A (very) previous post discussed the idea of being too grumpy for gratitude, with a focus on one humility-prompting passage from the morning blessings:
…Master of all worlds, we do not offer our supplications before You based on our righteousness, but rather based on Your great mercy. What are we? What are our lives?….Man barely rises above beast, for everything is worthless [hakol havel]….
In that post, Ellen Frankel and Estelle Frankel (no relation as far as I know) are quoted on the concepts of “bittul/self-surrender” and a “healthy sense of entitlement.”
Admitting such truth is not simple. It requires that we abandon our grandiose childish sense of entitlement to God’s favor. We…are puny in God’s sight. Ultimately, we can only throw ourselves on God’s mercy.
But is this abject humility an honest expression of how we feel? Must we really live our lives as though we are so worthless, as though hakol havel, “everything is worthless,” as Ecclesiastes lamented?
— Ellen Frankel, My Peoples Prayerbook Continue reading “Because of this…” (Blessing and attitude, continued)
“Our hearts beat with certainty
that there is a day and an hour, and a mountain called Zion…”
These messianic words startled me when the congregation was asked to recite this unfamiliar passage the other day:
The good in us will win…
….
Our hearts beat with certainty
that there is a day and an hour, and a mountain called Zion,
and that all of the sufferings will gather there and become song,
ringing out into every corner of the earth, from end to end,
and the nations will hear it,
and like the caravans in the desert will all to that morning throng.
— p. 241 Mishkan T’filah (“Hugh Nissenson, adapted“)
The Shabbat morning services I regularly attend ordinarily skip this passage. Moreover, our siddur study group [long-ago study activity at Temple Micah in DC], has noted numerous Reform liturgy revisions to avoid messianic vision, and we had recently discussed early reformers’ aversion to “Zion” language. (See, e.g., David Ellenson’s commentary on p. 159 in My People’s Prayer Book, v.2, The Amidah.) So this very specific, if metaphorical, reference definitely caught me by surprise:
“…beat with certainty”? How rarely do our prayers insist that we, as a group, are certain of anything! And the thing we’re certain about is a future vision centered on a specific, dangerously contested, location?!
I like change of pace in the worship service, and I do not expect every word we read to be in concert with my own beliefs. I’m even in favor of an occasional jolt: better to be awake and a little disturbed than to sleep-walk through prayers. But this reading did prompt me to further consider the whole idea of “Zion” and what it means in prayer. Continue reading A Mountain Called Zion…
The Central Conference of American Rabbis (CCAR) needs new God-language and is asking for input. Here are two cents, which I hope will be useful to the CCAR and all who happen upon them.
Searching for Reform perspectives on the Amidah, I stumbled upon a “RavBlog” post relating to one of the blessings. Rabbi Leon Morris, a member of the editorial team for the Reform movement’s inchoate machzor, asked: How “Current” Should a Prayer Book Be?”
His post raises a number of questions, ones I’m not sure the author intended but ones the CCAR — and the rest of us — would do well to consider. Continue reading In Need of New Language
For years, I’ve been looking at the expression “iyun tefilah,” as in the famous passage from Shabbat 127a, where it is translated as “contemplation [or “meditation,” maybe “devotion”] in prayer.” Mishkan T’filah includes this phrase in the morning study passage, a kind of mash-up of Peah 1:1. and Shabbat 127a. (See pp.206-207 in Mishkan T’filah and below.) We often sing, “…v’iyun tefila-a-ah, v’iyun t’fila-a-ah…,” using Jeff Klepper‘s setting for “Eilu Devarim“.
Until a recent Talmud class, however, I didn’t realize that “עיון [iyun]” was the same word translated elsewhere as “study,” “learning,” or “investigation.” In some contexts — a class on the prayerbook, e.g., or the 19th Century siddur commentary known as Iyun Tefillah — “iyun” is understood in terms of “study (of prayers).” But translators seem to agree that the phrase in Shabbat 127a means something more like “contemplation” or “meditation.” My People’s Prayer Book translates it as “paying attention to prayer.”
In both study/investigation and contemplation/meditation, the idea seems to be to delve, go deeper: In the former case, it’s into an idea or text, perhaps the idea or text of a prayer; in the latter, it’s into prayer itself.
I’m not sure what, if any, conclusion to draw from the delving and immersing. But I think it’s worth pondering relationships among prayer, prayer text, and Torah. And I know from my own experience that the more (non-prayer) time and exploration I spend with a particular prayer, the deeper my encounter with that prayer when I’m actually praying.
For a little over 200 years, Psalm 27 has been associated with the season of repentance: Some have the custom of reciting this psalm during Days of Awe (10 days), some for the whole month of Elul as well (40 days), and some beginning on Rosh Hodesh Elul and continuing through Hoshana Rabba (51 days). There are several explanations for this association. Most focus on the psalm’s themes; also noted: the expression “were it not” — לוּלֵא — in verse 13 spells Elul — אלול — backward.
