בָּרוּךְ אַתָּה ה' אֱלהֵינוּ מֶלֶךְ הָעולָם אֲשֶׁר קִדְּשָׁנוּ בְּמִצְותָיו וְצִוָּנוּ לַעֲסוק בְּדִבְרֵי תורָה:
Blessing for Torah Study
Barukh Atah Adonai Eloheinu Melekh Ha'Olam Asher Kideshanu Bemitzvotav Vetzivanu La'asok Bedivrei Torah
Blessed are you Adonai, our God, Sovereign of Eternity, who has made us holy through Your sacred callings and called upon us to immerse ourselves in the words of Torah.
(4) God became manifest to Balaam, who stated, “I have set up the seven altars and offered up a bull and a ram on each altar.” (5) And יהוה put a word in Balaam’s mouth and said, “Return to Balak and speak thus.” (6) So he returned to him and found him standing beside his offerings, and all the Moabite dignitaries with him. (7) He took up his theme, and said:
From Aram has Balak brought me,
Moab’s king from the hills of the East: Come, curse me Jacob,
Come, tell Israel’s doom!
(8) How can I damn whom God has not damned,
How doom when יהוה has not doomed?
(9) As I see them from the mountain tops,
Gaze on them from the heights,
There is a people that dwells apart,
Not reckoned among the nations,
(10) Who can count the dust of Jacob,
Number the dust-cloud of Israel?
May I die the death of the upright,
May my fate be like theirs! (11) Then Balak said to Balaam, “What have you done to me? Here I brought you to damn my enemies, and instead you have blessed them!” (12) He replied, “I can only repeat faithfully what יהוה puts in my mouth.”
Adonai, Open my lips that my mouth may declare your praise.
(א) לַמְנַצֵּ֗חַ מִזְמ֥וֹר לְדָוִֽד׃ (ב) בְּֽבוֹא־אֵ֭לָיו נָתָ֣ן הַנָּבִ֑יא כַּאֲשֶׁר־בָּ֝֗א אֶל־בַּת־שָֽׁבַע... (יז) אֲ֭דֹנָי שְׂפָתַ֣י תִּפְתָּ֑ח וּ֝פִ֗י יַגִּ֥יד תְּהִלָּתֶֽךָ׃ (יח) כִּ֤י ׀ לֹא־תַחְפֹּ֣ץ זֶ֣בַח וְאֶתֵּ֑נָה ע֝וֹלָ֗ה לֹ֣א תִרְצֶֽה׃ (יט) זִ֥בְחֵ֣י אֱלֹהִים֮ ר֤וּחַ נִשְׁבָּ֫רָ֥ה לֵב־נִשְׁבָּ֥ר וְנִדְכֶּ֑ה אֱ֝לֹהִ֗ים לֹ֣א תִבְזֶֽה׃
(1) For the leader. A psalm of David, (2) when Nathan the prophet came to him after he had come to Bathsheba...
(17) O Lord, open my lips,
and let my mouth declare Your praise. (18) You do not want me to bring sacrifices;
You do not desire burnt offerings; (19) True sacrifice to God is a contrite spirit;
God, You will not despise
a contrite and crushed heart.
In her book The Journey Is Home, feminist theologian Nelle Morton tells a moving story about a woman who is “heard into speech” by a supportive community. In Morton’s recounting a reluctant participant in a woman’s conference is given an extraordinary kind of attention—a wholly attuned, uninterrupted listening—that allows her to break through her reticence and tell her story. Reversing the familiar model of speech as a stimulus to hearing, Morton creates a new paradigm: hearing as a stimulus to speech: This is… a totally new understanding of hearing, hearing that can indeed open the lips. [Perhaps] this, then [is] what the prayer asks of God in the opening line of the Amidah…
What’s going on here is a spiritual paradigm in which God and people are not only not distinct from one another but are literally within one another. God is the ocean and we are the waves. In the words of Chasidic maxim, “Alles ist Gott, it’s all God.” My mouth is God’s mouth. My praises are God’s words. In the teaching of Rabbi Kalynomos Kalmish Shapira of Piestezna (who perished in the Warsaw Ghetto), “Not only does God hear our prayers, God prays them through us as well!”
The words of the Amidah that will follow may sound like they come from me but in truth they come from a higher source. Prayer may ultimately be an exercise for helping us let go of our egos, hopelessly anchored to this world where one person is discrete from another and from God , and soar to the heaven where we realize there is a holy One to all being and that we have been an expression of it all along. “God, open my lips so that my mouth shall declare your praise.”