I grew up using a mix of the Messianic Shabbat Siddur my father compiled¹  and a (traditional) daily Metsudah Siddur, which was my go to. I loved the liturgy and found it to be a comfort when I didn’t know how or what to pray. It centered my daily routine around the Lord and helped me memorize prayers I could say anywhere giving me a blessing for just about any occasion. 

Several years ago, I began to study Jewish mysticism and the influence of such belief and practice on modern Judaisms. What I uncovered was a dark theology that was very much like eastern religions and the New Age movement. I had always thought that Jewish theology (as I knew it) today came from a solid understanding of God’s Torah, but as I became familiar with the mystical beliefs and practices that attached themselves to Judaism throughout the centuries, I realized that much of what the Judaisms of our day believe are more like following after the Ba’als.² Israel has had an unfortunate but constant history with false gods, it is interesting that so many within the Torah movement today think that modern Judaisms have somehow moved away for their lust of false religions. 

But what about the wonderful liturgy I had come to love and adore throughout my life? Was this influenced by such false theology as well? The answer to this is not so cut and dry. The modern Jewish prayerbook is full of passages from Scripture itself. Yet, there were some passages that now stood out to me. Like this one in the Prayer Before Retiring at Night:

In the Name of Adonoy, God of Israel:

at my right [hand] Michael,

at my left [hand] Gabriel,

before me Uriel,

behind me Raphael,

and above my head, the Presence of the Almighty.³

Such a prayer is clearly pulling from the kabbalistic texts that speak of these angels. What is more, it seems that the prayer I had been praying for so long without even thinking of it was seeking the protection of fictional angels that had been used within mystical texts. Even the traditional Erev Shabbat song I had sung my entire life, Shalom Alechem, was suspect and made me start to feel uneasy. The song asks angels to come and bring peace to a home on the Sabbath, but why wouldn’t we ask this of the Almighty God instead of asking angels to do this? Was I praying to angels without realizing it? 

Within the traditional prayerbook we also see blatant theological errors. This is not surprising, and those who pray from a Messianic siddur may not run into such issues, yet many believing communities are using traditional prayerbooks such as the Artscoll or the Metsudah siddur. Within these siddurs we find prayers like this from the blessing over counting the omer: 

“And you shall count for yourselves, from the day after the day of rest, from the day you bring the omer as the wave-offering, seven complete weeks, shall there be; until the day following the seventh week shall you count fifty days,” in order to cleanse the souls of Your people Israel from their impurities. Therefore, may it be Your will, Adonoy, our God, and God of our fathers, that in the merit of the Omer which I counted today, may any defect I have caused be rectified. May I be purified and sanctified with sublime holiness, and thereby may abundant bounty be bestowed upon all the worlds. May it rectify our being, our spirit and our souls from every baseness and defect, and may it purify us and sanctify us with Your sublime holiness.⁴

This prayer for the omer has put forward a works based salvation and prayed for something that only the blood of Christ can accomplish. Certainly, believers would read these things and simply pass over them and not pray them… right?

Another conversation that we could have is whether or not we should care what the intent of a prayer was or if we should simply accept a liturgical text for the words that are contained in it? For instance, the 12th prayer of the weekly Amidah (18 benedictions) is the Prayer Against the Minim (i.e. prayer against heretics). It is stated in the Talmud that rabbi Samuel HaKatan wrote the prayer at the request of Gamaliel II. 

In light of the previous mention of the blessing of the heretics, the Gemara explains how this blessing was instituted: The Sages taught: Shimon HaPakuli arranged the eighteen blessings, already extant during the period of the Great Assembly, before Rabban Gamliel, the Nasi of the Sanhedrin, in order in Yavne. Due to prevailing circumstances, there was a need to institute a new blessing directed against the heretics. Rabban Gamliel said to the Sages: Is there any person who knows to institute the blessing of the heretics, a blessing directed against the Sadducees? Shmuel HaKatan, who was one of the most pious men of that generation, stood and instituted it. (b.Berekhot 28b)

The text itself mentions that this prayer is in reference to the Sadducees, however, even Rashi believed the blessing was actually against Christians. ⁵ Yet debate continues on whether this prayer is actually speaking against believers or not. The prayer goes like this: 

For informers let there be no hope and may all wickedness perish instantly; may all Your enemies be swiftly cut off and the insolent may You quickly uproot, crush, rout, and subdue speedily in our days. Blessed are You, Adonoy, Crusher of enemies and Subduer of the insolent.⁶

If this was written and understood by the Jewish people to be a prayer against followers of our Lord, should that bother us? Or should we simply look at the words and pray this prayer with the idea that we are speaking against God’s true enemies and not our brothers and sisters in Christ? 

Another example of Jewish prayer against Christians is found in the Aleinu. This prayer is first seen in the Rosh HaShanah Musaf service in the 9th century.⁷

Within this prayer there are several interesting features. Specifically, there is a line that states, “who bow down to vanity and emptiness and pray to a god who cannot save.” Once again, we see no specific mention of Christians or Jesus within this prayer, however, several elements of this prayer point to it being specifically against believers which is why the Christians outlawed its recitation in 1399.

