Adon Olam: A Search for Meaning by Rabbi Zalman Weiss, Menorah Books, Jerusalem; ISBN 9978-1-940516-12-7 ©2014, $24.95, p. 350, plus glossary.
By Fred Reiss, Ed.D.
WINCHESTER, California — Ezra the Scribe, in 458 BCE, led a group of about eighteen hundred Jewish men together with their wives and children from the Babylon Captivity to their new home in Jerusalem. Seeing the devastation upon his arrival, Ezra, in despair, ripped his garments while confessing the sins of Israel, later imposing strict Torah observance, and demanding that Jewish men divorce their non-Jewish wives. He also established an executive and legislative body consisting of 120 persons, leaders of the Jewish people, including prophets, rabbis, scribes, and scholars, selected from those who came back from the Babylonian Exile, known as the Anshei Knesset Ha-Gedolah, the Men of the Great Assembly, whose assemblage lasted about a century and a half.
According to Rabbi Zalman Weiss, author of Adon Olam: A Search for Meaning, among their enormous accomplishments is the writing of Adon Olam, a hymn that has been intoned at weddings, chanted beside deathbeds, recited before going to bed, and sung at the conclusion of Sabbath and holiday services. It is arguably one of the best known hymns in the Jewish liturgy, as evidenced by the nearly inexhaustible number of melodies played to this hymn.
Adon Olam is actually a five stanza poem (six in the Sephardic version) with both metered feet and a rhyming scheme. The first three stanzas characterize God’s dominion over everything along with His uniqueness and omnipresence. In addition, there are declarations regarding His singularity, uniqueness, and eternity. The last two stanzas change reference frames, calling God, this omnipotent being who is in charge of the entire universe and should not be concerned with inconsequential problems, a personal God, a rock, and a redeemer.
Drawing on his many years of experience working with potential converts to Judaism and answering their religious questions, Weiss drills down deeply into the Adon Olam hymn to extract answers to important Jewish theological questions, as well as explain conundrums raised by the hymn itself. To accomplish this, Weiss presents a didactic novel in which a master teacher, Yehudah Stark, and his associate Ari teach four yeshiva students the true meaning of the Adon Olam prayer; the meaning originally intended by the Men of the Great Assembly when they wrote it about 2500 years ago.
Here are a few illustrative examples of how the novel responds to theologic questions.
The opening lines of Adon Olam present several problems for the yeshiva students. How can the Lord of the Universe reign before there was a universe? In fact, did God create the cosmos? Also in line two, “according to His will”? Does God have a will, intentions, or a mind? Weiss’ alter ego Yehudah Stark answers these questions by calling on Jewish mysticism. Using gematria, Hebrew numerology, he shows a connection between the words Adon Olam and Ayn Sof, Kabbalah’s conception of God prior to creation. For Weiss, the Master of the Universe is Jewish mysticism’s God of Eternity.
He also notes that the Zohar, a collection of mystical commentaries on the Torah, states that four worlds emanate from God, each of them acting as an opaque screen to the one behind it, so that it is no longer obvious that God is the creator. This would be like thick clouds in the sky, and if the clouds never moved, how could we see that the moon exists?
God’s will is not like human will. People want something they lack; not so with God. God lacks nothing. Weiss tells us that God’s “desire to create the physical world isn’t to fulfill a lack of His Essence, but rather to bestow good upon His creations.”
The students have additional need for explanations in the next two lines od Adon Olam, which read,
- And after everything shall end, He alone shall rule in majesty.
- He was, He is, and He will be in glory.
What is the “everything” being spoken of here? He tells us that “everything” is a token representing the concept of evil, which is not a force independent of God, like Satan. Rather, it is our inner voice giving us the ability to make free-will decisions. To pin down what he means by free will, Weiss cites Exodus 5:1-3, where Moses and Aaron say to Pharaoh “Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel…” and Pharaoh responds, “Who is the Lord that I should heed Him and let Israel go?” For Pharaoh, Israel represents a group of slaves, his possession. For Moses and Aaron, Israel chose to recognize that they are the servants of God. In short, when the time comes that there will no longer be any sin and free will have no meaning, God will still be the one acknowledged as Lord of the Universe.
In the third stanza we read:
- And He is unique, without a second to compare or to be an equal
- Without a beginning, without an end; Power and dominion are His.
With this stanza, the Men of the Great Assembly focus on Judaism’s monotheism, asserting that God is singular, unique, and without equal. God is not divisible in his unity. Weiss tells us that one can define a tree, for example, by its essence or use, but not so with God, as there is nothing in the cosmos to compare to Him.
All life is destined to die, but not God, who is infinite and eternal. So the only way that we can rise above our finitude, above our physical life, is through God, meaning His Torah.
In the Adon Olam hymn the Jews express their absolute trust in God’s providence, while glorifying His unity, eternity, and title “Lord of the Universe.” Weiss tells us that he wrote this novel “for the Torah scholar as well as those beginning to search the depths of Judaism.” I believe that it is of value to a wider audience, particularly those interested in Jewish liturgy.
If this is so, then many people reading Adon Olam: A Search for Meaning might not agree with Weiss’ overarching theme, that “being a Jew means that Hashem [a Hebrew euphemism meaning God] must be your sole commander and you the loyal servant,” or might not accept the book’s mystical and traditional explanations and interpretations, but through Weiss’ systematic presentation, there is much insight to gain and so I have little doubt that after reading Adon Olam: A Search for Meaning, the hymn will never mean the same.
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Dr. Fred Reiss is a retired public and Hebrew school teacher and administrator. He is the author of The Standard Guide to the Jewish and Civil Calendars; Ancient Secrets of Creation: Sepher Yetzira, the Book that Started Kabbalah, Revealed; and a fiction book, Reclaiming the Messiah. The author can be reached through his website, fred.reiss@sdjewishworld.com.