A personal declaration to become a shomer/et shalom on Yom Kippur.

A contemporary Jewish prayer for healng, used at congregation Tzedek Chicago.

A prayer offered at the Broadview Detention Center for an interfaith vigil in support of the detainees and for change in US immigration policy.

This prayer was first published in an op-ed, “A Jew’s Prayer for the Children of Gaza,” in the newspaper, Ha’aretz, on 7 January 2009.

“Orah hee” was composed by Rabbi Jill Hammer in 2008 and first published at Tel Shemesh in romanized Hebrew and English translation.

The prayer for the State of Israel, composed May 2008/lyyar 5768 on the 60th Anniversary of the State of Israel, was first shared on the web on May 7th, 2008 here and published on paper and PDF on May 8th, 2008 in an event organized by Rabbis for Human Rights-North America, “Embracing Justice: An Alternative Celebration and Learning for Yom Ha’Atzma’ut/Israel’s 60th Independence Day.”

A prayer for the great aspirations of the country of the United States of America.

While the theme of the Shema is dedicating oneself to the Divine and their Teaching, this paraliturgical Shema is dedicated to internalizing Jewish identity mindful of the experience of past generations and one’s responsibility to future ones.

The Opening Prayer given in the U.S. Senate on 6 April 2006.

“Mi she-Berakh Prayer for Agunot and Women who are Denied a Writ of Divorce (mesorvot get)” was written by Dr. Yael Levine in the summer of 2006 and first published in the journal De’ot in advance of Purim 2007. The Hebrew version of the prayer was subsequently reprinted in the monumental Sefer ha-Shabbat, edited by Yonadav Kaploun and issued by Yediot Aharonot in 2011 (p. 260). The English translation was first published in The Jerusalem Post 16 March 2016 (Comment & Features), p. 13. The Hebrew annotation of the sources appeared already in the initial article in De’ot, and was subsequently published, inter alia, in an article published on kipa.co.il on 13 March 2019.

Judy Gumbo co-authored this Al Ḥeit with her partner Stew Albert, ז״ל, before his passing in 2006. This Al Ḥeit was most recently used as part of Yom Kippur Kol Nidre services across the country in solidarity with Occupy Wall Street 5772.

This “Meditation before Yom Kippur for One who Cannot Fast” (2005) was written by Rabbi Simkha Y. Weintraub, LCSW, Rabbinic Director, National Center for Jewish Healing. It appears in הַרְחֶב פִּֽיךָ וַאֲמַלְאֵֽהוּ Open Your Mouth Wide, and I (God) Will Fill It: Prayers and Rituals for those who need to eat on Yom Kippur (2022), p. 11.

Shelley Frier List’s prayer for agunot was originally printed in JOFA JOURNAL, Summer 2005 (5:4), p.5, wherein was added a Hebrew adaptation made by the Jewish Orthodox Feminist Alliance (JOFA).

A prayer for the State of Israel during conflicts over sovereignty and dispossession.

A blessing by Reb Zalman for Peace, Health, Joy, Prosperity, and Kindness which he wrote in spray paint on a municipal water tank behind his house in Colorado.

A prayer composed by Rabbi Shai Held in the aftermath of the devastating 2004 Asian Tsunami.

This egalitarian adaptation of the Me she’Ana seliḥah for the season of Teshuvah was made by Julia Andelman and Lisa Exler in September 2004.

A ḳinah (lamentation) for Israeli Prime Minister Yitzḥak Rabin, assassinated on 4 November 1995, the yahrzeit of which is י״א בְּמַרחֶשְׁוָן ‎(11 Marḥeshvan).

This prayer for Israel was written by Rabbi Naḥum Waldman (1931-2004) for T’ruah: the Rabbinic Call for Human Rights. T’ruah works to ensure that Israel remains a safe and secure home for Jews and a place that lives up to the ideal stated in the State of Israel’s 1948 Declaration of Independence that Israel “will foster the development of the country for all of its inhabitants; it will be based on freedom, justice, and peace as envisaged by the prophets of Israel; it will ensure complete equality of social and political rights to all its inhabitants irrespective of religion, race or sex.”

