Question Have the censorship laws of various states ever affected the classical Jewish texts?

Answer Surprising at it may appear to us living in a free society, for hundreds of years all Jewish writings, including the Talmud, had to be approved by the local censors before they could be printed. The local censor was often a Jew who had converted to Christianity, because he would be the only one with sufficient knowledge of the classic Jewish texts to be able to check the material. On the whole, the censors made a point of either removing or modifying any references to Christianity. One example is a passage in the Talmud which - seemingly out of the blue - refers to an Egyptian. The passage seemed completely out of place, until it was noticed that the Hebrew word for "Egyptian" is Mitzri, and the Hebrew word Notzri means "Nazarene," the way Jesus is often referred to in the Talmud. Reading the text as Notzri - as it must have been before the censor modified it - placed the entire paragraph in perfectly logical context. The use of censorship, though, may have been self-defeating. There is a little volume which contains all the expurgated parts of the Jewish writing, entitled Hesronot Ha'shas, or "the Missing Parts of the Talmud." Apocryphally, this little book survived because a certain person who had converted to Christianity, for the material benefits rather than ideologically, compiled the list and had it circulated to other censors, thus ensuring that the expurgated parts would not be lost or forgotten!  

Question How about the prayers? Were they affected by censorship?

Answer Indeed they were. The alenu prayer, which is said at the conclusion of each synagogue service, had a line cut out, one that to this day most printed editions omit. The passage involved, including the omission in italics, reads as follows: "... who has not made our portion as theirs, and our fate as all of their multitudes, for they bow down to nothingness and emptiness, and prostrate themselves before a god who cannot help, while we bow down and prostate ourselves before the King, King of kings..." The fact that this was written as a reference to the pagans and not Christianity did not, however, prevent the Christian censors from removing it from the prayer book.  

Question In Judaism, the prayers are generally recited by each person individually, rather than in unison. Why then are the prayers couched in plural form?

Answer One of the basic principles of Judaism is that "all Jews are responsible for one another." The individual Jew cannot ignore the sins of another Jew, just as one's hand cannot ignore gangrene that has set in on his foot. Thus, when praying, Jews beseech God for all of their brethren. By the same token, when the alphabetical confession prayer is recited, it is couched in the plural: Ashamnu, bagadnu, gazalnu - "We have sinned, we have deceived, we have stolen." This also allows for the individual Jew to confess to sins he has not committed, for he bears a certain responsibility for the sins of his fellow-Jews who did commit those sins. There are a few prayers that are phrased in the singular, such as the supplication at the end of the amidah prayer, Elohai, netzor, "God, guard my tongue from evil...," that particular formula having been the prayer of one of the Talmudic Sages.  

Question What is the origin of the popular hymn Yigdal, recited at the end of the Friday night or Saturday morning service in many congregations?

Answer Yigdal, while seemingly a hymn of praise and no more, consists of thirteen lines, each of which is a poetic rendition of one of the Thirteen Principles of the Faith that Moses Maimonides (1135-1204) laid down as a basic credo for all Jews. These principles may be found in Chapter 1, above.  

Question Why do men recite a special blessing in the morning, thanking God for "not having created me a woman"?

Answer Various answers to this question have been given by different thinkers. It has been suggested that the blessing is based on the fact that women are exempt from many of the commandments which men are required to fulfill. Thus men have greater opportunities to perform commandments. Another view is that this may be a reflection of the fact that, until comparatively recently, women had a high risk of dying of the complications of childbirth. Thus men generally lived longer than women. Interestingly, in the 13th century, a blessing was devised to be said by women, the text being "Blessed are You, O Lord, King of the universe, who has created me in accordance with His will." Various non-Orthodox bodies have instituted changes in the basic text of the blessing for men, adopting wording which was sexually neutral, so that both men and women can recite the same blessings.