…
(5) Glory and honor they give to You
glowing praises to Your rule
You call to the sun and it gives forth light
You set the patterns of the moon
(6) You are honored throughout the heavens with songs of glory and praise
[the Seraphim, Ophanim and holy beings ascribe glory and greatness]
Shevach notnim lo kol tz’va marom
[tiferet ugdulah serafim ve’ofanim vechayot hakodesh]
— from “El Adon,” a hymn of Creation
in the Shabbat and Festival morning services
translation from Mishkan T’filah,
[MT inexplicably omits the final (“tiferet“) line]
So far the most thorough and useful commentary I’ve found on-line is still Schechter’s “A New Psalm”. [UPDATE 2017: Sadly, this on-line resource appears to be gone; Segal’s A New Psalm: The Psalms as Literature is now published by Geffen Books.] If anyone has a resource to suggest, please share.
A number of commentaries focus on the word “dilitani” — you have drawn me up — in the second verse: it reflects the Bible’s frequent use of wells/water imagery. But the language here connotes a pail pulled up from a well, which has to go down in order to rise in a useful way. And, as R. Benjamin Segal in the Schechter commentary notes, deep contrasts run throughout the psalm.
Joel Hoffman, in My People’s Prayer Book, notes that English has no direct way to translate the famous phrase:
בָּעֶרֶב יָלִין בֶּכִי וְלַבֹּקֶר רִנָּה b’erev yalin bekhi v’laboker rinah
Merciful God, the outside world is full of bustle and turmoil.
You are close to us everywhere, but the burdens and obstacles of daily life can rise as a barrier between our hearts and You.
In rituals of wrapping those barriers disappear.
Wrapping reminds us of Your precious constant love,
helps us feel the safety and security of your protecting hand.
These words, in spirit of Fanny Neuda‘s “On Entering the Synagogue,” introduce Washington friends of Women of the Wall‘s “Tallit Solidarity Ceremony.” This will be offered as part of the gathering in solidarity with Women of the Wall on March 11 at the Israeli Embassy. Please join us in person or in spirit.
“Save us from Women of the Wall!” [photo: WoW’s Facebook page]Meanwhile, WoW reports on their Facebook page that these posters [Pashkevillim] appear in Jerusalem in advance of their monthly service:
“Help! The Western Wall is being trampled and desecrated by a group of women called “Women of the Wall” who are requesting to desecrate the Western Wall on Tuesday Rosh Hodesh Nisan 5773 at 7 am. Male and female worshippers, please attend Rosh Hodesh prayers at the Western Wall on that day and protest against this desecration of holiness. All those who consider important the place from which the Shechina will never move should come to raise your voice and protest.” [translation by Pam Frydman]
Today, Women of the Wall
and so many of our brothers and sisters around the world,
struggle to find the peace in worship we so often take for granted.
Today, we unfurl the garments that, for many of us, contribute
to our individual and collective sense of sanctuary.
We are grateful for the rights we enjoy, even while aware
of the many who do not yet enjoy them.
For those who choose: Unfurl your prayer shawl at this point. Hold it aloft… but do not wrap yourself in its shelter.
For with You is the fountain of life.
In Your light we see light. (Psalms 36:10)
Hashem, our God, Fountain of Life and Light, help us see one another more clearly through Your light. Bring more light to our leaders in the U.S., in Israel, and around the world. Today, our shoulders go unprotected by our sheltering garments as we stand in solidarity with Women of the Wall and all who struggle for the freedom of religious practice. We remember the words of Proverbs: “Listen, my child, to your father’s instruction, and do not forsake your mother’s teaching.” We pray: May Your Sheltering Presence fill the world, soon and in our time. And let us say: Amen.
For those who choose: Lower prayer shawls at this point.
May the month of Nisan,
with its particular promise of freedom of religious practice,
renew us all in our own religious practices, in our tolerance
for other practices, and in our efforts to promote understanding
and justice in our own communities and beyond them. Continue reading Prayers for the New Month of Nisan
Hadiya Z. Pendleton liked Fig Newtons and performed in a drill team that participated in Obama’s 2013 Inaugural parade. She lived in the Kenwood neighborhood of Chicago, not far from where I lived for several years and where friends still live, not far from the Obama family home. She never reached her 16th birthday, which would have been on June 2. She was gunned down on January 29 [2013], in a public park at 45th & Drexel, apparently caught in a gang-related shooting. Continue reading Honoring a Teacher: Hadiya Pendleton
The early morning section of a Jewish prayer book focuses — with some variety in content and order (see below) — on wraps:
God is robed in majesty (Psalms 104:1-2).
Jews are wrapped in fringes (blessing for wearing a tallit [prayer shawl]).
Humans take refuge in the shadow of divine wings (Psalms 36:8-11).
The focus then shifts — with the verse, “For with You is the fountain of life. In Your light do we see light” (36:10) — away from God’s universal (and one-sided) kindness toward a more specific relationship with expectations on both parts: “Continue Your lovingkindness to those that know You and Your righteousness to the upright in heart” (36:11). This is followed by verses from Hosea (2:21-22) promising betrothal “in righteousness,” “in justice,” “in lovingkindness and in compassion,” and “in faithfulness.” (More below on these verses, tefillin, and the upcoming World Wide Wrap.) Continue reading Robe, River, and Bond in Morning Prayer
!["Save us from Women of the Wall!" [photo from WoW's Facebook page]](https://songeveryday.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/hatzlichu.jpg)
"A Song Every Day" 