First, the Jewish rabbis added lines to the prayer that point to the Jewish people praying against Christianity: 

The intent of this insertion seems to be that other nations prostrate themselves to “a man, of ashes, blood, [and] bile; flesh, [an embarrassment] of rot and worms.” This is apparently a direct reference to Jesus, emphasizing his base humanity and denying his resurrection; it asserts in graphic terms that his body decomposed like anyone else’s. The insert then continues, using terms grammatically in the plural, both masculine and feminine. These must address Jesus’s worshippers, and these terms too refute basic Christian claims, asserting that Christians are all “impure and adulterous, dying in their iniquities and rotting in their sins, decomposing in the dust, rotten with worms and maggots.” As Israel Ta-Sh’ma comments, this “bloated text . . . makes it abundantly clear that there is a specific if hidden anti-Christian message in this prayer, and worshipers understood this well in this early period. That such an attitude finds expression in the period” of the Crusades and the first expulsions of Jews from individual royal territories in France should not be surprising.⁸

Second, Jewish rabbis understood that the Hebrew term “and emptiness” (לבֶהֶוָ) has the same gamatria (numeric value) as the name “Yashu” which is a variation used to refer to Jesus (Yeshua). The variation is used as a curse of our Lord because Yashu is an acronym for “yimach shemo v’zichro” (meaning: may his name and memory be abolished). So even without the added text that places this prayer directly against Christians, the Jewish people understood it to be asking God to abolish Christ and His followers.

Such a prayer brings up an interesting debate concerning worship. While many within the Christian Church today may say that it doesn’t matter how a person worships, those who hold to a stricter stance of pronomianism will argue that God’s law specifically tells us not to worship the Lord the way the idolaters do: 

When the LORD your God cuts off before you the nations whom you go in to dispossess, and you dispossess them and dwell in their land, take care that you be not ensnared to follow them, after they have been destroyed before you, and that you do not inquire about their gods, saying, ‘How did these nations serve their gods?—that I also may do the same.’ You shall not worship the LORD your God in that way, for every abominable thing that the LORD hates they have done for their gods, for they even burn their sons and their daughters in the fire to their gods.(Deuteronomy 12:29–31 ESV)

Many within the Torah movement will use this passage when debating things like Christmas and Easter, but what about when looking at modern Judaism today? Are we willing to see the influence of Israel’s hardened heart? Are we ready to be honest with the influence of idolatry that has influenced the Jewish practice of our day? 

Please understand, I am not arguing against all things Jewish, or against the nation God chose. I am simply asking if we are willing to admit where Israel is still participating in following after the Ba’als and condemn it instead of embracing it? 

As I pondered these questions myself and sought to find answers I began to wonder more and more about my own prayer book. Many of these prayers were wonderful, but had they been written from a place of kabbalistic belief? Was there motive or intent within these prayers that I was not aware of? 

For a short time I put my Jewish prayer book down and started looking at Christian prayer books. It did not take long to realize that the same problem I was having with the traditional Jewish liturgy was very present in Christianity. Much of what is found within Christian liturgy is straight from, or influenced by the Catholic Church. Even the Common Book of Prayer has so many problems that there were some who were put to death because they were not willing to pray such prayers. As I searched I got quite excited when I found a Baptist prayer book, only to find they had based a significant amount of the liturgy on the Common Book of Prayer. 

At this point I was discouraged and somewhat beat down. How was it that so much of the traditional liturgy from both Christianity and Judaism had things that I was uncomfortable with? Was this the reason so many Churches in our modern day have abandoned liturgy? What did people back in temple times do? 

It was this last question that made me realize the prayerbook that followers of God have been using for time past is the Bible itself. Many books have been written on praying the Scriptures, but why hasn’t there been a prayerbook of nothing but compiled Scripture? It was this line of thought that led me to compile Praying the Scriptures, a daily prayerbook that has nothing but the inspired Word of God. 

I compiled a prayerbook that I wanted to use on a daily basis. It takes passages from both the first testament and the Apostolic Scriptures for everything from morning and evening prayers to blessings for the biblical festivals, baptism and circumcision services, counting the omer, and much more. 

The prayerbook I compiled will not be for everyone. It is most certainly pronomian, meaning it has services for Sabbath Eve and the Sabbath morning, the biblical festivals, and many other things that those in the Torah movement will find familiar. It incorporates a structure that follows the Jewish prayerbook but simply uses nothing but the Word of God. Because of this, some may feel like it is lacking since I have not included many of the well known Jewish prayers. However, many will find it to be a wonderful way to learn and memorize the Bible, while also praying the Scriptures back to our Lord and Savior. 

Conclusion

There is a rich history in the Jewish prayerbook, and many that read this article will think I have nitpicked certain passages to degrade the common Jewish Prayerbook. This is not my intent. I still believe there are some wonderful prayers within the traditional Siddur. With that said, I am not familiar enough with the formation of Jewish liturgy and the prayers that have been formed during the middled ages and later, to confidently say that I know the details of these prayers. It is for this reason that I have personally decided to not pray man-made prayers if I am unfamiliar with their history. Rather, it is my personal conviction to pray the Scriptures daily so that they can be rooted in my mind and memory, and so that I am confident that my prayers were not created with malicious intent towards God’s people, or with mystical history that I am unaware of. 

Since such a prayerbook did not exist, I have created my own which is now available for the public. I am always looking at ways to make this book more usable and better for those who use it, so if you have suggestions or comments for the book you can contact me directly.