By Daniel Lipson
“Our brethren, the entire House of Israel who remain in distress and captivity, whether on sea or on land, may God have compassion on them, and bring them from distress to relief, from darkness to light, from servitude to redemption, at this moment, speedily, very soon; and let us say Amen”
The fighting in Jebaliya was difficult that week. On Thursday, December 26, 2023, the Nahal Brigade’s 931st Battalion lost its beloved company commander, Major Shai Shimriz, as well as his good friend Captain Shauli Greenglick. Other soldiers were wounded.
Four days later, at the end of yet another exhausting day of action against Hamas terrorists, soldiers of the rifle company’s 2nd platoon gathered in one of the houses in the neighborhood.
The soldiers, students of the Shirat Moshe hesder yeshiva and the Hakotel yeshivah in the Old City of Jerusalem, took out what snacks and candy they had left and sat in the dark (electricity is cut off in most of the Gaza Strip) for an improvised Melaveh Malkah – the meal traditionally eaten after the conclusion of Shabbat
In the dark, cramped house, they shared Torah lessons and sang as they always had, in better times back in their yeshivahs. One of the songs, which has become particularly relevant and moving in recent times, was Acheinu Kol Beit Yisrael (“Our Brethren, the entire House of Israel”) – a prayer for the release of the captives and the hostages.
Hashta Ba’agala Ubizman Kariv – Venomar Amen
The tune for the song was composed by Abie Rothenberg, one of the great Hasidic composers of the twentieth century, at some point in the late eighties. The song, which Rothenberg originally sung himself, was produced as part of a tape entitled Lev VeNefesh (“Heart and Soul”) in 1990. On his 1997 album, Bitchu Be-Hashem (“Trust in God”), singer Dedi Graucher released a new version of the song. Graucher passed away last September.
The song has since become an incredibly popular hit and has been reworked in many different ways, one of the most recent and most listened to being Lior Narkis’ version from October 2023.
The prayer itself is recited in Ashkenazi communities immediately after the Torah reading on Mondays and Thursdays. First the four Yehi ratzon (“May it be His will”) requests are said, followed by Acheinu. Members of Sephardi Jewish communities recite the Yehi ratzon requests as part of the Shabbat blessing of the new month when it falls in that coming week, but without the added Acheinu segment,
The Acheinu prayer originated in the siddur of Rav Amram Gaon. In the ninth century CE, and at the request of the Jewish community of Spain, Rav Amram Gaon of Babylon sent the order of prayers in an edited and organized form for the community’s use. In the siddur, Rav Amram Gaon addresses the saying of Yehi ratzon and Acheinu as part of the Torah reading on the Monday and Thursday of every week, and also on the first of the Hebrew month. The formula there differs slightly from our current version.
In the Machzor Vitry, an important 12th century book on Jewish law and prayer customs, Acheinu appears in the afternoon Mincha prayer on Shabbat. Professor Aharon Kellerman noted in his article on the development of the custom that printed Ashkenazi siddurim first contained the Acheinu prayer in the Krakow edition of 1578. In 1646, it appeared in a siddur printed in Amsterdam.
The first Sephardic siddur which printed the Yehi ratzon prayers was published in Istanbul in 1739 in the portion containing the prayer for Shabbat when it falls on the first of the month. In this siddur, like all Sephardi siddurs to this day, the Acheinu prayer does not appear.
When a Prayer Becomes Popular Music
For generations, Jews would often be taken captive, by pirates, brigands and others, and sometimes had to be ransomed for huge sums. Jewish communities worked hard to fulfill the commandment of redeeming captives and sometimes managed to return their brothers and sisters to their families. Yet in some cases, there was no trace of the captives and those who had abducted them, and all that remained was to pray for their well-being. The words of the Acheinu prayer have remained painfully relevant over the ages, while also containing a consoling message, and it is therefore only natural that they be turned into a song. One of the first musical compositions for the Acheinu prayer that we know of is a piece of chazannut (Jewish cantorial singing) by the famous Jewish cantor Yossele Rosenblatt (1882-1933). Two years after his arrival in the US from Europe, the First World War broke out. The war and the suffering of his Jewish brethren affected him and his art. In this period, he put Acheinu and other prayers to music, wishing to express the pain of the Jewish People. This song, along with his other songs, excited the masses who flocked to his concerts – first in New York, then throughout the United States and Europe.
The prayer has since been put to music a few more times, as both pieces for cantors and general Hasidic songs. One of these versions was heard at the Ninth Hasidic Song Festival in 1977, performed by a young singer by the name of Riki Gal, who would later go on achieve fame as an Israeli pop star.
On a personal note: Sitting amongst the shadows of that darkened house in Gaza was also my own son, a squad commander in the Nahal Brigade. He and his soldiers certainly thought of the relevance of the words, and the reasons why this song has become one of the symbols of the war, after the abduction of some 240 Israelis on October 7.
We all pray that “God have mercy on them,” and may we merit their returning home soon along with the soldiers who give their lives for the People of Israel – hashta ba’agala ibizman kariv (“speedily, very soon”).