This is an untitled prayer by Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi, originally offered by him in an address given at the Roundtable Dialogue for the visit of the 14th Dalai Lama together with other Nobel Laureates in Vancouver, B.C., entitled “Balancing Educating the Mind with Educating the Heart.” The event was held at the Chan Centre for the Performing Arts, on Tuesday, April 20, 2004. While the video documenting the address is currently offline, thankfully the original text of the prayer is given in its transcription by Gabbai Seth Fishman. The prayer is presented here alongside an adaptation found in the High Holy Days Maḥzor of Congregation Nevei Kodesh: Jewish Renewal Community of Boulder (2018), p.36, Section 10: Prayers for Rosh haShanah. The prayer in this form, as revised by Netanel Miles-Yepez and Reb Zalman, can be found at Kol Aleph (2014) and the now defunct Sufi Hasidim website (2009).

“A Memory’s fire burns within me still” was adapted by Andrew Meit from Gabriel Seed’s translation of the kinah, Aish Tukad b’kirbi (“A Fire Shall Burn Within Me”).

The Opening Prayer given in the U.S. House of Representatives on 26 June 2003.

I wanted my students to start thinking of prayers as expressions of an interior world, rather than as descriptions of the exterior one. I suggested to them that they think of a prayer as a kind of mask, much like the ones worn in religious rituals by many peoples. The job of the mask-wearer is to discover the reality on the “inside” of the mask and bring it to life.

“A Prayer for Peace” by Rabbi Douglas Krantz was originally circulated as a Passover Haggadah supplement by Americans for Peace Now, Pesaḥ 5763 (2003).

Every year on Yom ha-Atzmaut I feel a certain sense of frustration about its liturgy, and the failure of Religious Zionism to shape the holiday into one that would make a clear and definite religious statement. The “festive” prayer for Yom ha-Atzmaut is a hotchpotch of Yom Kippur, Kabbalat Shabbat, Shabbat Mevarkhim, and Pesaḥ. One gets a sense that there is an avoidance of hard issues. Even such a simple thing as saying Hallel with a blessing is not yet self-evident, but a subject of constant debate. Every year, there seem to be more leading rabbis, who adopt crypto-Ḥaredi stances, issuing pronunciamentos as to why one must not enter into the doubt of saying a brakha levatala, an unnecessary blessing, in this case. (As I was typing these words, I was interrupted by a phone call from a friend with this very question!) Bimhila mikvodam (no affront to the honor due them intended), but what on earth do they think the Talmud is talking about when it says that “On every occasion that Israel are in distress and then delivered, they are to recite the Hallel” (Pesaḥim 116a), if not the likes of Yom ha-Atzmaut?

These are a series of kavvanot prepared by Rabbi Emanuel S. Goldsmith (1935-2024), z”l, for a Shaḥarit service containing the call to prayer (Barkhu), the blessings preceding the Shema, tthe conclusion of the Amidah, before and after the Torah reading service, and Aleinu. Rabbi Ben Newman, who shared these kavvanot in eulogy for Rabbi Goldsmith in a Facebook post, writes, “My dear teacher, friend, and mentor Rabbi Dr. Emanuel Goldsmith died on Friday. He was an amazing man who taught me a lot about how to be a rabbi, a Reconstructionist, a liturgist, philosopher of religion, and Yiddishist. He also was the “head rabbi” who officiated at my wedding to Rabbi Shoshana Leis….I had him write out for me [these kavvanot] when I substituted for him leading at Congregation Mvakshe Derekh in Scarsdale, NY, 20 years ago as a student rabbi.”

Sh’sh’sh’ma Yisra’el —
Listen, You Godwrestlers!
Pause from your wrestling and hush’sh’sh
To hear —
YHWH/ Yahh

Hear in the stillness the still silent voice,
The silent breathing that intertwines life;

YHWH/ Yahh elohenu
Breath of life is our God,
What unites all the varied
forces creating
all worlds into one-ness,
Each breath unique,
And all unified;

YHWH / Yahh echad!
Yahh is One.
Listen, You Godwrestlers!
No one people alone
owns
this Unify-force;
YHWH / Yahh is One.

A prayer for peace written in the context of the invasion of Iraq by the United States and its allies in 2003.

My heart, my heart goes out to you Zion
Tears, jubilation, celebration, grieving
Did we not dream a dream that came to be?
And here it is—both song and lament.

Isles Of The Forsaken (ink drawing, 2002) is intended to address the tragic situation of many Jewish women, who, abused, abandoned and wishing a divorce, are refused a get (bill of divorcement) by their husbands who may use their wives’ need for this document as a threat for ransom in obtaining custody of their children.

