Posts Tagged ‘miracles’

 

Exodus, Again and Again

Posted on: April 1st, 2015 by Alden

800px-Egypt’s_Desert_MountainsFor Passover, a new prayer for peace and endurance in the face of existential threat, set in the context of history. It’s a reminder of our bond with the land and the survival of our people through millennia of exile and persecution. It begins with an ambiguous line from Torah, also used in the Passover Haggadah – “arami oved avi,” translated as “my father was a wandering Aramean” – the use of which is discussed in the postscript, below.

Exodus, Again and Again
My father was a wandering Aramean,
My mother a wandering Jew,
Sent on a journey home,
On the journey to a promised land.

His children’s children were slaves,
And their children’s children refugees,
History set in the journey from slavery to freedom,
A march repeated throughout the ages.

The Temple fell, our nation dispersed,
And we did not forget.
It fell twice, and we did not forget.
We have risen,
Again and again,
To dream of Jerusalem,
To yearn for Zion,
To pray for redemption in our own land.

My mother was expelled,
My father was pursued,
My children hunted,
Generations lost
To fire and knife.

We are a tide of survival,
Surging and receding,
Returning to our people,
Returning to our G-d,
Returning, once again, to our land.

We are home.
Exiled no more.
In prayer and in repentance,
We are home.
In love and in joyous yearning,
We are home.
We are home to stay.

Rock of Jacob,
Let peace descend on Zion and Israel,
And let gladness fill our hearts,
For the sake of Torah,
For the sake of all of Your children,
For the sake of Your Holy Name.

© 2015 Alden Solovy and tobendlight.com. All rights reserved.

Postscript: “Arami oved avi” (Deut. 26:5) is translated as “my father was a wandering Aramean.” Some Haggadahs assume a classic interpretation of the verse, rendering the Hebrew as “an Aramean destroyed my father.” Rashi accepts this reading, but Ibn Ezra strongly rejects it. Ibn Ezra says the verse refers to Jacob, who, when he was in Aram, was lost. Rashbam argues that the verse more appropriately applies to Abraham, who can correctly be identified as an Aramean. In the context of this prayer, interpreting the line as either Abraham or Jacob makes the most sense; however, the classic interpretation also works to ground a theme of existential threat and exile. Please check out my book of Passover readings, Haggadah Companion: Meditations and Readings.

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Photo Source: WikiMedia Commons

Soul Shine

Posted on: February 1st, 2015 by Alden

Soul Shine PlateThis meditation is about allowing our souls to fill our hearts, to fill our minds and to fill our bodies with the radiance of heaven, so that we can bring that light into the world as tikun olam, the act of repairing the world. The meditation recognizes the majesty within each of us, declaring that that glory must be shared. This piece appears in This Joyous Soul: A New Voice for Ancient Yearnings from CCAR Press.

Soul Shine
Let your soul shine
In your chest.
Let your heart sparkle
In your eyes.
Let joy
Fill your limbs with radiance.
Let love
Fill your hands with splendor.
You are the instrument
Of G-d’s music,
The tool
Of repairing the earth.
You are the voice
Of wonder and awe,
The song
Of hope and tomorrow.

This gift,
This majesty within,
Is not yours to keep.
It is not yours to hold.
It is not yours to hide.

Let your soul shine
Luminous, elegant,
Brave and true,
A beacon of praise,
A lantern of song,
A summons for holiness
To enter our lives
And this world.

Let your soul shine.
Set it free.
Set it free to fill the space
Between the here
And the unknown
With abundance
And with blessings.

© 2019 CCAR Press from This Joyous Soul: A New Voice for Ancient Yearnings

Postscript: If you enjoyed this meditation, you might also like: “Fresh Delights,” “Come Walk,” “Let Me” and “This is the Place.” And for musical accompaniment, here’s a link to the Allman Brothers Band singing “Soulshine.”

Please consider making a contribution to support this site and my writing. For usage guidelines and reprint permissions, see “Share the Prayer!” For notices of new prayers, please subscribe. You can also connect on Facebook and Twitter.

Photo Source: tomboyArt on Esty

Vayechi 5775: On the Birth of a Child

Posted on: December 30th, 2014 by Alden

Newborn-Baby-FeetIn Vayechi, Jacob “blesses” his children. They read like praises for some and curses for others. This is consistent with the parenting skills exhibited in Genesis, where parents play favorites, inflict trauma and neglect children. Every child deserves a loving parent, rich in blessings. For Vayechi 5775, here’s a prayer to be said by new parents who wish to provide nothing less. Gender choices are identified with a slash, such as “him / her.” Content choices are identified in [brackets.] This prayer appears in my book, Jewish Prayers of Hope and HealingTo listen along, click on the triangle in the bar below. The text follows.

