Posts Tagged ‘Sabbath’

 

Shabbat is the Place

Posted on: April 7th, 2016 by Alden

Mediterranean SunsetThis meditation is inspired by life in Jerusalem. Many of my Shabbat meditations have been inspired by my home, including: “Shabbat Settles on Jerusalem” and “Shabbat Sings.” This piece appears in This Grateful Heart: Psalms and Prayers for a New Day from CCAR Press.

Shabbat is the Place
Shabbat is the place
Where time and space meet,
Without questioning
How the beginning began
Or how the ending ends.

Shabbat is the place
Where song and silence meet,
Blessing each other
With the gift of rest.

Shabbat is the place
Where dreams and angels meet,
Yearning together
For a world of peace.

Shabbat is the place
Where holiness and eternity meet,
Praying together
For the world to come.

© 2017 CCAR Press from This Grateful Heart: Psalms and Prayers for a New Day

Postscript: My other Shabbat prayers include: “Come, Beloved” and “Welcome, Sabbath Queen.” Click here for a full list of my Shabbat prayers, blessings and stories.

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: Water Jew Doing in Israel?

Shabbat Sings

Posted on: September 17th, 2015 by Alden

song-of-praise_3_10_367_227What if Shabbat could sing praises? Would we listen in awe? Would we sing a duet? This meditation is inspired by the Sabbath prayer La’el asher shavat. The line: “ויום השביעי משבח ואומר” (“The seventh day itself gives praise”). Rabbi Lawrence Hoffman calls that prayer “a midrashic treatment of Psalm 92, ‘A Song for the Sabbath Day,’ personifying Shabbat as an entity that itself praises G-d.” This prayer quotes a line from Psalm 92, “It is good to give thanks to G-d.”

Shabbat Sings
Shabbat sings to us as she approaches,
An ancient song of joy and desire,
A quiet song of hope and anticipation.
Yes, Shabbat sings as she arrives,
Her scarves dancing around her
In the gentle breeze.

Shabbat sings to us when she arrives,
A sweet song of love and reunion,
A simple song of laughter and surrender.
Yes, Shabbat sings with us,
Joyful, exuberant,
As we dance together in the glow of sunset.
It is good to give thanks to G-d.

Walk with me, Oh my queen!
Take my arm, Oh my bride!
And we will pretend
That you can linger in my arms always.
We will make believe
That we have been reunited forever.

Shabbat sings to us when she departs,
A tender song of longing,
A whispered voice of dreaming.
Yes, Shabbat sings as she leaves,
As we cling to her fragrant skirt,
As we breathe the last moments of holiness
Into our yearning hearts.

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

Postscript: My other Shabbat prayers include: “Come, Beloved” and “Shabbat Settles On Jerusalem.” Click here for a full list of my Shabbat prayers, blessings and stories. The Hoffman quote is from My People’s Prayer Book, Volume 10, Shabbat Morning, Shachariet and Musaf.

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: Rabbi Elliott’s Blog

Shabbat as a Meditation

Posted on: April 12th, 2013 by tobendlight

Shabbat RecipiesThis meditation moves through the themes of Shabbat, reinforcing the rhythm of the day, the internal music of Shabbat. It takes us from candle lighting and welcoming the Sabbath Queen to yearning for the world to come and Havadallah. In doing so, it’s a reminder that Shabbat finds its radiance and glory in the essential mix of keva and kavanah, of our actions and our intentions.

Shabbat as a Meditation
This day of rest,
This day of wonder and awe,
Of holiness and light,
Is a chorus of the heart,
A sacred rhythm of meditations:
To invite holiness,
And welcome light.
To remember G-d’s gifts,
And welcome the Sabbath Queen.
To sanctify the home,
And honor each other.
To bless our children,
And remember creation.
To pray and sing in joy and thanksgiving,
And to remember the glory of Jerusalem.
To hear words of Torah,
And study with open hearts.
To share our bounty with others,
And rest under a canopy of peace.
To yearn for the world to come,
And to know the difference
Between holiness and the mundane.

© 2013 Alden Solovy and tobendlight.com. All rights reserved.

Postscript: My Shabbat prayers include a “Shabbat Blessing for Children Who Have Left Home” and a Shabbat “Blessing for a Spouse / Partner.” Here’s a prayer “For the Arrival of Shabbat” and a question to G-d “About Shabbat,” plus two short, short stories – also known as flash fiction – about Shabbat: “Sarah Rivkah: A Challah Baking Story” and “Mendel Baruch: S’hema on Shabbat.” Sarah Rivka is one of my favorites.

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 Credit: Shabbat Recipes for the Jewish Home

Shabbat Blessing for Children Who Have Left Home

Posted on: November 30th, 2012 by tobendlight

Shabbat-Candles-640x425One of my great joys of parenthood is putting my hands on my daughters’ heads and blessing them. As they went off to college and to see the world, those opportunities diminished. Now we are an ocean apart. And still, every Shabbat, when I light my candles, I remember them in prayer, in blessing. Optional lines appear in [brackets].

Shabbat Blessing for Children Who Have Left Home
My children,
Dear ones,
You are light before my eyes.
I miss your laugh, your smile, your hug,
Your hand in mine.

