RJ Blog

Since we started reading Vayikra, I’ve been waiting for a chance to argue with my friend and teacher, Rabbi Billy Dreskin. We’ve worked together for years, and we often disagree. But we always learn from each other. His recent d’var torah is a perfect example. Billy is absolutely right in saying that many of us are looking for a closer relationship with God, and that there are only two prayers for closeness in the entire Siddur. But he’s also wrong. This past year, as a result of some difficult times in my life, I’ve started davening two or three mornings [...]

So What Is Prayer? It doesn’t have to be services or words, though it can be both. It can be a feeling that God is present. It doesn’t have to include asking for anything. It can be just awe or wonder, or a wave of affection breaking over you. It can be like plugging into an electric current. It can change while you’re praying. It can be surprise. It can be… Fill in the rest from your own experience. — Rabbi Lionel Blue and Rabbi Jonathan Magonet On Monday, I taught a lesson on tefilah to the students in our [...]

I am a Jew by choice. And before you ask – both my parents are Jewish. One of my earliest memories is of being with my grandfather, sheltered by his tallit, as he gave the benediction to his congregation on Rosh HaShanah. We celebrated the major Jewish holidays – Rosh HaShanah, Yom Kippur, Chanukah, and Pesach, anything else being an esoteric holdover of a bygone age – mainly with a meal. Occasionally, we even made it to synagogue.

by Rabbi Jordi Schuster Battis My heart is in the east and I in the uttermost west – Yehudah Halevi (c. 1141) In this way all Israel will be turning their hearts towards one place. – Babylonian Talmud, Berakhot 30a In talking about Jewish prayer, we often follow in the steps of Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel and make a distinction between keva, the fixed and routine aspects of liturgy, and kavanah, the intention and directionality we put behind our words. We can use this dichotomy in thinking about the spaces in which we pray, as well: the keva of the [...]

by Stacey Zisook Robinson When my son was born, I cradled him against my heart, arms wrapped gently yet surely around his small and fragile body. I would stand, holding him, our breaths mingled, our hearts beating in an elegant call and response, one beat to the next, and I would sway, a slow and gentle side-to-side rock that lasted for the eternity that exists between heartbeats. I could feel his body relax into the motion, like oceans, like drifting, like peace. I loved the simplicity of that rhythm, the warmth of him, the smell of his newness and his [...]

by Billy Dreskin A rabbi is invited to spend a weekend at a synagogue he’d served years earlier. Running into Goldberg, who’d been on the synagogue’s board of trustees back then, the rabbi was surprised to learn that his old friend wasn’t spending much time at temple anymore: He asked, “Goldberg, what happened? You used to be there when the doors opened!” “Ach! Years back, the temple went in a direction I didn’t like. Some of us got together and made a new synagogue,” Goldberg replied. “Is that where you worship now?” asked the rabbi. “I’m afraid not. A few [...]

by Bill Page I have wanted for some time to write a little essay about the daily miracles prayer in Mishkan T’filah (pp. 198-203).  It is just the right prayer for Shabbat, when we are meant to rest and recall what our all too busy lives are really supposed to be about.  But I have also tried to incorporate these beautiful words into my daily schedule, less successfully than I would like, and I have had the best luck recalling these prayers for life’s daily miracles while riding my bicycle. These prayers help us to recall how much we take [...]

by Alden Solovy A prayer for the Jews of France after today’s violence in Toulouse. See also: “At the Hand of Anti-Semitism: A Yizkor Prayer.” Author of life, Man has turned violent, Cutting down children and their teachers In Toulouse, France, Our young and our leaders, Our brothers and sisters, Crushing lives, Upending dreams, Attacking hope with hatred. Source and Creator, Grant a perfect rest under your tabernacle of peace To the victims of murder in Toulouse Whose lives were cut off by violence, An act of witless aggression And calculated anti-Semitism. Remember the survivors of this horror, And the victims of [...]

by Ilana DeBare Earlier this year, I took part in a Shabbat service where women from Temple Sinai wrote personal, modern versions of the traditional prayers. Sinai member Karen Marker wrote a version of the Mi Chamocha (Who is like you?), the prayer where we praise God for parting the Red Sea and taking us to freedom. It struck me as a wonderful reading to incorporate into a Passover seder. And so, since we are at the time of year when some of us start preparing haggadot for Passover, here it is.

by Rabbi Julie Pelc Adler This morning I received a text message from my Aunt Linda saying, “I am doing well… love being home after three weeks in the hospital and rehab.” I almost replied, as if on rabbi auto-pilot, “I’ve been praying for your recovery” but instead wrote, “I’ve been thinking of you a lot!  You’re so strong!” Some might argue that my aunt was able to recover from the infection in her hip replacement, surgeries to remove the new hip and clean the prosthesis, and to begin rehabilitation all over again because God heard the prayers of the [...]