 

On the Birth of a Child
Precious child,
Wonder of creation,
You are proof of Divine love,
Witness to our Maker’s Glory,
Witness to the blessed partnership
Between [woman, man][us] and G-d.
What makes me worthy of you?
What makes me able to gently guide you on your sacred path,
Your own journey to wisdom, charity, righteousness and Torah?

Father of the universe,
Mother of creation,
Be my guide and teacher,
As I father/mother/parent this new life,
This precious gift.
Give me humility, compassion and wisdom
To teach her/him Torah and Mitzvot
Through my actions and my life,
So that we become each other’s blessings.

Gracious G-d, be my partner in raising this child,
For this gift is not mine.
It is ours to nurture, to grow,
And to give back to the world for tikun olam.

© 2010 Alden Solovy and tobendlight.com. All rights reserved.

Postscript: For Veyechi 5773, I posted a prayer called “Near the End: A Meditation.” For prayers about family, click here. See also: “On the Birth of Grandchildren.” This prayer first appeared on this site on June 25, 2010.

Please consider making a contribution to support this site and my writing. For usage guidelines and reprint permissions, see “Share the Prayer!” For notices of new prayers, please subscribe. You can also connect on Facebook and Twitter. Please take a moment to explore my book, Jewish Prayers of Hope and Healing.

Photo Source: WikiMedia Commons

Breisheit: About the Rainbow

Posted on: October 17th, 2014 by Alden

Seeing a rainbow brings an immediate sense of beauty and awe, a sense of the wonder of creation, which is why I’ve selected it for Breisheit. This is from series of prayers in the voice of the one who has a question that doesn’t need an answer. Other prayers in this series include “About the Heavens” and “About Shabbat.” To listen along, click on the triangle in the bar below. The text follows.

 

About the Rainbow
Majestic Sovereign,
Source of beauty,
When did You decide
To create the rainbow?
Was this Your design?
Or perhaps it was a
Fantastic discovery
The moment Your Divine Light
Burst through the firmament of heaven?
Did You know that
Your Glory
Could be refracted
Through a simple lens of water?
Or were awe and wonder created
When You first saw
Your own colors,
When You gasped
At Your own brilliant light
Arching across a deep blue sky?

© 2010 Alden Solovy and tobendlight.com. All rights reserved.

Postscript: Here are links to “For Creation, the prayer I posted for Breisheit 5773, and “This is the Place,” the prayer I posted for Breisheit 5774. This prayer first appeared on this site on October 5, 2010.

Please check out my ELItalk video, “Falling in Love with Prayer,” and This Grateful Heart: Psalms and Prayers for a New Day. For reprint permissions and usage guidelines and reprint permissions, see “Share the Prayer!” To receive my latest prayers via email, please subscribe (on the home page). You can also connect on Facebook and Twitter.

Photo Credit: ScienceBlogs.com

About Miracles

Posted on: August 8th, 2014 by Alden

Evening Sun and GrassThis a new meditation in the voice of the one who has a question that doesn’t need an answer. It’s written, of course, in the voice of the Spiritual Traveler. Prayers in this series include: “About the Rainbow,” “About the Heavens” and “About Shabbat.”

About Miracles
Majestic Sovereign,
Source of awe and wonder,
When did You decide
To make daily miracles so simple,
So gentle, so quiet and so small?
Did our fear of Your Voice
Echoing from the mountain top
Push You away?
Or was this Your plan all along?
To show us Your Glory
In fire and smoke,
In the parted sea,
In the darkness and in the light,
And then to draw away
So that we would
Yearn for You to be near,
So that we would yearn
For your power and might,
For Your holiness
And for Your salvation?
Or are You waiting, patiently,
To return, again, with signs
And with wonders?

© 2014 Alden Solovy and tobendlight.com. All rights reserved.

Postscript: Other prayers in the voice of the spiritual traveler include: “Come Walk” and “Rejoice!” See also: “About the Rainbow,” “About the Heavens” and “About Shabbat.”

Please consider making a contribution to support this site and my writing. For usage guidelines and reprint permissions, see “Share the Prayer!” For notices of new prayers, please subscribe. You can also connect on Facebook and Twitter.

