A “Mi Sheberakh” prayer for someone who completed public chanting of the entire Torah over the course of thirty years. It takes inspiration from the standard Mi Sheberakh for an aliyah, the “hadran” ritual for a siyyum, and quotes Exodus 24:7.

A prayer of protection for those in the process of gender transitioning, physically, emotionally, and spiritually, inspired by the Tefilat haDerekh (Traveler’s Prayer).

This qinah purposely follows the structure of, and borrows phrases from, the text of Ma’oz Tsur. It was inspired by, of all things, a “Ruin a song by changing the first three words” Facebook post – someone had responded to it with “Ma’oz Tsarot…” and the rest all but wrote it itself.

This piece is about Ḥanina ben Dosa, a wonder-working rabbi who lived in Judea in the first century. The singer pleads to Ḥanina that he intercede in Israel’s behalf and obtain God’s help and salvation for her and the world.

In 2016 after reading David Brin’s Earth (1990), I wrote this blog post and later felt inspired to write this variant of El Malé for the vessels and probes that carry our dream of space science, and then also for the astronauts who died while pursuing that dream.

This is a blessing written by myself and my father, Moshe Razieli in 2021. We wrote it foremost with my brother in mind. It is also informed by my experience of working with people who have experienced trauma, loss and disability.

An alternate Vidui for Yom Kipur, including an alphabetical list of the things we’ve done wrong in the past year, and also an alphabetical list of the things we can do right in the new year. Includes the words to “Ani v’Ata”, the song of optimism and commitment to improve the world.

“A Prayer for Peace in the Ukraine” was first shared by Rabbi Sabath Beit-Halachmi, Ph.D. via her Facebook page, motsei Shabbat on 27 February 2022. To support the Jewish community in the Ukraine, go to the World Union of Progressive Judaism.

This Simḥat Bat ceremony guide includes an order of blessings and ceremony with attention to various traditional customs regarding the use of blessings and prayers. The guide also includes words of Torah and rabbinic teachings which relate to the themes in the guide.

Liturgy for a motsei shabbat havdallah ritual centering the experience of those with long-COVID.

An indigenous land acknowledgement for Jewish communities located in the historic lands of the Shawnee and Miami people.

This formulation of the Birkat Yeladim (Blessing of the Children) maintains a connection with tradition and serves to degender the blessing by calling upon quoted, mixed gender texts which have merit for children of any gender.

An acknowledgement that the land we are conducting our religious ceremonies on is the sacred and traditional land of Indigenous people. It involves a kavvanah and study verses as well as the land acknowledgement.

A prayer for teshuvah.

This is a poetic rendering of the sixth blessing (of the Sheva Brakhot/7 Blessings) for a wedding. It riffs off of themes and language in the Hebrew text of joy, love, and companionship, and invocations of the Garden of Eden, creation, and eternity. Written originally for the wedding of friends; I hope you’ll feel free to adapt and rework it however suits your needs!

The Al Cheyt (literally meaning “For the sin…”) is a confessional litany recited on Yom Kippur. It is an alphabetical acrostic; each one of its verses starting with a successive letter of the aleph-beit, to represent not only the moral failings that are specifically enumerated there, but the fullness of every way in which we missed the mark in the previous year.

A thought about the need to seek forgiveness from those you’ve wronged during this week before Yom Kippur:

There is a famous Seliḥot prayer where each of its lines has this structure: “May He who answered ___________, may he answer us.” The blank refers to assorted Biblical figures who faced great challenges, ranging from Avraham the Patriarch to Ezra the Scribe. The traditional list is also VERY male-focused, with the standard text only listing Esther from all the great Biblical women. This is a shame, and many have tried to remedy this. I have found myself under the opinion that all these remedies have a fault – they attempt to combine the original text with the new text. This means either the original text is shortened, or the full text is far too long. As well, the structure is very male-oriented as well, appealing to God’s male side and only using grammatically male language.

A piyyut for an under-recognized holiday, Pesaḥ Sheni, the festival of second chances (as described in Numbers 9:6-13 and Mishnah Pesaḥim 9:1-3. I attempted to write this in the manner of a traditional piyyut. The meter is equivalent to the Shabbat zamir “Ot Hi l’Olmei Ad.” The Hebrew spells out Yod – Tzadi – Ḥet – Kuf, because that’s my name. The translation is original, along with the notes.

A Mi Sheberakh prayer for those affected by natural disasters. This prayer uses many standard liturgical phrases in a new context to stress that God, while full of great power, is not a God of destruction but one of peace and life. Quoting the famous vision of Elijah at Ḥorev, this prayer is for those who seek comfort and tranquility from their God.

