Let me let you in into a secret - I'm not really interested in the football.
But sometimes I make the effort.
Today's one of those days.
Arrived in my FB feed this week a special newly-drafted prayer.
May the One who gives salvation to Presidents of FIFA and dominion to Chief Executives of the FA, whose kingdom is an everlasting kingdom - may he bless
Our England Manager Gareth Southgate, England Captain Harry Edward Kane, Number one goalkeeper Jordan Lee Pickford and all the England Squad and coaching staff.
May the supreme King of kings in his mercy preserve England's world cup run, guard them from defeat and deliver them from dodgy refereeing decisions. May God bless and protect Gareth's back line. May He put a spirit of wisdom and understanding in the heart of our midfield, that they may protect the defence and transition the ball to attack swiftly. May our strikers be blessed with precision and guile.
In their days and in ours may our Heavenly Father spread the tabernacle of World Cup glory over all the dwellers in England and may football finally come home, and let us say Amen.
Well make me smile - and made me say Amen.
It made me smile, because it’s a smart prayer.
And it made me say Amen, because I accept its theology.
Let me do the smart piece first
It t sounded familiar - even if you’ve never heard if before. Regulars in Synagogues will certainly have recognised it - even our first time guests.
We pray this way, almost, all the time.
Just a few minutes ago,
May the one who give salvation to kings and dominion unto princes bless Her Majesty the Queen, and all the Royal Family.
We pray for deliverance and the wisdom of advisers and counsellors.
And the whole rhythm of the world cup prayer is based on our prayer for the Government and its advisors.
And it’s a really old prayer. We’ve been praying this way for the countries in which, as Jews, we have found ourselves since before Jews were re-admitted into England some 350 years ago.
The oldest version of the prayer we know comes from a C15 prayerbook from Aragon, part of Spain.
He who gives salvation to kings and whose kingdom is everlasting… may He strengthen, bless, and uplift higher and higher our Lord King Fernando
But the printing press is already in action by this time and prayer is popping up all over the place; Italy, Poland, France - even Yemen. It’s known by the Hebrew name - HaNoten Teshua.
When the leader of Dutch Jewry, Menassaeh Ben Israel, wrote to Oliver Cromwell in 1655 to persuade Cromwell to let the Jews back into this country - we were expelled in 1190 - he translates the hanoten Teshua into English and tells Cromwell that if he does let the Jews back in, we will pray for him.
And Cromwell was tempted. Actually the story of the re-admittance of the Jews into England is a little more complicated, but Cromwell wanted us back, and eventually we got back.
And this is the great English diarist Samuel Pepys, recording his visit to the ‘Jewish Synagogue’ - I’m not sure what other kinds of Synagogue there are - in Creechurch Lane.
Their service all in a singing way, and in Hebrew. And anon their Laws that they take out of the press are carried by several men, four or five several burthens in all, and they do relieve one another; and whether it is that every one desires to have the carrying of it, I cannot tell, thus they carried it round about the room while such a service is singing. And in the end they had a prayer for the King, which they pronounced his name in Portugall; but the prayer, like the rest, in Hebrew.
Actually the tradition of Jews praying for the countries in which they find themselves goes right back to the time of Jeremiah - 2500 years ago.
‘And seek the welfare of the city to which I have exiled you and pray to the Lord in its behalf; for in its prosperity you shall prosper.’ Says Jeremiah.[1]
So much for the clever stuff - the intertextual stuff behind this prayer for Gareth
What about the theology? What leads me to say Amen.
Well there are rules for prayers - do-s and don’t-s. And it obeys all of them.
Two don’ts -
Firstly you are not allowed to do what is called a Bracha V’Talah - a wasted prayer. If something has happened already you aren’t allowed to pray for it to be changed. So - and I have to admit this isn’t the precise example given in the Talmud - if you happened to be wandering past a football stadium in some obscure corner of Russia and you heard a mighty cheer go up you aren’t allowed to pray that that was England scoring.
That would be a Brachah V’Talah. Either England scored, or they didn’t.
Similarly you aren’t really supposed to pray for miracles. The best story about this is the classic joke, number 14.
Man wants to win the lottery
God responds, you have to buy a ticket.
