Posts Tagged ‘love’

 

The Brink of Holiness

Posted on: May 19th, 2026 by Alden

A new prayer-poem for Shavuot. The image: that we stand, always, at the brink of holiness, able to hear the resounding wisdom of Torah, able to received the continued flow of revelation. God’s voice still resounds, if only we can keep faith, if only we choose to listen.

The Brink of Holiness
Every moment
We stand
At the brink of holiness.
Where the Divine summons us
To service and surrender,
To hope and wisdom,
As teachers and guides,
So that we may reach
Toward the heavens
With gentle power.

Every moment
We stand
Where the sound of the shofar
Blends with psalms of praise.
If only we could keep faith.
If only we would choose
To hear the echoes of God’s voice,
Still resounding in all of creation.

© 2026 Alden Solovy

New here? Subscribe here to get my newest prayers by email.
Share the prayer! Email this to a friend.

Please check out Enter These Gates: Meditations for the Days of Awe, as well as These Words: Poetic Midrash on the Language of Torah and my other CCAR Press volumes: This Grateful Heart, This Joyous Soul, and This Precious Life, which can also be purchased as the Grateful/Joyous/Precious trilogy. 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.”

Please consider making a contribution to support this site and my writing.

Sacred Times

Posted on: May 8th, 2026 by Alden

A brief trio of meditations. Reminders. Gratitudes. For prayer. For blessing. For love. Use this in the morning with Modeh Ani or as a kavanah to bring in Shabbat.

Sacred Times

The Time for Prayer
Now.
And now.
And now again.

The Time to Bless
Now.
And now.
And now again.

The Time to Love
Always.
And always.
And forever.

© 2026 Alden Solovy

New here? Subscribe here to get my newest prayers by email.
Share the prayer! Email this to a friend.

Please check out These Words: Poetic Midrash on the Language of Torah and my other CCAR Press volumes: This Grateful Heart, This Joyous Soul, and This Precious Life, which can also be purchased as the Grateful/Joyous/Precious trilogy. 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.”

Please consider making a contribution to support this site and my writing.

Photo Source: Alden Solovy, Creamer’s Field, Fairbanks, AK

Our Story

Posted on: April 8th, 2025 by Alden

At the end of the Passover Seder, people around the world say that we have told the tale followed by ‘Next Year in Jerusalem.’ Few, if any, actually act on that aspiration. In one sense, it is the impossible dream. We all — even those of us who actually reside here — aspire to live in the heavenly Jerusalem, the fantastic, archetypical dream of Messianic wholeness and peace, with the word of God radiating into all of existence. And our story is far, far from completed. I offer this, then, as a new aspiration to add to the end of our Seders. It is, in part a response to October 7, in part a call to remember the long arc of our history. My suggestion: say this prayer-poem followed by ‘Next Year in Jerusalem.’

Our Story
Our story is not complete.
Oh no.
There will be more highs
And lows,
But the ending,
Oh my,
Will be tremendous.
This is faith.
Faith knows
That our story is not complete,
And the ending
Is beyond
All our hopes
For joy and wonder.

© 2025 Alden Solovy

New here? Subscribe here to get my newest prayers by email.
Share the prayer! Email this to a friend.

Postscript: The research on the word that inspired this poem can be found in the book itself.

Please check out Enter These Gates: Meditations for the Days of Awe and These Words: Poetic Midrash on the Language of Torah and my other CCAR Press volumes: This Grateful Heart, This Joyous Soul, and This Precious Life, which can also be purchased as the Grateful/Joyous/Precious trilogy. 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.”

Please consider making a contribution to support this site and my writing.

To Hope Again

Posted on: March 6th, 2024 by Alden

A prayer poem about the pain of losing hope and the struggle to find hope again, turning to the most unexpected source of potential answers…those who were murdered in the shock and terror assault on Israel on October 7.

To Hope Again
My heart has abandoned this world,
To seek the lost who refuse
Entrance to heaven.

