[Avodah] Mi Sheberach for a Non-Jew

[Micha Berger]

On Wed, August 29, 2007 3:09 am, Moshe Y. Gluck wrote:
: BTW, the minhag for the longest time was to make a Mi
: Shebeirach for the Keisar YRH, who definitely was a non-Jew.

That's not a minhag, that's din. Avos 3:2, R Chanina segan hakohanim.
But davening for the Czar is no different than Chazal davening for the
stability of Rome and its governor.

If you want to refer to differences in pesaq, such as whether it
should be said when the gov't is hostile to us, or if it has meaning
in a democracy where no one individual runs the whole show, then it's
a matter of pesaq, not minhag. Of course, in RCShK's day, the gov't
was hostile as well...

But I thought the question about Mi sheBeirakh was not whether one
could craft an appropriate nusach, but whether one should. Perhaps
davening for non-Jews should be left to Refa'einu, and not the MsB
format.

Why does MsB invoke "avoseinu" and include phrases like "besokh
she'ar"? Is it indicative of something particularistic in the entire
MsB concept, or an "accidental" feature that could be modified as
appropriate?

The tefillah for the gov't doesn't use the MsB formula. So it would
seem that if there is a problem, it would be with the formula, not the
post-leining timing.

Tir'u baTov!
-mi

-- 
Micha Berger             Spirituality is like a bird: if you tighten
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