Posts Tagged ‘loving torah’

 

Crown

Posted on: August 23rd, 2022 by Alden

This idea for this brief meditation arrived during Shabbat services a week ago as the sefer Torah was being returned to the ark. Let my life be a crown upon the Torah. Amen

Crown
Let my life be a crown
Upon the Torah.
And let Torah
Be the crown of my life.
My heart will overflow
With God’s teachings,
My hands will become
A fountain of God’s blessings,
And my soul will give testimony
To the glory of God’s holy word.

© 2022 Alden Solovy and ToBendLight

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Postscript: See also Let Torah and For the Gift of Torah Scholarship.

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.

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Photo Source: Congregation Beth Israel

Teach Me

Posted on: October 17th, 2021 by Alden

A short meditation on learning Torah from everyone.

Teach Me
Teach me
The Torah
That G-d taught
Only to you,
And I will
Teach you
The Torah
That G-d taught
Only to me.
For, certainly,
G-d taught you secrets
In order for you
To teach me,
And G-d taught me secrets
In order for me
To teach you,
So that our hearts
Would cleave to each other’s
Through G-d’s holy word.

© 2021 Alden Solovy and tobendlight.com.

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

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: My Jewish Learning

Jew against Jew, Revised

Posted on: October 20th, 2019 by Alden

This is a prayer for Jews to love each other and not to commit acts of violence against one another. It is part lament and part admonition. This revision is a response to the attack by Jewish settlers on Jewish volunteers helping with a Palestinian olive harvest. An 80-year-old rabbi was among those attacked and beaten by Jews. A friend and a teacher at the Pardes Institute of Jewish Studies, Rabbi Meesh Hammer- Kossoy, who was there, wrote, in part:

“The rug has been pulled out from under the truths on which I build my life. I have been betrayed by my own. My understandings of where I am safe and who will come to my aid or endanger me have been shaken. I am painfully aware of how much worse things could have been. Nevertheless, I refuse to let fear run my life. I remain committed to my belief that people, Jews and non-Jews alike, are generally good, that Torat Yisrael is Torat Chessed, that multiple narratives can co-exist.”

I first posted this prayer after my own experience of being attacked by Jews. Charlie Kalech and I were beaten after helping facilitate the use of a sefer Torah by Women of the Wall at the Kotel on Rosh Chodesh Iyyar, April 22, 2015. This revision adds a plea against violence, which was absent from the original piece, as well as the addition of a line from Psalms.

Jew against Jew, Revised
Oh my people,
What has happened to your heart?
What has happened to your vision?
And what has happened to your wisdom?
And what has happened to our love for one another?
Disrespect, misunderstanding,
Condemnation, recrimination,
Fear and anger yielding violence,
A rising hatred of Jew against Jew
That threatens to consume us.
Sinat chinam has attacked the soul of our people.

Ancient One,
G-d of our fathers and mothers,
Grant us a new wisdom and a new vision
To see beauty and holiness
In all of the tents of Israel.
Let no Jew lift a hand of anger against another.

.למען אחי ורעי, אדברה-נא שלום בך
Lma-an achai vrei-ai, adab’rah na shalom bach.
For the sake of my companions and friends,
I will speak of peace. (Ps. 122:8)

G-d of Old,
Guide us back to each other
With reverence and understanding.
Renew our days with love.
Then we will build a temple of song to Your Holy Name,
Resounding from heart to heart,
From soul to soul,
From generation to generation,
The whole House of Israel.

Blessed are You, Adonai our G-d,
You delight in Your people’s love.

© 2019 Alden Solovy and tobendlight.com. All rights reserved.

Postscript: My reaction to my attack was similar to Meesh’s when I wrote: “Do not hate the man who stomped on me. Rail against his misogyny, object to what he was taught, condemn his behavior, seek justice against his violence, if that’s even possible, and seek change in Israeli democracy. But don’t use what happened to me to justify hate or prejudice of anyone.” I first wrote the prayer as an assignment from Rabba Yaffa Epstein at Pardes after a semester of studying the Amidah, a central prayer in Jewish liturgy. May one day soon we forget violence, on that day the love of Torah will be shared equally, with joy, among all of our people.

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Photo Source: Rabbis for Human Rights via Times of Israel

Guest Writer: Eliza Scheffler

Posted on: January 18th, 2018 by Alden

Eliza Scheffler is a first-year rabbinical student at HUC-JIR in Jerusalem. She took my class, “Introduction to Creative Liturgy.” This is what she wrote when I opened up an empty aron kodesh — the ark/closet that typically holds Torah scrolls — and presented it as a writing prompt. This post is the first of new addition to this space: occasionally featuring guest writers.