Yes, the innocent dead
Have refused their places
In the holy realms,
To fly on the wind,
To dwell among the stars,
To haunt the bloody earth
With messages of love and despair,
Beseeching comfort from the ancient deep
From which all life emerged.

My heart has abandoned this world,
Praying to learn from the innocent dead
How to hope again.

© 2024 Alden Solovy

New here? Subscribe here to get my newest prayers by email.
Share the prayer! Email this to a friend.

Postscript: Here are some of my other prayer poems coming out of October 7 and the war: “Nothing Left but Tears,” “The Court of the Captives,” and “Tears and Rain.”

Please check out These Words: Poetic Midrash on the Language of Torah and my other CCAR Press volumes: This Grateful Heart, This Joyous Soul, and This Precious Life, which can also be purchased as the Grateful/Joyous/Precious trilogy. 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.”

Please consider making a contribution to support this site and my writing.

Photo by Alden Solovy

The Density of Love

Posted on: July 18th, 2023 by Alden

A simple prayer/poem about love and hate, fire and water, written in the voice of the spiritual traveler, the one who knows, the one who hints at secrets, the one who loves you on your journey, the one who lives above the flames…

The Density of Love
Hate has a specific gravity,
A relative density to love
So much heavier,
Molten lava singeing water,
Creating steam.

O you hearts of gold,
You precious metal,
You live above anger’s fire,
And cannot be burned.

© 2023 Alden Solovy and ToBendLight

New here? Subscribe here to get my newest prayers by email.
Share the prayer! Email this to a friend.

Please check out These Words: Poetic Midrash on the Language of Torah and my other CCAR Press volumes: This Grateful Heart, This Joyous Soul, and This Precious Life, which can also be purchased as the Grateful/Joyous/Precious trilogy. 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.”

Please consider making a contribution to support this site and my writing.

Photo Source: Image created on Canva

Fringes and Bangles

Posted on: June 28th, 2023 by Alden

A poetic whimsy about the joy of wearing tallit and tefillin, outward signs of our love of G-d, our commitment to mitzvot, and our desire to do G-d’s will in the world.

Fringes and Bangles
We ornament ourselves
With fringes and bangles,
With tallit and tefillin,
Draping ourselves
And wrapping ourselves
In the adornments
Of our faith.

Why ever did
The G-d of Israel
Want a nation of hippies,
Wearing blankets,
And arm bands,
And headdresses,
Adorning ourselves
With symbols and sacred passages
That bind us to Sinai
And all of creation?

We wear the adornments of our faith
With joy and wonder,
With humor and humility,
Dancing in delight
Before the One,
Who smiles blessings
And beauty upon us
With fringes and bangles
Designed from realms above,
The adornments of love.

© 2023 Alden Solovy and ToBendLight

New here? Subscribe here to get my newest prayers by email.
Share the prayer! Email this to a friend.

Please check out These Words: Poetic Midrash on the Language of Torah and my other CCAR Press volumes: This Grateful Heart, This Joyous Soul, and This Precious Life, which can also be purchased as the Grateful/Joyous/Precious trilogy. 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.”

Please consider making a contribution to support this site and my writing.

Photo Source: United Synagogue/JTA, from The Times of Israel

The Volcano

Posted on: February 5th, 2023 by Alden

This week we read Parashat Yitro, in which the wandering Israelites receive the 10 Commandments at Mount Sinai. This week also brings the official release of These Words: Poetic Midrash on the Language of Torah from CCAR Press. The book presents seventy discussions of single words of Torah paired with a poetic Midrash based on each word. In celebration of the book release and this week’s parasha, here’s the poem for the word ‘Sinai.’

The Volcano
Sinai was a volcano of Torah,
Explosions of wisdom and love,
The fire of God’s word pouring forth,
Thunder in the air,
Tremors in the ground,
Sending a plume of holy ash
High into the sky,
Fine ash, now invisible,
Still settling slowly on the earth,
Ash that speaks,
Bringing new wisdom,
New insights,
New beauty,
As it arrives
From the heavens
In every generation.

