Celebration: Yom Ha'Atzma'ut

Text in Shai Agnon's handwriting

Prayer for the State of Israel from Siddur Lev Shalem, the Conservative siddur

The Hebrew word שתהא ("that it may be") was added by the Chief Rabbi of England, Immanuel Jakobovits, turning the phrase "the beginning of the redemption" into an expression of hope, rather than a statement of fact.

Prayer for the State of Israel from Mishkan T'filah, the Reform siddur

Prayer for the State of Israel by Rabbi David Seidenberg, founder of NeoHasid, a Chasidic egalitarian minyan

Commentary by David Seidenberg

What’s left out: “Strengthen the hands of those who defend the land…and crown them with the crown of victory.” Why: This was the only phrase in the original prayer referring to the IDF. In a time of war, we need a full prayer for the protection and success of soldiers, like the Mi Shebeirakh prayer used by the IDF. In a less critical time, any hope for the IDF is included in the phrase “grant secure calm (shalvah) to her defenders,” which also includes everyone working for peace, justice, and security in the lands of Israel/Palestine and the state of Israel.

Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, Koren-Sacks Siddur, p. 523-522.

Prayer for the State of Israel: Introduced after the birth of the modern State of Israel in 1948. A key element of the prayer is the phrase "the first flowering of our redemption." It means that the restoration of Israel as a sovereign nation in its own land was not merely an event in secular history. It was the fulfillment of the prophetic vision--first stated by Moses in the quoted verse from Deuteronomy--that Israel would one day be gathered from "the furthermost lands under the heavens," an astonishingly precise prediction of what actually happened. According to the third-century Babylonian teacher Shmuel, "The only difference between this world and the messianic age is subjection to foreign powers" (Berakhot 34b). In the view Israel's independence was in itself a redemptive moment, a return to Jewish self-determination, self-government and self-defense under the sovereignty of God alone.

Dalia Marx, "The Prayer for the State of Israel: Universalism and Particularism"

Relating to the State of Israel as "the first sprouting of our redemption" has proved especially problematic over the years. Many have been troubled by its messianic pretensions, holding that the State of Israel does not merit the title. Seeing the state as already redemptive, moreover, has led some extremists to demand a post-historical morality that permits violence toward Arabs. This liberal version of the prayer therefore strikes a balance. It does see Israel as "the first sprouting of our redemption," but the image of redemption is a far cry from the traditionalistic portrait that includes all Jews being restored to their homeland and the rest of humanity converted to the true vision of the one and unique Jewish God.

Rabba Tamar Elad-Appelbaum, Pirke Avot Lev Shalem, p. 114.

But to pray regularly for the peace of the government that is at times at odds with one's own outlook--isn't that going too far? These words seem to be dispatched from a distant time especially to us. They have made their way from a man of the Temple, which had been destroyed, to the contemporary generation, in which a sovereign Jewish state exists. We live in a time of establishing sovereignty, a time in which there are many questions and challenges. And indeed, it is entirely possible these days to find oneself keeping one's distance from the authorities--that is to say, from legitimate governance--because of the sadness one feels about all that has yet to be realized. It is to such people--and to some extent, actually, thus to us all--that the text speaks. It asks: Can a Jew really reject the reality and existence of such sovereignty, the still-developing polity, simply because of all the divisions it has not healed and the challenges it is facing? If that were to happen, what new layer of governance could possibly emerge? And what kind of world would Jews (and their children) be facing without responsible governance? The horrors of the Shoah and its unbearable story of human perfidy against millions of fellow humans, Jews and others, still ring in our ears. And it is thus particularly to us, twenty-first century Jews who are witnesses to Israeli sovereignty, that I hear Hananiah speaking. He is calling out to the present-day citizens of the sovereign State of Israel and admonishing us not to distance ourselves from our own authorities and not to denigrate it...even if it has not yet put all its values into practice. Pray for it, he exhorts us, for all of Jewish history has been pointing to and leading up to this moment. Now, more than at any other moment, is the time to pray for the welfare of the Jewish polity: that it may rise to all its challenges, and especially the longing for peace that is part and parcel of its people's Torah. Pray, and thus give voice to the belief that the sovereign Jewish state will actualize the vision of its prophets, and that a regime of law and justice for all its citizens shall yet be established within it.