God’s oath follows: a day will come when “every knee will bow and every tongue on earth will swear covenant loyalty” (Isa 45:23; Phil 2:10-11). Jewish people have prayed this prayer of covenant loyalty (now called the Alenu, Our Duty) for the past 49 generations. Are they aware of its linkage to the Holocaust and to Deut 30:1? Hakhel (Assemble!) prayers were restored in Jerusalem during the Sabbatical year of 1945, and the state of Israel has kept the Sabbatical year ever since—with communal reading to teach its children the fear of the Lord (Deut 31:12).
