Putting out a discussion of `al hanisim might seem an odd choice for Shushan Purim, but I do so in the spirit of remembering that the whole time period until the fifteenth is still the time of Purim (and in Yerushalayim this year even on the sixteenth, when they eat their se`udat Purim. One of the central rules of `al hanisim is that we do not repeat the Amidah.if we forget it. That is in contrast to other insertions, most notably (for the present purposes) ya`aleh ve-yavo.

Before fully exploring that contrast, let us clarify what we mean by "forgetting." In a summary of this issue (at the end of Yehaveh Da`at 5:49), R. Ovadyah Yosef notes that we do not consider one to have irrevocably forgotten `al hanisim until after having said the shem Hashem (the Name of God) in the blessing of hatov shimkha (or, in parallel, of `al ha’arets ve-`al hamazon in bentshing). Before then, the person can just go back within the blessing and recite `al hanisim. That is despite already having said God’s Name in the course of the blessing, such as ha-‘e-l yeshu`ateinu ve-`ezratenu sela (for the Sefardim among us, I will note that the Hakham Ovadya writes ha’e-l hatov). It is not, then, that once we have said God’s Name within a blessing that we cannot go back to something forgotten, it is that once we say the Name of God in the closing blessing that we must consider the berakhah as having been finished.

Rav Ovadyah goes so far as to reject an halakhic technique that would have allowed a crucial few more seconds to remember `al hanisim before losing the opportunity to recite it in the course of the Amidah. Hazal noted the verse in Tehillim that reads "barukh atah Hashem lamdeni hukekha, blessed are you Hashem, teach me your laws." Since the first part of the verse exactly parallels the beginnings of our blessings, it helps in circumstances where a person might start a blessing and be unable to finish. To give just one example, a person might start a blessing prior to eating a piece of food, and then have the food become inedible for some reason (e.g., it drops on the floor and does not qualify under the five-second rule). By finishing with the words lamdeni hukekha, the berakhah le-vatalah can be converted into a simple recitation of a verse. For `al hanisim, however, R. Ovadyah does not allow that—once we have said the shem Hashem in the berakhah in which we should have inserted `al hanisim, we can no longer go back.

However, both for bentshing and davening, there is one more opportunity to recite `al hanisim. For bentshing, it comes at the point in the Harachaman prayers where we would mention Shabbat or holidays. In this case, we would say, harachaman hu ya`aseh `imanu nisim ve-nifla’ot kemo she`asah la’avoteinu bayamim hahem ba-zeman hazeh (the Compassionate One should perform miracles and wonders for us, the way He did for our forefathers in those days at this time), and then say the paragraph for Purim or Hannukah. In the Amidah, at the end of the Eloqai Netsor prayer, the person would say, "Modim anahnu lakh, we thank you, `al hanisim, etc." Beyond that, however, there is no commonly applicable way to salvage the recitation of `al hanisim for that particular prayer.

Having elucidated the what of the situation, we should spend a moment on the why—if Hazal ordained that we say something extra on Hannukah and Purim, why wouldn’t they also require that we repeat the prayer if we forgot it? The Beit Yosef (Orah Hayyim 682), in fact, cites a Ravyah who claims that since we have accepted these holidays and prayers as obligatory, we must repeat the prayer if we forgot `al hanisim. In that view, the issue was whether or not `al hanisim was obligatory, so that if, over time, what was originally voluntary turned into an obligation, the rules around its recitation would change as well.

However, we rule in accordance with the majority opinion, that since these holidays were rabbinic, forgetting the recitation of `al hanisim would not invalidate the prayer. On holidays of Torah origin—including Rosh Hodesh, which has a Torah-ordained musaf sacrifice—we would have to repeat any prayer in which we neglected to mention the holiday (bentshing is a little more complicated, since the issue is not only whether the holiday stems from the Torah, but also whether that holiday creates an obligation to eat a meal).

As stated, the issue seems to depend solely on the origin of the holiday in question, which is correct as far as it goes. We should remember, however, that there are other non-de-oraita parts of the Amidah that must be remembered or the entire prayer repeated, such as mashiv haruah or ve-ten tal u-matar in the winter. When we say that we need not repeat the Amidah because of `al hanisim, then, we are making two assertions. First, we are noting that `al hanisim is simply a mention of the holiday on which the prayer is being said, a mention that helps us put the prayer in the proper calendrical context, the proper place in the yearly cycle of Jewish life. But second, we are also saying that `al hanisim is not a prayer of its own, is not a request for anything in particular, such that those needs would absolutely have to be articulated, even at the cost of repeating the Amidah (there were earlier forms of `al hanisim that included a prayer, raising a discussion as to whether we allow requests in the last 3 blessings of the Amidah, see Tosafot Megillah 4a, s.v. Pasak). There are several other interesting issues, both about `al hanisim and about Purim prayer more generally, that we will take up next week, be-ezrat Hashem. Shabbat Shalom and (Shushan) Purim sameah.