Tag Archives: prayer / tefillah / davening

[Alumni Guest Post] Toward God’s Love

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R. Julie Gordon (PEP '12) recollects:

Here are some of my thoughts after my experience davenning with Women of the Wall (WOW) on May 10, 2013.

Rabbi Julie Gordon praying with Women of the Wall

Rabbi Julie Gordon praying with Women of the Wall

I was exhilarated on the day after my bat mitzvah when I learned how to lay tefillin through the wisdom and care of Bert Cooper, z”l, our Albert Lea, MN para-rabbi. I felt empowered and joyful. Safely ensconced in our community and our shared relationship with God. My Baba had given me my Zayde’s tefillin. On that day when I held them in my hands, we both cried. She said, “Zayde would be so proud that you will be using his tefillin as he laid tefillin six days a week.” I remember those words every day as I wrap them around my arms, even now 40 years later, the soft leather straps worn thin and replaced twice. The scrolls checked and rechecked by sofrei stam. I am the only person on my mother’s side of the family who lays tefillin and I do it with care.

Last week, on my 56th birthday, I was preparing to lay my Zeyde’s teffilin, and to wrap myself in his memory, as I feel commanded to do this mitzvah. But, for the first time, I felt afraid. Continue reading →

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[Alumni Guest Post] Developing Myself

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Robyn (Year '08, PEP '10) is a third-year teacher.
She teaches High School Judaics at the Emory/Wiener School
in Houston, where she will continue in the fall.

EWSbcf436My name is Robyn Miller. Typically, May is not a good time to ask me about my life as a teacher. I’m about to finish my third year of teaching, although in many ways it’s been like my first (as I moved from elementary to high school teaching after year two). In May of my second “first year” of teaching, my primary goal is to make it to the finish line without permanently scarring anybody. However, with three weeks left to completing my Pardes commitment, it’s a great time to reflect on my experience as I start to think about what’s next.

Three years ago, I was terrified to have my own classroom. I didn’t feel I had the stamina or the knowledge to produce a year’s worth of lessons. Still, I had a commitment to fulfill, so I had to make the best of it. There were a few things I knew for sure: 1. Absolutely no middle school, 2. High school would be a heck of a lot of work, and 3. I wanted to live somewhere warm. So I started Continue reading →

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אחד – ONENESS

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From my blog:

Am I awake or asleep? Maybe a dreamlike state in between the two.

I leave my apartment 4:45 am to continue my journey

But all I am thinking about is my bed, snuggling between my warm blankets, head on my pillow. But then I thought of the people who used to walk, to travel for days, weeks during THIS day to get to the Beit haMikdash (the Temple) and I figured I could suck up the half an hour walk to the Kotel.

I didn’t even have to really pay attention to where I was going, I followed the people, each person coming from his/her home, learning center, dressed all differently, to walk to the same place.
Continue reading →

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The Reason that my Tallit Belongs at the Kotel

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Reflections on Rosh Hodesh Sivan with Women of the Wall, 5773 – 2013

Throughout the year I have studied here in Jerusalem, I have learned that the Wall has its own identity crisis. It is part of a larger structure that was built and carried, lost, built again and then destroyed, and built again, and built over again and destroyed again. There are more stages in between of deeper and deeper details. The figurative symbol of complete purity, it was more often an embodiment of utter corruption. The man who inspired the design of the particular Wall before which we stand today was a gifted, paranoid maniac, maddened by grief and riches and conflicting loyalties. The Temple itself, and the Wall it became, changed owners and took on ideologies of shocking variance over the centuries. And yet here it still stands, a testament to physical stability, containing all of its tumultuous history behind the serenity of its stones.

On the first Shabbat I was in Jerusalem, I walked with a group of very new friends into the Old City for the first time. I knew nothing about it except that it was the last of the Temple, a remnant of a Judaism from long ago, one with which I had trouble relating, but that it was “supposed to”, maybe, inspire a surge of feeling within me. Perhaps a feeling of closeness to the Divine? Perhaps an intense unification with the Jewish people? Perhaps bafflement or even, perhaps nothing? I was curious, and determined not to judge whatever feeling arose. Continue reading →

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Rosh Chodesh Sivan 5773 at the Kotel

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I went to the Kotel on Rosh Chodesh Sivan expecting to pray, and I did. I was surprised that I could focus on prayer in the volatile atmosphere; the hullabaloo made me concentrate even harder than usual. “Ozi v’zimrat Yah” never had greater meaning for me than it did on Friday morning as I stood with several hundred women and men on the Kotel plaza, praying for the welfare of the world in the new month of Sivan.

I came to welcome the month and to celebrate the new court ruling that allows women to pray in tallitot and tefillin at the wall. What a wonderful reason to rejoice: I could sing, dance, wear a tallit, and not fear arrest! Even though the government is discussing the Sharansky plan, I am convinced that the Women of the Wall need to continue to pray as they have for the last 25 years until a viable long-term plan is realized. Those who oppose my presence as a praying woman in a tallit do so because Continue reading →

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Rosh Chodesh Sivan at the Kotel

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From my blog:
Watch the actual video: here.

Watch the actual video: here.