This is an intention that I composed for the conclusion of a performance piece, Inner Fire, created and performed by my Mistabra Institute for Jewish Textual Activism at Brandeis University in 2002. It is as relevant today as ever. Please use it for inspiration when you light Ḥanuka candles.

A prayer for the government and of good governance in the United States of America.

“Prayer Concerning Jewish Women murdered by their Partners” by Yael Levine was originally composed in 2001 and published in collections of prayers and elsewhere. The English translation, by the author, was first prepared in 2017.

A supplication of a woman cutting her hair as an act of tsanua, per a contemporary custom in many Ḥaredi communities.

A meditation on a unique prayer heard by Rabbi Dr. David Weiss Halivni at the Rosh Hashanah services at the Wolfsberg Labor Camp in 1944.

“Between the Fires: A Prayer for lighting Candles of Commitment” was composed by Rabbi Arthur Waskow, drawing on traditional midrash about the danger of a Flood of Fire, and the passage from Malachi.

A prayer-teaching for grounding one’s intention at the onset of the Amidah.

A comprehensive treatment on the praxis of Jewish prayer.

This prayer for Jewish War Veterans was offered by Rabbi Simeon Kobrinetz, Chaplain USAF (Ret.), on Veterans Day 1996 during the Veterans’ Day Memorial Service presided by President Bill Clinton at Arlington National Cemetery.

These are the lyrics of the song, Miryam haNevi’ah, written by rabbis Leila Gal Berner and Arthur Waskow (with Hebrew by Leila Gal Berner) as found published in My People’s Prayer Book, vol. 7: Shabbat at Home, (ed. L. Hoffman, 1997), section 3, p. 189. The English lyrics are from an article published several years earlier — “Memories of a Jewish Lesbian Evening” by Roger McDougle appearing in Bridges (vol. 4:1, Winter/Spring 1994), on the top of page 58. No specific date is given for the havdalah program described in the article, alas. If you know the earliest reference for the publication or use of Miryam haNevi’ah, please contact us.

Tired of people who can’t tell their ḳiddish (blessings for the Sabbath) from their ḳaddish (prayer for the dead)? Well, it sets Samuel L. Jackson off too! But he found a way of making a bracha (blessing) and mourning the dead at the same time. Now I can’t vouch for the origins of his nusaḥ (custom) but it sounds very effective! Most people haven’t noticed, the only real part from the Bible is that last section, the first part is actually his own spiel:

A prayer for a beloved animal first compiled in English by Aharon N. Varady for Nethaniel Puzael, his family’s cat, in 1994.

We call to sukkat shalom, the shelter of peace, all of our various selves
To rest from the contortion of social life and the demands of others.
We liberate ourselves and each other from roles and titles
labels and closets
positions and pretendings
internalized oppressions and oppressive projections
hierarchies and competition.

A prayer for the well-being of the Navy personnel assigned to the newly built Sa’ar 5 corvette, INS Eilat, in 1993.

A prayer on behalf of Canada: its government, its leaders, and its people.

This earth pledge was offered at the first of a series of lectures by Benjamin Ferencz at Kean College, New Jersey on 16 April 1991. Although the video recording of the lecture has not been digitized, the pledge was included in its description by the United States Holocaust Museum.

Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi, Reb Arthur Waskow, and others helped to formulate this grammatically feminine Hebrew blessing for an oleh in their blessing over the Torah reading, in the early years of Congregation Mishkan Shalom in Philadelphia (1988-1983).

A ceremony for the naming of a baby daughter.

The “Pledge of Allegiance to the Family of Earth” was offered by the Women’s Foreign Policy Council (co-chaired by Bella Abzug and Mim Kelber). The earliest publication of the pledge that we were able to located is as found in the article, “Earthlings Unite” by Nina Combs in Ms. Magazine, vol. 18:1&2 (July/August 1989), p. 19.

A discussion of the nature of truth and belief in Jewish liturgical prayer, suggesting that fixed liturgy is less a vehicle for conveying theological or philosophical outcomes than a practice for developing an emotionally religious personality. Shabbat musaf is used as an example. “Meaning What We Pray, Praying What We Mean: The Otherness of the Liturgy” by Rabbi Dr. Joshua Gutoff was first published in Conservative Judaism, Vol. 42(2), Winter 1989-90, pp. 12-20.