After coming before God in prayer and learning His teachings and impact in our history we then prepare to descend the mountain to return to our every day lives. This section of the service is the finale and reminds us of the core points of the service. We are recharged and ready to re-enter the world with spiritual balance.
This concluding section is called Aleinu which means "upon us" based upon the first verse of the prayer with this name which starts with "It is upon us to praise the Master of all..." Often this is the place to hear a sermon before this section starts. The content of this section varies between the different services but follows this order in general:
- Ein Keiloheinu [None like our God] (Shabbat mornings)
- Ashrei - Psalm 145 (weekday mornings)
- Lamnatzeiah - Psalm 20 (weekday mornings)
- U'va L'Tzion [A Redeemer will come to Zion] (weekday mornings)
- Aleinu
- Psalm of the day
- An'im Zmirot (Shabbat mornings)
The Aleinu prayer is said to have been the dying song chanted by Jewish martyrs in medieval ages and is only two paragraphs - the first dealing with the present era and the second the future messianic era. Tradition holds that Joshua first said this prayer upon entering Israel for the first time with the Jewish nation. The prayer was part of the Rosh HaShanah service 1700 years ago and eventually became the basis for the conclusion of worship services around the year 1200. There is a verse that declares that we "bow the knee, prostrate and thank God" in which we slightly bend the knee and then bow but at one time people would truly kneel and then lie in prostration.
The Aleinu prayer featured a verse that 'pulled out all of the stops' and declared that "worship of other gods was wasted" however during severe Christian persecution in the medieval ages Jews were wrongly accused of inserting the phrase as a slur to Christianity. Since then many services dropped that verse but the more traditional Sephardic siddurim till include it and can be found in the ArtScroll Siddur in parentheses. This controversial verse is based upon Isaiah 30:7 & 45:20. While this prayer was sometimes censored by both government censors and Jewish leaders it was also a profound affirmation of faith in God for those facing death.
As Moses came down from the Holy Mountain with a face that shone, we too can descend from His presence and shine with the light of God's spirit.