The point is that God, even if you pray very nicely to God, God doesn’t take from you the responsibility of dealing with the things you have to deal with. If you want to win the lottery, you have to buy a ticket. Prayer isn’t going to solve that problem for you. If you are a smoker and you don’t want to get cancer - you are going to have to stop smoking. Prayer isn’t going to solve that problem for you.
There’s a great line in the Haddith I’ve always liked - ‘First, tie up your camel, then put your faith in God.’[2] The Talmudic version of the same idea is the tale of Rabbi Yannai would always check the ferry before crossing the river. Prayer doesn’t replace human responsibility for human matters.
And you shouldn’t pray as if it does.
And judged by these standards - of avoiding a wasted prayer, or pinning one’s hopes on miracles beyond the reach of human responsibility for human actions - our prayer for the World Cup passes master.
Then there are the do-s of prayer. The thing prayer should do.
Jewish prayer is only kosher if it recognises what the Rabbis call shem u’malchut - God’s name and God’s dominion over all creation. One of the things that happen when you prayer, recognising shem u’malchut is that you orientate yourself to the truly important things in the world. When you bring the name of the creator of heaven and earth, of humanity and breath within us, into a prayer - it acts as a gauge of the truly significant.
You might think, when you start praying, that England beating Sweden is the most important thing in the world, but if you pray with Shem u’malchut somewhere in the soul your are reminding yourself that football just isn’t that important. And that if England win, or if England don’t there is still going to be a universe of stars and planets who don’t care about the football at all, and even on this planet of ours the vast majority of the 7.4 billion of us, will get on with our lives regardless of whether a 30cm sphere of leather ball ended up more ofen in one net than the other.
Prayer is a call to our better selves. It’s supposed to lift us to do better, be kinder, make better decisions not for the sake of immediate gratification, but in the light of the web of responsibilities and duties we have as human beings, as members of a family, a faith community, a nation. When I pray to do well on a test what I am really doing is reminding myself of the value of giving of my best, studying and preparation. I’m calling to my better self, trying the strengthen the power of my better angels.
But does it work. What if all of us really prayed, really humbled ourselves before our creator and with sincerity and a spiritual integrity prayed that Jordan Pickford would be the best goalkeeper he could possibly be, or that Harry Kane should - oh I don’t know. Does it really matter?
Does prayer work? I have to be honest. I don’t know. I mean you can find some scientific papers - you pay your money, you make your choice. But I do think so, and it’s the great Jewish theologian Franz Rozensweig who, I think, has put it best.
Rozensweig isn’t the easiest person to read, but let me share this with you
Love cannot be other than effective. There is no act of neighbourly love that falls into the void. Just because the act is performed blindly, it must appear somewhere, [and this is the effectiveness of prayer]. Prayer, though it has no magic powers as such, nevertheless, by lighting the way for love, arrives at possibilities of magic effects. It can intervene in the divine system of the world. It can provide love with direction toward something not yet ready for love, not yet ripe for endowment with soul. Thus the prayer of the individual, when it enlightens the supplicant, is always in danger of - tempting God.
I think that’s right. We live in a world where the interconnectedness of everything - and our prayers and acts of love in particular - have implications beyond our ability to control. I don’t mind the mystery, I don’t mind that the belief in the efficacy of prayer is ultimately just that - an act of belief, a faith in the ability of human intervention in the divine system of the world.
Prayer is good, it clarifies what we are and what we aren’t responsible for in our existence.
It reminds us that we can’t abnegate our own responsibilities for our own lives.
It reminds us that there is a greater power and a greater significance than our own lives, and even the fate of our national football team - it reminds us that we live in the shadow of our creator.
And it might, just, tempt God.
So....
May the One who gives salvation to Presidents of FIFA and dominion to Chief Executives of the FA, whose kingdom is an everlasting kingdom - may he bless
Our Manager , Captain, goalkeeper and all the England Squad and coaching staff.
May the supreme King of kings in his mercy preserve England's world cup run, guard them from defeat and deliver them from dodgy refereeing decisions.
In their days and in ours may our Heavenly Father spread the tabernacle of World Cup glory over all the dwellers in England and may football finally come home, and let us say Amen.
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