In the year 1910, a major event began in Jerusalem: some of the sages of the Ashkenazic kabbalistic yeshiva Sha’ar Shamayim – likely in coordination with the sages of the Sephardic kabbalistic yeshiva Rechovot Hanahar – began to gradually publish parts of the siddur of the Rashash, the kabbalist Rabbi Shalom Sharabi, for the first time. They did this after his prayer instructions had been handed down solely via manuscript or even word of mouth.
Until that time, the Rashash’s siddur had not been published for a few main reasons. For a start, there was the technical difficulty in printing such a siddur, with its many ways of arranging letters and semi-letters in creative fashion. There was also the desire to keep the Rashash’s prayer intentions or kavanos restricted solely for the eyes of those worthy of seeing them, and the subsequent fear that it might end up in the hands of those who wish to make illegitimate use of it. It is therefore no wonder that the gradual production of the siddur, which took six years to complete, was often criticized both as a general project and in its details.
Even in the next few decades, prayer based on Kabbalah remained the lot of a relatively restricted group. Thus, Jerusalem groups who did kavanos found themselves gathering for prayer in small groups in predetermined small synagogues, where they continued to ensure that the Rashash’s siddur was not easily available to the public.
This state of affairs changed to a great extent in the last fifty years: the number of kabbalistic yeshivas and those dealing in Kabbalah has grown significantly, the presence of the world of Kabbalah is clearly felt by the broader public, both in Eretz Yisrael and even outside of it, and the number of siddurim containing kavanos printed and distributed to the broader public is greater than ever before. One of the most prominent of these is the Rechovot Hanahar siddur.
The name Rechovot Hanahar (Streets of the River), derived from its mention in Bereishit 36:31, was interpreted by Kabbalah as referring among other things to the period before Creation, and was also tied to names such as Nahar Shalom – one of the famous books by the Rashash himself. A kabbalistic yeshiva by that name was founded in Jerusalem in 1896, which operated in the Bukharan neighborhood and headed by Rabbi Chaim Shaul HaCohen Dweck (the Sade).
However, the siddur bearing this name was only printed gradually over the last twenty years. It includes about 20 different volumes accompanying the weekday and Shabbat prayers, as well as the special prayers and passages said during different times throughout the year.
The production of the siddur series is led by Rabbi and Kabbalist Benayahu Shmueli, who has headed the Nahar Shalom yeshiva for many years near the Machane Yehudah market in Jerusalem. Rabbi Shmueli learned his teachings from a young age at a number of yeshivas, as well as from the direct teaching of famous kabbalists such as Rabbi Yitzhak Kaduri.
In his introduction to the siddur meant for weekday Shacharis, Rabbi Shmueli attested that its preparation took ten years, and that it was based on a strenuous, shared study effort by many of the talmidei chachamim in the yeshiva. Aside from a long introduction based in piyyut, Rabbi Shmueli explains in his introduction that the renewed production of the siddur (in different, more convenient editions) derived from the fact that “many are those who seek the word of G-d […] many hearts have been opened in the last few years, so that they can learn to worship G-d in prayer with kavanah.”
The great advantage of the Rechovot Hanahar – which became the most common kavanos siddur today – is probably its clear, appealing, and comfortable design, based on new arranging technologies which save the congregant the need to constantly flip back and forth to previous or parallel prayer passages.
True, for those unfamiliar with this sort of prayer, this siddur would appear particularly strange: the kavanos accompanying the first beracha in Shemoneh Esrei, for instance, stretch over 60 pages(!), and the letter combinations and arrangements across the page – despite the accompanying explanations in delicate Rashi script – would appear inscrutable to the untrained eye.
Nevertheless, its success in sheer numbers is undisputed. It is easily available, produced in illuminating form in a variety of formats, and forms a particularly significant part of the increasing distribution of the teaching of Kabbalah in Israel.
Originally published on JFeed.com.
