בִּרְכוֹת הַתּוֹרָה | Birkhot haTorah, paraliturgical reflections by Rabbi Shoshana Meira Friedman

Contributor(s):

Rabbi Shoshana Meira Friedman

Shared on:

7 May 2020 under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike (CC BY-SA) 4.0 International copyleft license

Categories:

Birkhot haTorah, Birkhot haShaḥar, Torah Study

Tags:

shame resilience, ברכות התורה birkhot haTorah, paraliturgical birkhot haTorah, 21st century C.E., 58th century A.M., English vernacular prayer

☞ Need to adjust a column of text to the right or left? Click on the header row and drag the column where you want. Here's an animated GIF showing the process.

☞ Need to copy a column or column(s) of text? We recommend the CopyTables extension.

TABLE OPTIONS

Source (Hebrew)	Paraliturgical Reflection (English)
בָּרוּךְ אַתָּה יְיָ אֱלֹהֵֽינוּ מֶֽלֶךְ הָעוֹלָם, אֲשֶׁר קִדְּשָֽׁנוּ בְּמִצְוֺתָיו, וְצִוָּֽנוּ עַל דִבְרֵי תוֹרָה׃	I bless You, Holy One, whose Spirit compels me to seek wisdom.
וְהַעֲרֶב נָא יְיָ אֱלֹהֵֽינוּ אֶת דִּבְרֵי תוֹרָתְךָ בְּפִֽינוּ, וּבְפִי כׇל עַמְּךָ בֵּית יִשְׂרָאֵל.	Remind me that seeking wisdom is sweet, that learning is a sacred act even when it is uncomfortable, even when I do not understand right away.
וְנִהְיֶה אֲנַֽחְנוּ וְצֶאֱצָאֵֽינוּ, וְצֶאֱצָאֵי כׇל עַמְּךָ בֵּית יִשְׂרָאֵל, כֻּלָּנוּ יוֹדְעֵי שְׁמֶֽךָ וְלוֹמְדֵי תוֹרָתְךָ לִשְׁמָהּ.	Remind me that I am in a long line of wisdom-seekers, from my ancestors before me to my students and descendants after me.
בָּרוּךְ אַתָּה יְיָ הַמְלַמֵּד תּוֹרָה לְעַמּוֹ יִשְׂרָאֵל׃	Remind me that I who wrestle with being alive am part of a human community of other wrestlers.
	Remind me that all our seeking is for the sake of You, the One who is Consciousness.
בָּרוּךְ אַתָּה יְיָ אֱלֹהֵֽינוּ מֶֽלֶךְ הָעוֹלָם, אֲשֶׁר בְָּחַר בְָּנוּ מִכׇּל הָעַמִּים, וְנָֽתַן לָֽנוּ אֶת תּוֹרָתוֹ. בָּרוּךְ אַתָּה יְיָ נוֹתֵן הַתּוֹרָה׃	I bless You, Holy One, who teaches wisdom through the ages and in my life.

Rabbi Shoshana Meira’s paraliturgical interpretation of the Birkhot haTorah (the blessings over learning Torah), was first published in her Siddur v’lo Nevosh (2014). Linear correspondence between the Hebrew source and the English by Aharon Varady.

Source(s)

. Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike . 4.0 . International .

“בִּרְכוֹת הַתּוֹרָה | Birkhot haTorah, paraliturgical reflections by Rabbi Shoshana Meira Friedman” is shared by the living contributor(s) with a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International copyleft license.

Rabbi Shoshana Meira Friedman

Rabbi Shoshana Meira Friedman is the Associate Rabbi at Temple Sinai in Brookline, Massachusetts. She feels blessed to serve this vibrant community through building personal relationships, teaching Torah, innovating new engagement initiatives, working for justice, and leading prayer. Rabbi Shoshana is a leader in the interfaith climate justice movement in New England. She and her husband Yotam Schachter co-wrote The Tide Is Rising, an anthem for the climate movement that has been sung in congregations, climate rallies, and gatherings in the US, Brazil, Denmark, and France.In other pursuits, she has released an album of original music called Guesthouse, clowned for hospitalized children, tended a community garden, and written poetry. Her publications include pieces in the Huffington Post and the Harvard Divinity Bulletin, and she has written an interpretive translation of the weekday prayer service called Siddur V'lo Nevosh: Jewish Prayer as Shame Resilience Practice.Rabbi Shoshana was ordained at Hebrew College Rabbinical School, and is a graduate of the Wexner Graduate Fellowship, JOIN For Justice, and Oberlin College of Arts & Sciences where she was also a Henry David Thoreau Scholar. She grew up in Newton, Massachusetts, and lives in Jamaica Plain with Yotam and their dog Lulu. For sermons, publications, music, and activism visit www.rabbishoshana.com.

Stable Link: https://opensiddur.org/?p=31384

Associated Image:

“Tea bowl fixed in the Kintsugi method” (Public Domain). Kintsugi is the Japanese art of fixing broken pottery with lacquer resin dusted or mixed with powdered gold, silver, or platinum.

(This image is set to automatically show as the "featured image" in category lists and in shared links on social media.)

This post, editable: XML | ODT

Terms of Use: Please reciprocate for any adaptation or redistribution of this work by (1) properly attributing the work to Rabbi Shoshana Meira Friedman, (2) clearly indicating the date you accessed the resource and whether any changes have been made (and if so, please be in touch with us and leave a comment below so that we might note your adaptation or improvement), (3) providing the stable link to this resource, and (4) specifying the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike (CC BY-SA) 4.0 International copyleft license under which this work was shared.

Note: The views expressed in this work represent the views of their creator(s) and do not necessarily represent the views of the Open Siddur Project's developers, its diverse community of contributors, patrons, or institutional partners.

Support this work: The Open Siddur Project is a volunteer-driven, non-profit, non-denominational, non-prescriptive, gratis & libré Open Access archive of contemplative praxes, liturgical readings, and Jewish prayer literature (historic and contemporary, familiar and obscure) composed in every era, region, and language Jews have ever prayed. Our goal is to provide a platform for sharing open-source resources, tools, and content for individuals and communities crafting their own prayerbook (siddur). Through this we hope to empower personal autonomy, preserve customs, and foster creativity in religious culture. If you like what you've found here, please help keep our project alive and online with your financial contribution.

ויהי נעם אדני אלהינו עלינו ומעשה ידינו כוננה עלינו ומעשה ידינו כוננהו "May the pleasantness of אדֹני our elo’ah be upon us; may our handiwork be established for us — our handiwork, may it be established."–Psalms 90:17