From resurgent neo-fascist movements to religious extremist attacks, hate crimes are on the rise all over the world right now. At times like this many people live in fear – fear of being attacked or maligned, physical, mental or emotional. Hatred is not new to the Jewish people, but traditionally it was considered “just the way it is.” As Americans, we should believe better. The midrash (Devarim Rabbah 5:10) says that hateful speech kills three – the speaker, the listener, and the subject. This Mi Sheberakh was written as a prayer for all those of every people and nation that are affected by hatred and bigotry.

A prayer for the electorate to be recited together with the Prayer for Government on the Shabbat before an election (federal, state, or local).

A prayer for the peaceful resolution of Israel’s conflicts with her neighbors and a mutually agreeable end to her dominion over the Palestinians, in Hebrew and in English, appropriate for inserting in the Birkat HaMazon especially on Shabbat and Festivals, or for reciting at any time.

This piyut (liturgical poem) arose after a very meaningful performance of mine in the summer of 2000. It was such a powerful experience that I was moved to say a prayer of thanks to G-d for the opportunity to perform my songs for audiences – but found no such prayer in existence. So I wrote this one. It took about a year to complete and I’ve been saying it backstage right before my performances, and sometimes before recording sessions, since then.

This is a blessing which I originally wrote while working at the Leo Baeck Education Center, Haifa, for the International Human Rights day, December 10, 2012. It is based on the 4th of the Seven Blessings in the Jewish wedding ceremony, with additional quotes from our tradition. This blessing is included in Tfilat HaAdam prayer book, 2021.

This is a prayer for parents to say for safe sleep for their newborn children. It is based almost entirely on the longer form of the traditional prayers before sleep. Because of gender there are two forms, for a boy and for a girl. I wrote this as part of my daughter’s naming ceremony in January 2001. I used it again in 2006 when my second daughter was born.

The popular practice of a night time prayer vigil is not well understood. In the siddur, most people pass by it because they don’t know what to do with it. Others are confused because of the lack of consistency in its presentation from one siddur to the next. At the end of the day, this ritual would be regarded as a rite reserved for the pious — for the great tzadikim who made regular use of it.

Aleinu, as rewritten in Hebrew and English for Ḥavurat Shalom, Somerville, Massachusetts.

The Preamble (followed by the first article of the first chapter) of the Charter of the United Nations from 1945 translated into Hebrew by the State of Israel in 1949.

A morning prayer for young girls composed in Magyar and published in 1930, with English translation.

A paraliturgical prayer for the government presented opposite Hanoten T’shuah in Rabbi Simon Hevesi’s siddur Ateret Shalom v’Emet (1911).

Modeled after the prayer Hanoten T’shuah, this patriotic paraliturgical prayer for the Kingdom of Hungary by Rabbi Gyula Fischer was published in the prayerbook for Jewish women, Rachel: imák zsidó nők számára (1908).

This is Prayer for the Shabbat preceding the New Moon (Shabbat Mevorkhim) included by Fanny Schmiedl Neuda in her collection of teḥinot in vernacular German, Stunden der Andacht (1855). Fanny Neuda likely either composed or translated this teḥinah into German (from Yiddish) while performing in the capacity of firzogerin (precentress) of the weibershul (women’s gallery) in her husband’s synagogue in Loštice, Bohemia.

This is Dr. Morris Faierstein’s transcription and translation of one of the earliest teḥinot from the earliest surviving edition of the Tsenah u-Re’enah (Basel/Hanau 1622) as found in his article “The Earliest Published Yiddish Tehinnot (1590–1609)” in Hebrew Union College Annual, 2020, Vol. 91 (2020). The transcription of the Yiddish sourcetext is found on page 206 and the English translation is found on page 187. The translation is shared under the libre Open Access license (Creative Commons Attribution) provided for the critical translation of the text in Ze’enah U-Re’enah: A Critical Translation into English (Volume 96 in the series Studia Judaica, ed. Morris M. Faierstein; De Gruyter 2017).

“Adon Olam: A Mystical Interpretation” by Laura Duhan Kaplan, was created for a music and spoken word performance at Limmud Vancouver, 2018. It was first published in The Infinity Inside: Jewish Spiritual Practice Through A Multi-Faith Lens (Boulder: Albion Andalus, 2019). This is the full original version. A much abridged version (edited by Rabbi Rachel Barenblat) appears in Renew Our Hearts: A Siddur for Shabbat Day (Bayit Ben Yehuda Press, 2023).

This is Ha Laḥma Anya in Aramaic with translations in Ladino and English, from the Passover Seder Haggadah of Rabbi Emily Aviva Kapor-Mater, Haggadah Shir Geulah (2015, v.2.1/2016).

This is an English language interpretation of Kaddish, intended to capture the spirit of translations/interpretations that I have seen in various sources and also to capture the sound and rhythm of the Aramaic text, including syllables which, when read simultaneously with the Aramaic, rhyme with the Aramaic.