Prayer of an empty ark
Where did my Torahs go?
Did you usher them out into the world for justice?
Did they wipe away brutality?
Did they vanquish suffering?
Or were they stolen, burned, destroyed?
Left unguarded and faded slowly?

What will come of you now —
All of you —
Do you need my Torahs still?
Who will retrace their letters?
Who will read them?
What will we learn?

“Prayer of an empty ark” is © 2018 Eliza Scheffler. All rights reserved.

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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 Source: Bass Synagogue Furniture

Jew against Jew

Posted on: April 23rd, 2015 by Alden

Susan Sliverman with Torah 22 Apr 2015This is a prayer for Jews to love one another. I wrote it a year ago, but it echoes as a response to the violence perpetrated at the Kotel this week. Charlie Kalech and I were beaten after we and other men helped facilitate the use of a full-sized Torah by Women of the Wall at the Western Wall on Rosh Chodesh Iyyar, April 22, 2015. This prayer is part lament and part admonition against sinat chinam, basesless hatred of Jew against Jew. The prayer is the result of an assignment last year by master teacher Yaffa Epstein at Pardes Institude of Jewish Studies after a semester of studying the Amidah, a central prayer in Jewish liturgy. May one day soon we forget the violence, on that day the love of Torah will be shared equally, with joy, among all of our people.

Jew against Jew
Oh my people,
What has happened to your heart?
What has happened to your vision?
And what has happened to your wisdom?
And what has happened to your love for one another?
The seeds of disrespect and misunderstanding have taken root,
Yielding fear and anger,
Condemnation and recrimination,
A rising hatred of Jew against Jew
That threatens to consume us.
Sinat chinam has attacked the soul of our people.

Ancient One,
G-d of our fathers and mothers,
Grant us a new wisdom and a new vision
To see beauty and holiness
In all of the tents of Israel.
Guide us back to each other
With reverence and understanding.
Renew our days with love.
Then, G-d of Old, we will build
A temple of song to your Holy Name,
Resounding from heart to heart,
From soul to soul,
From generation to generation,
The whole House of Israel.

Blessed are You, Adonai our G-d,
You delight in Your people’s love.

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

Postscript: The photo is from Facebook album by top news photographer Miriam Alster. The album contains beautiful photos of women expressing love of Torah. There are also horrible photos showing what Charlie and I experienced at the hands of so-called ushers and ultra-orthodox men: he was beaten and manhandled, I was roughed up and stomped on. Those photos are important to understand the forces that oppose women’s rights at the Kotel. Yet here I choose to show the celebration, with Rabbi Susan Silverman dancing with Torah. When I was down on the ground, Susan and Charlie’s wife Sarah Halevi rushed toward us to help. Thank you, Susan and Sarah, for coming to my aid. The photos of women expressing love of Torah, those are the photos of the joyous future we desire, Torah for all, b’ezrrat Hashem.

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Photo Source: WOW Facebook album by Miriam Alster

Gravity and Light

Posted on: November 23rd, 2014 by Alden

Shabbat Shira, The BayitDuring a short walk from “The Bayit” to the dining hall on a crisp fall morning at OSRUI’s Shabbat Shira retreat, my friend Michael said: “Torah is gravity.” He paused to let me soak it in. I thought for a moment, then said, “I may borrow that line.” A few days later, I wrote this meditation on Torah and mitzvot.

Gravity and Light
Torah is gravity,
Binding us to our ancestors,
Holding us near to our G-d,
Anchoring us with wisdom and understanding.
Torah is gravity,
Tying our lives
To our history and our destiny.

Mitzvot are light,
Illuminating our path,
Brightening our days,
Showing us the way to holiness and service,
Leading us to heal the world.
Mitzvot are light,
Shining around us,
With beauty.

Torah is gravity.
May your feet never falter.
Mitzvot are light.
May your hands shine with grace.

Blessed are G-d’s gifts.

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

Postscript: Shabbat Shira was an amazing “reboot” to my creativity. I wrote many new pieces there, including “Sephardi Quarter Note,” and began several others. My friend Rabbi Larry Carol and I wrote a song together called “Only Now.” Here’s a link to his blog post about it. In the coming weeks I’ll post additional prayers written because of that amazing event. Shabbat Shira 2015 is tentatively scheduled for Oct. 22-25.

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Photo Source: Facebook Photo of “The Bayit” at OSRUI during 2014’s Shabbat Shira

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