Reply To: Hakaras HaTov

Lior – How are you including members of the security forces in your tefilos? As you may know, there’s an inyan to be as specific as possible when Davening for someone – that’s why we use an exact name and a mother’s name when Davening for a Choleh.

There’s also a Medrash on this where it discusses one of the battles Bnei Yisrael had in the Midbar, where one nation (I can’t recall right now which) dressed up as another when attacking Bnei Yisrael so as to make the Tefilos ineffective. They still spoke their native language, though, so B”Y realized something was up – and davened simply to overcome “this enemy”. The question that is asked then is, why not always use this formulation? The answer is that the more specific the Tefila, the better.

As to the Nussach of the Mi Sheberach – I can understand your discomfort with using a new Tefila, and have no issue with this (though there are multiple examples of new liturgy being added to the more traditional – see Kinnos re: the Holocaust, for example). However, why not use some other, more traditional, formulation of a Tefila, while specifically mentioning Israel’s security forces?

an Israeli Yid