara gives the reader an origin one does not expect.

“And the Lord passed before him and proclaimed — Rabbi Yohanan said: were the verse not written, it would be impossible to say it. This teaches that the Holy One, blessed be He, wrapped Himself like a reader and showed Moshe the order of prayer. He said to him: whenever Israel sin, let them do before Me according to this order, and I will forgive them.” — Rosh Hashana 17b

And two lines further: “a covenant is made with the Thirteen Attributes: they do not return empty.”

The Thirteen Attributes — the heart of Selihot — were not taught as a formula but as an order of service, shown by a reader. Whoever talks during the repetition is not interrupting a man: he is interrupting the very order that was given as the guarantee of forgiveness.

4 Three, thirteen, three

The weekday Amida is not one block. The Gemara itself cuts it into three parts, and that cut governs everything that follows.

“Rav Yehuda said: a person should never ask for his needs in the first three or in the last three, but in the middle ones. For Rabbi Hanina said: the first ones are like a servant arranging praise before his master; the middle ones like a servant asking a gift of his master; the last ones like a servant who has received his gift, takes his leave and goes.” — Berakhot 34a

The first three are praise, the last three thanks and leave-taking. The request — everything one has come for — is in the middle. Of the nineteen blessings of the weekday Amida, nineteen less six: thirteen.

This count of thirteen is that of the Rishonim: the Abudarham speaks of “the thirteen middle blessings”, as does the Shulhan Arukh HaRav. Originally the Amida had eighteen blessings, hence twelve in the middle; the thirteenth — birkat haminim — was instituted at Yavneh. The count of thirteen belongs to the final form, not the first.

5 A proposed reading: thirteen, and twenty-six

What follows is a reading, not a source. It is coherent and it illuminates; we have not found it stated as such in any Rishon we were able to check. Read it as a proposal, not as received teaching.

Thirteen blessings of request — and thirteen Attributes of mercy, precisely what one comes to ask for throughout Elul. The parallel offers itself.

Now the repetition says those thirteen again. Twice thirteen: twenty-six — the value of the four-letter Name, which is the Name of mercy. And the Thirteen Attributes, in Shemot 34, open on that very Name said twice: “Hashem, Hashem, God compassionate and gracious.” The Gemara comments on the doubling: “I am He before a person sins, and I am He after a person has sinned and repented” (Rosh Hashana 17b).

— What to know before adopting this reading: the Abudarham, who asks precisely what the thirteen correspond to, answers differently — six against six, and Shomea Tefila against them all.

— The repetition in fact repeats all nineteen, not only the thirteen. The count of twenty-six requires isolating the middle: Berakhot 34a licenses that isolation, but it is a reading, not an addition.

— Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur, the days of the Thirteen Attributes above all others, have no thirteen middle blessings. So this parallel cannot be the reason for the repetition: at most a flavour, for weekdays — that is, for the days of Selihot.

6 Shabbat: seven, and seven times seven

Shabbat breaks the count: its Amida has only seven blessings. A famous midrash gives that number a context.

“Rabbi Shimon bar Yohai taught: Shabbat said before the Holy One, blessed be He: Master of the world, they all have a partner, and I have none. The Holy One said to her: the Assembly of Israel is your partner. And when Israel stood before Mount Sinai, the Holy One said to them: remember what I said to Shabbat — the Assembly of Israel is your partner. That is the meaning of remember the Shabbat day to keep it holy.” — Bereshit Rabba 11:8

Again, a proposed reading. If Shabbat is a wedding, one expects the seven blessings of the bride and groom. Those seven are said for seven days — a practice the Sages trace to Yaakov’s marriage to Leah, “complete the week of this one” (Pirkei deRabbi Eliezer 16). Seven blessings, seven days: forty-nine.

Now count the Shabbat Amidot, each of seven blessings: Arvit on Friday night (one, with no repetition), the silent Shaharit and its repetition (two), Musaf and its repetition (two), Minha and its repetition (two). Seven times seven blessings in a single day — because this wedding lasts one day only.

Worth noting: this count holds only because the repetition exists. Without it, four Amidot would remain. And the one Shabbat service that has no repetition, Friday night, receives in its place “a single blessing standing for the seven” — me’ein sheva, Magen Avot.

— Honesty about the count: the midrash itself, in this passage, pairs the days consecutively — first with second, third with fourth, fifth with sixth — and Shabbat is left alone because it is the seventh, not because it stands at the centre.

— The same midrash gives a second opinion, that of Rabbi Shmuel bar Nahman: Shabbat is blessed because it is never displaced.

7 What to do with all this

The readings in the two previous sections are beautiful and they are not the halakha. The halakha fits in three lines and needs no arithmetic at all.

— One is silent during the repetition, learned or not (O.H. 124:3).

— One listens and answers amen, regarding oneself as the only one listening (O.H. 124:4).

— One holds no idle conversation, and one rebukes whoever does (O.H. 124:7).

During Selihot this stops being theoretical: one has come to ask that a file be reopened, and one repeats before the court the very order the Holy One showed Moshe. The congregation’s silence is not politeness: it is the condition of the hearing.

For any practical question — how far the prohibition extends, what to do when you arrive late, how to rebuke without humiliating — ask your Rav. Sephardic practice is set out in the Yalkut Yosef and Hazon Ovadia.

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