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Back to Question of the Week JM |
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A: Many organisations use "the Lord's Prayer" as a nice, ecumenical prayer to start or finish a meeting, so I guess that Jm is not the only one who has been wondering about this. In fact, this week's "Canadian Jewish News" has an article about a man in rural Ontario who is trying to stop his town council from beginning their meetings with the "Lord's Prayer." He lost his first court case. So what's the deal with this prayer? Readers probably know the prayer. I remember there was a pop-song version of it on the radio when I was growing up: "Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name...." In terms of its content, there is absolutely nothing objectionable about the "Lord's Prayer" from a Jewish point of view. Take a few phrases from the kaddish, add one or two phrases from elsewhere in the siddur (the Jewish prayer-book), mix it all up, and voila: "The Lord's Prayer." It is obviously a prayer that originated in a Jewish environment and expresses basically Jewish ideas. So the problem isn't with the content; its with the title and what it implies. You see, the "Lord" being referred to isn't God (at least not according to Jews), but Jesus. According to Christian tradition, this is the prayer that Jesus taught his disciples as the proper way to pray (Luke, ch. 11). For that reason, it is a central piece of Christian worship. It is also something that Catholics and Protestants share--thus its "ecumenical" use. But clearly, we Jews are not part of this particular "ecumenism." So it feels problematic to me for a Jew to recite "the Lord's Prayer." Jm also asks about a modified version of the Prayer. I suppose a modified version would no longer be "the Lord's Prayer," would not be associated with a person that we Jews do not worship as the "Lord," and so would be unobjectionable. Another alternative (for groups of Christians and Jews, though not for members of other faith traditions) would be Psalm 23: "The Lord is my shepherd ...." This was suggested in a Reform Responsum on this topic and has been adopted by some groups. It seems to me that it would be a lovely and instructive exercise for members of various faith traditions who regularly meet together to try to figure out what could be said that expresses the prayers of the entire group in an inclusive fashion. If you take this on, JM or other readers, may God be with you ... and please let Reb-on-the-Web know what you come up with. written by Rabbi Jeremy Schwartz |
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