Photo Source: U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service National Digital Library

Redeeming My Life

Posted on: March 23rd, 2014 by Alden

This is meditation on personal freedom, recognizing that we must first forgive ourselves for our own mistakes and misdeeds before we can fully express love and care for ourselves and for others. It appears in This Joyous Soul: A New Voice for Ancient Yearnings from CCAR Press.

Redeeming My Life
A part of me
Refuses to forgive
Myself
For my errors, my mistakes,
My oversights and misdeeds.
How can I redeem my life from within
This place of judgment,
Of harsh words and
Somber requirement?

G-d of Old,
G-d of Justice and Truth,
Teach me to restore my life
Through acts of love and kindness,
Thoughtfulness and care,
In support of my
Family and community.
Teach me to surrender my days
To the joy of service to others,
The joy of concern for this world
And generations to come.

Heavenly Guide,
Revive me with Your light,
Restore me with Your truth,
Refresh me with deeds
Of righteousness and charity.

© 2019 CCAR Press from This Joyous Soul: A New Voice for Ancient Yearnings

For usage guidelines and reprint permissions, see “Share the Prayer!” For notices of new prayers, please subscribe. You can also connect on Facebook and Twitter. If you like this prayer, please post a link to Facebook, your blog or mention it in a tweet.

Photo Source: Wikipedia

Elijah, Revised

Posted on: February 9th, 2014 by Alden

Elijah Beth FlusserThere’s a special kind of a hope, a kind of hope that opens the heart to our deepest yearning for a world of wholeness and love ushered in by G-d’s hand. For me, it’s captured singularly a song that we sing every year at the Pesach Seder and each week after Havdalah, a song about Elijah the Prophet. Elijah, our legend teaches, will announce the coming of the messianic age.

This is an expansion and revision of a prayer by the same name for use in my new book, Haggadah Companion: Meditations and Readings. The original was a short and simple six-line acrostic spelling Elijah with the first letter of each line. This version deepens the image of a messianic age and, in the third stanza, makes reference to I Kings 18:37 and I Kings 19:11-13.

Elijah
Eternal One,
Hear our cause!
Love and gladness,
Hope and salvation,
Israel restored,
The world redeemed,
Righteousness and mercy in an age of peace.

We are ready for healing.
Nations dream of justice,
While communities yearn for wisdom.
Leaders search for guidance,
While people seek hope and comfort,
Solace and rest.

Answer us, O God, answer us.
For You are not in the wind,
Nor in the shattering rocks.
You are not in the earthquake,
Nor the raging fire.
You are the still, small voice.

Ancient One,
God of our fathers and mothers,
Let us hear Your voice
Resound from Your holy mountain
As in the days of old.
Send us Your messenger,
Elijah, prophet among prophets,
To announce the time of blessing and wisdom,
To herald the return of holiness,
To proclaim Your world to come.

© 2014 Alden Solovy and tobendlight.com. All rights reserved.

Postscript: Here’s a link to another Passover meditation, “The Season of Freedom.” Click for a full annotated list of meditations and readings for Pesach.

For usage guidelines and reprint permissions, see “Share the Prayer!” For notices of new prayers, please subscribe. You can also connect on Facebook and Twitter. If you like this prayer, please post a link to Facebook, your blog or mention it in a tweet.

Photo Credit: Beth Flusser on Haggadot.com

Fresh Delights

Posted on: February 5th, 2014 by Alden

IMG_6281This is a short meditation about the simple beauty that surrounds us day-by-day. It ends with a reminder that the wonder and the majesty that fills the earth – from the first bird of morning to the awe that surrounds us – “blossom” in praise of G-d’s Holy Name.

Fresh Delights
Life is a garden of fresh delights,
Blossoming with wonders,
Large and small.
The first bird of morning,
The fresh smells of dawn,
And the promise of awe and adventure.

Holy One,
Help me to see, to love and to cherish
This harvest,
This bounty of gifts,
This flow of  sights.
Let me feel the rushing river
Pulsing in my veins.

Let me know the sacred sunshine
In my beating heart.
Let me thank you and bless You,
G-d of Old,
For Your steadfast love,
Day by day.

Life is a garden of fresh delights,
Blossoming with praises
For G-d’s Holy Name.

© 2014 Alden Solovy and tobendlight.com. All rights reserved.

Postscript: If you enjoyed this meditation, you might also like: “First Bird,” “Come Walk,” “All is Well,” “River,” “Bird is Bird” and “Leaving.”

