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Compassion and Mercy and Peace

By Sabena Stark

There are few Jewish prayers more moving and yet more provocative to modern sensibilities than the High Holy Days appeal, Avinu Malkeynu. The entreaty that is the essence of this prayer evokes at once a fearsome vision of the Holy One as stern judge and ruler and our most trusted Source of Life. Its traditional musical setting is both simple and poignant. It is a song that emerges from my earliest memories of Jewish communal offerings.

We chant Avinu Malkeynu during the morning (Shacharit) and evening (Minchah) services of Rosh Hashanah, the morning and evening of Yom Kippur, and finally at Ne’ila, Yom Kippur’s closing service. The recurrence of this elegant, passionate refrain knits the succession of our High Holy Days services into a single cloth. The extended, petitionary liturgy concludes with a heart-rending plea for compassion and kindness, despite our shortcomings:

We sing it like this: Avinu Malkeynu, chahneynu va’ahneynu, avinu malkeynu, chahneynu va’ahneynu ki eyn banu ma’asim. Ahsey imanu, tzedakah va’chesed, ahsey imanu, tzedakah va’chesed vehoshi’eynu

Here is how the Orthodox Mesorah Publications' ArtScroll Machzor (High Holy Days prayer book) translates this text:

The Metsudah Machzor: A New Linear Machzor presents this translation: Our Father, our King! Favor us and answer us for we have no accomplishments; deal with us charitably and kindly and deliver us

And here is how our own Kol Haneshamah Machzor interprets this prayer: Our creator, our sovereign, be gracious with us and respond to us, for we have no deeds to justify us; deal with us in righteousness and love, and save us now

Rabbi Burt Jacobson of Kehilla Community Synagogue provides one of my favorite translations of Avinu Malkeynu, one that integrates our intimate and immanent experience of the Holy One with the expansive Boundless Eternal. Here is Rabbi Burt’s poetic interpretation of this prayer, which can be sung to the traditional High Holy Day melody:

L’shana tova tikateivu – May you be inscribed for a good year