Kedushah: Pretending We Are Angels

 

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Kedushah: Pretending We Are Angels

The Kedushah is a prayer recited during the Amidah, the core feature of every Jewish worship service. But unlike most prayers, which reflect directly on our relationship with God, the Kedushah invokes language that is unique to the heavenly angels. And in a manner that has virtually no analogue in all of Jewish liturgy, the Kedushah features some specific choreography that helps us to feel, if only for a moment, as if we are angels ourselves.

The prayer is recited with feet together, which evokes the single fused leg on which angels are said to stand. When we recite vekara zeh el zeh v’amar (“each one called out to the other and said”), which the Book of Isaiah says is what the angels do when attending to God, the common practice is to bow left, right and center. And when we say kadosh, kadosh, kadosh (“holy, holy, holy”), we rise up on our toes, as if reaching heavenward with our bodies.