© 2023 CCAR Press from These Words: Poetic Midrash on the Language of Torah

New here? Subscribe here to get my newest prayers by email.
Share the prayer! Email this to a friend.

Postscript: The research on the word that inspired this poem can be found in the book itself.

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.”

Please consider making a contribution to support this site and my writing.

How to Find G-d

Posted on: January 6th, 2023 by Alden

A simple meditation on seeking–and finding–G-d. Perhaps it is not as difficult as we might think. Perhaps it is only a matter of our willingness to see. Or perhaps I need to look a bit more closely at myself, others and the world.

How to Find G-d

Look for the image of G-d
In all that is,
In all that was,
In all that will be.
For the image of G-d radiates
From your life
And from your face,
The holiness that infuses us all.
This is the legacy,
The gift forever given,
Passed from mother to child,
From father to babe,
Visible in your countenance
And in your way of being.
Look for the image of G-d
Inside yourself,
And you will see it
In everyone and everything.

© 2023 Alden Solovy and ToBendLight

New here? Subscribe here to get my newest prayers by email.
Share the prayer! Email this to a friend.

Please check out These Words: Poetic Midrash on the Language of Torah and my other CCAR Press volumes: This Grateful Heart, This Joyous Soul, and This Precious Life, which can also be purchased as the Grateful/Joyous/Precious trilogy. 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.”

Please consider making a contribution to support this site and my writing.

Photo: Taken in Ya’ar Kedoshim by Alden Solovy

Siddur

Posted on: June 29th, 2022 by Alden

A simple meditation on the healing power of our liturgy, the healing power of our Siddur, it joins my many meditations on the beauty and power of prayer.

Siddur
Sometimes, I hold my siddur
Against my chest,
Pressed to my heart
Like a dressing on a wound.
They speak to each other
In a language as sweet as love,
As simple as hope,
As ancient as G-d’s spirit
Hovering over the endless deep,
Calling through the darkness
To summon the light,
To receive the soul of prayer,
Yearning, ever yearning,
To praise and sanctify
G-d’s Holy Name.

© 2022 Alden Solovy and tobendlight.com.

New here? Subscribe here to get my newest prayers by email.

Please check out my CCAR Press Grateful/Joyous/Precious trilogy. The individual books are: This Joyous Soul, This Grateful Heart, and This Precious Life. Here’s a link to my ELItalk, “Falling in Love with Prayer..” 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.

Please consider making a contribution to support this site and my writing.

Photo Source: Aish

Scroll

Posted on: June 20th, 2022 by Alden

A prayer/poem for divine inspiration.

Scroll
What do you think
Is written
On the other side of the parchment?
A future not yet revealed?
A secret forgotten past?
Ancient prayers waiting to be discovered?

Maybe it’s a giant canvass,
Yearning for charcoals and oils,
Yearning for colored pencils and finger paints,
Yearning for hearts and hands,
To call forth the messages
We’re still unable to hear.

© 2022 Alden Solovy and tobendlight.com.

New here? Subscribe here to get my newest prayers by email.

Please check out my CCAR Press Grateful/Joyous/Precious trilogy. The individual books are: This Joyous Soul, This Grateful Heart, and This Precious Life. Here’s a link to my ELItalk, “Falling in Love with Prayer..” 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.

Please consider making a contribution to support this site and my writing.

“Alden has become one of Reform Judaism’s master poet-liturgists…" - Religion News Service, Dec. 23, 2020

“Mesmerizing, spiritual, provocative, and thoughtful, Alden was everything you would want in a guest scholar and teacher.” – Rabbi Denise L. Eger, Congregation Kol Ami, Los Angeles, and Past President, CCAR

"Alden Solovy has become one of the most revered liturgists of the last decade…" - Jewish Post & Opinion, March 29, 2023

“Alden left everyone feeling inspired.” – Cantor Jeri Robins, Shabbat Chair, NewCAJE6