Bless you on your journey.
Bless you in your home and on your travels.
May you be surrounded with
Joy and beauty,
Adventure and wonder,
Hope and love.
Let Torah and mitzvot guide your steps.
[Bless your family.]
[Heal your body and spirit.]
Let G-d’s goodness rain down upon you
From this Shabbat until the next,
And all the days of your life.

© 2017 CCAR Press from This Grateful Heart: Psalms and Prayers For a New Day

Postscript: My other prayers for children include: “On the Birth of a Child,” “Father’s Meditation,” “Meditation for a Child’s First Torah Reading,” “For My Child’s Surgery,” “For a Critically-Ill Child,” “My Child Leaves Home,” “On the Birth of Grandchildren” and “For Bereaved Children.”

Please check out my Meet the Author video and This Grateful Heart: Psalms and Prayers for a New Day. For reprint permissions and 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 Credit: The Shiksa in the Kitchen

Welcome, Sabbath Queen

Posted on: March 2nd, 2012 by tobendlight

Lecha DodiThis is a Hebrew poetry “smash-up,” combining the themes of the Yiddish song כוח with the image of the Sabbath Queen from the liturgical poem לכה דודי. To listen along, click on the triangle in the bar below. The text follows.

 

Welcome, Sabbath Queen
Let go! Let go!
Release your struggle and strife.
Release your work and your toil.

Welcome, Sabbath Queen,
With gifts of joy and light.
With gifts of comfort and peace.

Let go! Let go!
Release your troubles and concerns.
Release your worries and your burdens.

Welcome, Sabbath Queen,
With gifts of gentleness and song.
With gifts of radiance and love.

Enter this holy day
This sacred time
This ancient beauty
That returns to nourish
Body and soul.

Enter this luminous wonder,
The place of Torah and t’fillah,
This moment that touches creation
With celebration and stillness.

Come,
Sing with us in sacred harmony.
Sing of majesty and wonder,
Revelation and redemption.
Sing out G-d’s wisdom and compassion.
G-d’s gift of rest.

Welcome, Sabbath Queen.
Welcome.

© 2012 Alden Solovy and www.tobendlight.com. All rights reserved.

Postscript: Jewish poetry, liturgy, story and song are rich with the deep Jewish love for Shabbat. Here’s a prayer “For the Arrival of Shabbat” and a question to G-d “About Shabbat,” plus two short, short stories – also known as flash fiction – about Shabbat: “Sarah Rivkah: A Challah Baking Story” and “Mendel Baruch: S’hema on Shabbat.” Sarah Rivka is one of my favorites.

IPlease 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 TwitterPlease take a moment to post a link to your Facebook page, your blog or mention it in a tweet. Thanks.

Image Source: Alden Solovy

Sarah Rivkah: A Challah Baking Story

Posted on: May 27th, 2010 by tobendlight

Shabbat_ChallahThis is a sweet little story about the joy of baking challah and the ways we honor, love and add beauty to Shabbat. Much like the story Yaakov Shraga, it captures a moment in which one person experiences holiness in daily life. To listen along, click on the triangle in the bar below. The story follows.

 

Sarah Rivkah
Of all the things Sarah Rivkah does to praise her Maker’s Name, baking challah for Shabbat is her favorite. On Friday mornings she gets up early, washes her hands in cold water, and thanks
G-d for granting her another day. She stokes the stove and wonders if, like her, the Sabbath Queen gets up early to prepare for Shabbat. Somehow, Sarah’s largest bowl is already in her hands, as if someone handed it to her. The flour and sugar and salt are already on the table, the eggs beaten, the yeast bubbling.

Sarah Rivkah kneads the dough, counting as she pushes the warm ball against the floured kitchen table. One, two three… It almost seems to knead itself, as if she had an extra pair of hands. Thirty-five, thirty-six, thirty-seven… She hears a voice, like a whisper, counting with her. Fifty-nine, sixty, sixty-one… A warm wind, subtle as a breath, blows past her neck. And Sarah Rivkah, sensing the joy of Shabbat, begins to hum, “Shalom aleichem malachei ha-shalom. Bring peace to us, ye angels of peace.” Ninety-seven, ninety-eight, ninety-nine…

When the dough is ready, she puts it in a bowl in a warm spot near the oven to rise. She wipes the table and washes the dirty utensils. The dough has risen beyond the recipe, beyond her expectations. She divides the ball in half, and the halves in half. And from each of the lumps she makes three long strips of dough. In hardly a blink, there are four perfectly braided challot back in the warm spot to rise again. She glides through the kitchen on wings. Something has removed her weight, removed her burdens. Sarah Rivkah’s table is set, the warm, sweet smell of baking bread filling her home. She takes two challot from her oven—she doesn’t remember putting them in—and she replaces them with two more. When the last two are golden brown, Sarah takes them from the oven. She knows that they are done, but she taps them each once just to hear their hollow sound. And Sarah Rivkah, tired and happy, sits down in a wooden chair to smell the scent a little longer, to gaze at her candle sticks and kiddush cups, and to wonder, once more, if the Sabbath Queen gets up early to prepare for Shabbat.

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

Postscript: Click the link to read more short, short stories of holiness and love of G-d.

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. If you like this prayer, please post a link to Facebook, your blog or mention it in a tweet.

 

Photo Source: WikiMedia Commons

 

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