I’m convinced, and I’ve changed everything.

Since I started preparing Jewish prayer books, I noted that the phrase וְאִשֵּׁי יִשְׂרָאֵל had dropped out of Conservative liturgy. Most people understand the phrase as a reference to Israel’s sacrificial fires. If you don’t favor the restoration of the Temple sacrificial system, you might skip that phrase. But if you favor tradition, or if youthink of the Temple service as a symbol of the Jewish people’s relationship with God, perhaps you’d retain the phrase.

Since some would include it, others omit it, I would shade the words.

But now there’s new thinking. The Etz Hayim Humash translates אִשֵּׁה (Lev. 1:9) as “gift” and notes:

gift  Hebrew: isheh, translated in the past as “offering by fire”—as if derived from esh (fire). Based on an Ugaritic cognate, we know know the meaning of the biblical term more accurately.

Well, if the word refers to the broader term gifts instead of sacrificial fires, it’s less awkward for those who don’t want to pray for a future of BBQ prayer.

“Oh,” you’ll say. “Etz Hayim isn’t new thinking. It’s from way back in 1999, and our copies are already wearing out.” Well, if 1999 isn’t new, how about 2010, eh? Mahzor Lev Shalem, published in 2010, offers this note:

The phrase “fiery offerings” originally referred to the sacrifices in the Temple, but later medieval and Hasidic commentators understood it as a description of the intensity of religious fervor required of true prayer (page 15).

Those Hasidic masters have made BBQ prayer palatable, even tasty, and Israel’s fervent pleas are making a smokin’ comeback into our prayerbooks. So I’ve changed all references to the phrase in the books I prepare. Instead of shading the phrase because some omit it while others retain it, I’ve put the phrase in regular text and added a footnote. Eventually, this will appear in the forthcoming texts on our website, SinglishPS.com, but if you read this you know what’s coming, and you’re in the enviable position of being able to predict the future.