Friday morning was a blur. A scary blur. I didn’t wake up until 6:24 AM when my roommate screamed, “WIESE.” And I jumped out of bed, how could this happen, on a day that was so important to me? Never mind…we jumped in a taxi and I ran down to the women’s section with my bag. I couldn’t even get to the regular spot because there was a sea of light blue shirts of seminary girls from all over Israel. I quickly realized that they had been bussed in for the exact opposite reason I was there. I ran into my dear friend, and later saviour, Melissa. She was also lost. We didn’t know where “Women of the Wall” (WOW) was praying because there wasn’t space where they normally gather. (Smart thinking ultra-orthodox girls…if there isn’t space, maybe they can’t pray at the Kotel. Makes sense.) We went down together into the sea of blue, maybe they were there somewhere. They weren’t. But it was time to daven, so Melissa started pezukei dezimra (the “warm up” blessings, as I like to call them,) while I started to put on my tefillin. It was worse than the paparazzi that normally come to women of the wall. The girls thought they were seeing an alien or the devil…it was true what their rabbi told them, there are women who put on tefillin! They started taking pictures of my and then scuttled away, they didn’t want to be too close, maybe I could contaminate them. Many were already tisking at the action. But then, I pulled out my tallit (I know I should put on my tallit first and then tefillin, but there isn’t a lot of space and it’s difficult, so I reverse the order,) it was like poison. The girls backed away like if touching it would burn them, or something worse. They started making this hissing noise, I have never heard such a frightening/bizarre noise in my life. No one wanted to talk to me, it was too shocking to them. And I was there alone with my tallit and tefillin. I still didn’t know where the other women were. Melissa had finished pezukei dezimra and she looked at me, we knew we had to get out of there. It wasn’t safe. I was already flustered. Melissa, calm and cool, Continue reading →

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Bound. because I Want to.

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I’m leaving for Israel and my father hands me two bags. “Take these with you. The furrier, Shlomo, your great grandmother’s brother-in-law, left them to me. Find out if it’s meaningful for you.”

The first is black felt, light to the touch, with a golden Magen David embroidered in cord on its front. The Tallit inside is thin, composed of silky white fabric that is shifting towards an aged grey. Blue stripes run along its slender frame while an intricate latticework of linen falls away from the edges only to tangle up with the Tzitzit at the corners. It’s German Reform, classic and beautiful. So light I barely feel its weight when I try it on. So thin and delicate it barely covers my shoulders. It’s not my first Tallit.

The second bag is old and mustard yellow, fine prismatic threading has frayed across its front where it spells out the words “Tefillin” in Hebrew. The Tefillin inside are old with paper caps atop the Shel, each heavy with lacquer. The leather is cracked and aromatic, the black stain no longer present along the edges. The two bags go into my duffel, right next to my other Tallit, but as I put them down one Tefillin fall out of their yellow bag. The paper top tips off and the shin of the Rosh stares up at me like blurred eye still heavy with sleep. I stare back. What do I do with you?

Why does a Reform Jew wrap T’fillin? Continue reading →

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Kohenet Shacharit prepared by Kohenet Annie Matan Gilbert

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amgWednesday morning, at our weekly Creative Shacharit, I led a Kohenet style davenning. This means that the liturgy of the service follows the arc of a traditional shacharit service but is often not traditional liturgy. This particular service is compiled from chants and prayers from the Kohenet siddur and from my own writing and repertoire. The language plays with gender of God/Goddess and also with the gender of the community both in the Hebrew and the English. It also includes some earth-based imagery.

 

This week, we sang together and shared blessings and I did my best to interweave kavanot for each prayer that led us on a journey through shacharit and into our day.

 

I share this here so others might choose to use this liturgy in their own davenning. I encourage you to choose from these or any other prayers that open your heart and mind to possibilities in your relationship with God and in the way the Jewish community is identified. I like these prayers because they feel like my own language. Maybe you will find some here that feel like yours – or maybe these will inspire you to search elsewhere.

 

In any language, may we all be blessed to enjoy and be inspired on the journey to the prayers of our hearts.

 

GRATITUDE

1. Modah Ani

מֹודָה/מֹודֶה אֲנִי לְפָנַיְִך רּוחַ חַיָה וְקַיֶמֶת

 

Modah/modeh ani lefanayich ruach chai vekayemet

 

O I am grateful, o I am grateful in the face of the One, in the face of the One

 

Lyrics and music by Holly Taya Shere

 

2. Elohai Neshama

 

Oh Hashem,
Cleanse my body
Cleanse my spirit
Make me whole
Guide my breath
All through my body
I feel your spirit
Deep in my soul		 Oh Shechina,
Cleanse my body
cleanse my spirit
Make me whole
Guide my breath
All through my body
I feel your spirit
Deep in my soul

Words and melody by Cara Gevurah Silverberg

  Continue reading →

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Jews in funny hats and leather straps.

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From my blog:

The thing is, the apparatus of “traditional prayer” are sort of kinky.

The thing is, we’re ten men tying ourselves up in leather straps too early in the morning.

And we’re enshrouded in these huge sheets, and some people cover their heads and faces and it’s very anonymous even when I know who everyone is. Continue reading →

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Present and Accounted For

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Naomi Minsky (Year '13, PEP '15) came to Pardes this year
for the Year Program, and will be returning next year as a
member of the Pardes Educators Program!

nmSince my teenage years I secretly wanted to pursue a career as a doctor. This is not because I am scientific and enjoy learning about the human anatomy. In fact, I go into panic-mode at the sight of blood. I was attracted to helping others live life to the full. Thankfully I have found an alternative route to achieve my aim.

Unlike medicine Jewish education does not literally save lives. However, it supports people to have meaningful experiences and relationships. It is a way to help others appreciate Judaism and approach it with confidence. My Bat Mitzvah involved facing the community and saying the shema prayer. The whole time I looked directly at my grandparents. They were sitting in the front row saying the words back to me. I am indebted to my Jewish education teaching me that the shema is an affirmation of Jewish identity and love of G-d. I felt the beauty of the experience as I was connected to my family, community and religious tradition simultaneously. Jewish identity today is multifaceted, for some it is Continue reading →

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