For usage guidelines and reprint permissions, see “Share the Prayer!” For notices of new prayers, please subscribe. You can also connect on Facebook and Twitter. If you like this prayer, please post a link to Facebook, your blog or mention it in a tweet.

Photo Source: Alden Solovy

Inside the (Hanukkah) Light

Posted on: November 27th, 2013 by Alden

5235427938_eee362646b_zThis meditation carries an echo of Hanukkah. It’s about seeing, feeling and loving the light shining around us, and our yearning to be a source of light and hope for the world. Here’s the meditation set as a song by my friend Cantor Brad Hyman, as well as the article he wrote about it for Reform Judaism.org. This piece appears in This Precious Life: Encountering the Divine with Poetry and Prayer from CCAR Press.

Inside the Light
A rainbow shines
Inside the light.
If you could be the dew drop
You would always see it.

Stillness waits
Inside the light.
If you could be the sky
You would always feel it.

The sunrise dawns
Inside the light.
If you could be the horizon
You would always find it.

Freedom flows
Inside the light.
If you could be the wind
You would always ride it.

Beauty rises
Inside the light.
If you could be the sparrow
You would always reach it.

Mystery pulses
Inside the light.
If you could be the wonder
You would always know it.

Majesty reigns
Inside the light.
If you could be the wisdom
You would always hear it.

Faith rests
Inside the light.
If you could be the eagle
You would always hold it.

Your soul glows
Inside the light.
If you could be yourself
You would never leave it.

© 2021 CCAR Press from This Precious Life: Encountering the Divine with Poetry and Prayer

Postscript: “Inside the Light” first appeared here on May 22, 2012, the day I arrived in Israel. I wrote it on the airplane from Chicago to Newark on my way to Israel to make aliyah. Cantor Brad Hyman set it to music in 2017 and it was published by CCAR Press four years later. Other Hanukkah prayers include: “Lamps Within” and “The Season of Dedication.”

Please check out my CCAR Press Grateful/Joyous/Precious trilogy. The individual books are: This Grateful Heart, This Joyous Soul, and This Precious Life. For reprint permissions and usage guidelines, see “Share the Prayer!” To receive my latest prayers via email, please subscribe (on the home page). You can also connect on Facebook and Twitter. For a taste of my teaching, see my ELItalk video, “Falling in Love with Prayer.”

Photo Source: Ron Almog

The Last Moment

Posted on: May 16th, 2013 by tobendlight

TimeThis is a meditation on time, a meditation on living in this moment with the spiritual understanding that beauty and holiness remain. They remain even when one of us departs this existence. The meditation was inspired by the music of Randall Williams whom I heard recently in Jerusalem; in particular, his song “Suppose Time” and reading of “The World Will End” from the album Einstein’s Dreams, which was based on the best-selling novel by Alan Lightman. Special thanks to another musician friend of mine, Tracy Friend, for her ideas and suggestions on the word choice and flow of this meditation. This piece appears in This Joyous Soul: A New Voice for Ancient Yearnings from CCAR Press.

The Last Moment
What if this is the last moment of creation?
The last moment we have to share
Our joy, our hope, our love.

What if this is the last moment
With you on earth?
The last chance to feel
Your breath, your heart, your surrender.
When you depart
The world will remain,
Full of mystery and wonder.

What if this is the last moment
With me on earth?
The last chance to offer
My hand, my smile, my strength.
When I depart
The world will remain,
Full of glory and holiness.

What if this is the last moment
We have together?
The only chance we have to share
Our awe, our power, our peace.
When we say goodbye
The world will remain.
The sky will continue to fill with radiance.
The core of the earth will still burn
Molten hot with passion for living.
And light, light from the edge of the universe,
Light from the day when G-d spoke
And the world came to be,
Will reach my face
And will warm your heart.

© 2019 CCAR Press from This Joyous Soul: A New Voice for Ancient Yearnings

Postscript: Related meditations include a three-part series written to be read in this order: “Leaving,” “Arriving” and “Now.” Be sure to check out the music of Randall Williams and Tracy Friend. Also check out Tracy’s latest collaboration with my Andy Dennen, “G-d is Near.”

Please consider making a contribution to support this site and my writing. For usage guidelines and reprint permissions, see “Share the Prayer!” For notices of new prayers, please subscribe. You can also connect on Facebook and Twitter.

Photo Source: Dartmouth Undergraduate Journal of Science

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