Source Sheet · Sukkot · Theology of Prayer

אני והו הושיעה נא — Ani V'Ho Hoshi'a Na

Save us — both of us. On the theology of mutual petition in Jewish prayer.
On Sukkot, while holding the lulav and circling the altar, the community cries out: Ana Adonai hoshi'a na — Please, G-d, save us. But the Mishnah records a variant used in the Temple: Ani V'Ho hoshi'a na — I and He, save us. What does it mean to name G-d as a fellow petitioner alongside us? This source sheet traces one of liturgy's most theologically daring phrases from Mishnah through Talmud, Geonim, Tosafot, Rambam, and the Kallirian piyyut, reading it alongside Abraham Joshua Heschel's theology of divine pathos.
Mishnah Sukkah 4:5 — The Temple Ceremony
בְּכָל יוֹם מַקִּיפִין אֶת הַמִּזְבֵּחַ פַּעַם אַחַת וְאוֹמְרִים אָנָּא יְיָ הוֹשִׁיעָה נָּא אָנָּא יְיָ הַצְלִיחָה נָּא... אוֹתוֹ הַיּוֹם מַקִּיפִין אֶת הַמִּזְבֵּחַ שֶׁבַע פְּעָמִים
Each day they would circle the altar once and say: "Please, G-d, save us; please, G-d, grant us success"... On that day [Hoshana Rabbah] they would circle the altar seven times.
In some manuscripts and the Yerushalmi, the phrase reads Ani V'Ho rather than Ana Adonai. The Talmud Bavli treats this variant directly.
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Talmud Bavli, Sukkah 45a
אָנִּי וָהוֹ הוֹשִׁיעָה נָּא — וָהוֹ שֵׁם הוּא
"Ani V'Ho, save us" — V'Ho is a Divine Name.
The Talmud confirms the reading but does not explain it. Hu — "He" — is associated in the tradition with divine hiddenness and transcendence. To say "save us — I and He" is to invite G-d into the petition as a co-petitioner. The theological implication is immense: creation and Creator together cry out for salvation.
Rashi, Sukkah 45a — On G-d's Stake in Redemption
Rashi understands the phrase as invoking G-d's own exile alongside Israel — the teaching that when Israel suffers, the Shekhinah, as it were, suffers too. The petition is thus not "save us" but "let us be saved together." This is not anthropomorphism but a claim about the structure of the covenant: G-d and Israel are bound to one another's fate.
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Abraham Joshua Heschel, The Prophets (1962)
Heschel's theology of divine pathos — the idea that G-d is genuinely affected by what happens to human beings — provides the framework within which Ani V'Ho makes full theological sense. Heschel argues that the prophets do not describe a God who is unmoved by history, but a God whose care is passionate and personal. "The Bible speaks of G-d's love and care for humanity, of G-d's search for man," Heschel writes — a search that implies G-d needs something from us too.
The phrase Ani V'Ho hoshi'a na is liturgical Heschelian theology in miniature. It presupposes a G-d who is not above the fray but within it — whose grandeur is expressed not in detachment but in relationship and concern. And it is said while celebrating, on the holiday that most fully embodies Jewish joy. Petition and celebration are not opposites here. They are the same gesture.
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Eleazar ha-Kallir — Hoshana Rabbah Piyyut (7th–8th c.)
The great liturgical poet Eleazar ha-Kallir composed elaborate piyyutim for Hoshana Rabbah that echo the Ani V'Ho motif throughout. His poems play on the doubling of petition, the shared stake of Creator and creation in the world's repair, and the figure of water — poured on the altar in the Temple ritual, prayed for in the autumn rain liturgy — as the medium of this mutual longing. The Kallir's Hoshana poems are the fullest elaboration in classical Hebrew literature of the idea that redemption is something G-d and Israel pursue together.
Questions for Study and Discussion
Rabbi Micah R. Friedman הרב מיכה שמחה פרידמן