Davening—It’s a Trip!
To daven in the morning is to take a trip with a variety of sites along the way. Why experience it this way? I’ve found, after decades of wanting to focus on what...
Category: Issue 10.2: Prayer
Symposium: Addressing Contemporary Struggles with Prayer
In recent years, there has been a proliferation of new editions of siddurim (with innovative commentaries) for holiday, weekday, and Shabbat prayers. Moreover, new forms or styles of prayer services have become more popular...
Can Prayer be Meaningful? Feeling the Presence of God
Tefillah presents, for me, the most formidable challenge I face as someone trying to be a responsible and committed Jew. The sheer repetitive nature of the required text - three times a day, at...
Personalized Prayer
Few can question that tefilla in our communities is seriously lacking. Our shuls leave us with davening that is too often, even at its best, rushed and uninspiring. At its worst, the experience...
Hashem Sifati Tiftach: Paying More Than Lip Service to Tefila
Walking into a preschool program during tefilla, a visitor will see children sitting in a circle, belting out the words to songs like “Modeh Ani” or “Torah Torah.” That might be about as good...
Jewish Tradition on Ethics Beyond the Law: Revisiting R. Aharon Lichtenstein’s Essay, “Does Jewish Tradition Recognize an Ethic Independent of Halakha?”
[1]As a mode of life, religion is often expected by its adherents and critics to guide toward the good and deter from the bad. Halakha, the observance of which is the principal fulfillment of...
And Man Laughed: R’ Menachem Froman’s Torat Ha-Sechok and its Antecedents
The jester is brother to the sage – Arthur Koestler Jesters do oft prove prophets – William Shakespeare The relationship between sense and nonsense, between the rational and the irrational, is often...
Between Heaven and Earth: The Clash of Theory and Reality in Masekhet Hagigah
[1] “Three times a year all your males shall appear before the Sovereign, the Lord” (Exodus 23:17), declares the Torah, instituting the Shalosh Regalim of Sukkot, Pesaḥ, and Shavuot, when Israelites would celebrate in...
Mi-Darkei Ha-Teshuva: The Authentic Repentance
Compiled by: Yehoshua Katz Of the many novel insights that are presented in Rambam’s Hilkhot Teshuva,[1] Rambam’s development of the “darkei ha-teshuva,” “the ways of repentance,” emerges at their forefront. Rambam (Hilkhot Teshuva...
Jonah and the Paradox of Prayer and Repentance
The Book of Jonah occupies a prominent spot in the Yom Kippur liturgy. The themes of the book align closely with the themes of the day: distance and closeness to God, sin and...
“And I Will Bless Them”: Understanding Birkat Ha-Kohanim In Its Scriptural Context
Among the rites that make up the Jewish prayer service, Birkat ha-Kohanim stirs particular curiosity. Mere human beings step in to offer (what appears to be) their own blessing as the congregation is about...
Piyyut: The Story of the Poetry of Jewish Prayer
Jewish prayer is caught between the two poles of keva and kavvanah, the fixed nature of prayer, and the role of intentionality in one’s prayer.[1] While Jewish law ultimately prescribes fixed formulas of liturgy,...
Letter from the Editor
My God My God/ May these never end…/The sand and the sea/The rustle of the water/The lightning of the Heavens/The prayer of man (Hannaa Szenes, “Eli, Eli”) Like the sand and the sea, human...
