Va’anachnu, korim u’mishtachavim u’modim.
But we bend our knees, bow and acknowledge our thanks.
We did not include a verse which originally followed the above: She’heim mishtachavim l’hevel va’rik u’mispallelim l’eil lo yoshia, “For they bow to vanity and emptiness and pray to a god which helps not.” Apparently, in the year 1,400, a baptised Jew seeking to defame his brothers and sisters and attempting to demonstrate his fidelity to the Church, spread the slanderous notice that this verse was the Jews’ attempt to slur Christianity. He also showed that the word va’rik, emptiness (316), had the same gematria, numerical equivalent, as their godhead, yeishu (both are 316). Despite the fact that the charge was repeatedly refuted by our sages (especially Horav Menashe ben Yisrael), the persecutions and church insistence – with the support of the ruling host government – caused this verse to be deleted from the prayer. Nonetheless, some follow the ruling of the Maharil Diskin, zl, and other distinguished Torah sages that this verse be reinstated and that the Aleinu prayer be recited in its original form.
