This playful and unexpected prayer/poem makes fun of my own seriousness about writing prayers and liturgy. And I need a break from the intensity of affairs in both my allegiances, Israel and the U.S. This prayer appears in This Joyous Soul: A New Voice for Ancient Yearnings and includes a line from Psalm 100: “Serve Adonai with gladness…”

Sacred Silly
Wouldn’t it be fun,
Just one time,
To secretly slip a goofy prayer
Inside the siddur,
Say, in the middle of the Amidah,
Where an unsuspecting Yid
Like you or me
Might just crack up
In sacred silliness,
Holy happiness,
Loving laughter,
As a testimony
To the juicy joy
Of Jewish jubilation?

So serious
These liturgists,
These poets and paytanim.
Let’s g’faw for God.
Let’s laugh out loud in praise.
Let’s giggle in thanksgiving.

.עבדו את-ה’ בשׂמחה, בֹאו לפניו ברננה
Iv’du et Adonai b’shimcah, bo-u le’fanav birnanah.
Serve Adonai with gladness, come before G-d’s presence with singing.

Let joy rise up to the gates of prayer.
Let laughter shake the highest heavens.

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

Please check out my CCAR Press Grateful/Joyous/Precious trilogy. The individual books are: This Joyous Soul , This Grateful Heart, 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.”

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