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Arthur Waskow
Rabbi Arthur Waskow is the director of The Shalom Center. In 2013, Rabbi Waskow received T’ruah’s first Lifetime Achievement Award as a “Human Rights Hero.” His chapter, “Jewish Environmental Ethics: Adam and Adamah,” appears in Oxford Handbook of Jewish Ethics and Morality (Dorff & Crane, eds.; Oxford Univ. Press, 2013). Rabbi Waskow is the author of 22 books including Godwrestling, Seasons of Our Joy (JPS, 2012), and Down-to-Earth Judaism: Food, Money, Sex, and the Rest of Life. With Sister Joan Chittister and Murshid Saadi Shakur Chisht he co-authored The Tent of Abraham: Stories of Hope and Peace for Jews, Christians, and Muslims, and with with Rabbi Phyllis Berman wrote Freedom Journeys: Exodus & Wilderness Across Millennia (Jewish Lts, 2011). He edited Torah of the Earth (two volumes, eco-Jewish thought from earliest Torah to our own generation). These pioneering books on eco-Judaism are available at discount from “Shouk Shalom,” The Shalom center's online bookstore.
During the Aliyot | Tehilim Book 5 (Psalms 107–150) | Brit Milah & Simḥat Bat | Conflicts over Sovereignty and Dispossession | Earth, our Collective Home & Life-Support System | 🌐 Earth Day (22 April) | Ecotastrophes | Epidemics & Pandemics | Erev Pesaḥ | Erev Shabbat | Extracanonical Megillot | Rosh haShanah la-Ilanot (Tu biShvat) | Hateful Intolerance, Prejudice, and Bigotry | 🇺🇸 Inauguration Day (January 20th) | Ḳaddish | Modern Miscellany | Motsei Shabbat | Mourning | Parashat b'Shalaḥ | Parashat Ḥayyei Sarah | Parashat Noaḥ | Haggadot for the Seder Leil Pesaḥ | Rosh haShanah (l’Maaseh Bereshit) | Shavuot | the Shema | the Shmitah Year (Earth's Shabbat) | Shulḥan Orekh | Torah Study | Sukkot | Symbolic Foods | Taanit Esther Readings | Tishah b'Av Readings | Seder Leil Rosh haShanah la-Ilanot (Tu biShvat) | Yeshayah (Isaiah) | Yom haḲeshet (27 Iyyar) Readings | Yom Kippur | Yom Kippur Readings | 7th Day of Pesaḥ | Yom haMabul (Day of the Flood, 17 Iyyar, Lev ba-Omer) | Yom haQeshet (Day of the Rainbow, 27 Iyyar) | Psalms 148
Abrahamic | activism | activist | Aleph | Aliyah | American Jewry of the United States | anti-fascist Judaism | anti-Kahanist | Azazel | blessings | Bnei Yisrael and Yishmael | ברכות brakhot | ברית brit | candle lighting | communal | community organizing | devotional interpretation | Divine Feminine | eco-conscious | ecoḥasid | ecumenical prayers | אלהי נשמה Elohai neshamah | English vernacular prayer | entering | ארץ ישראל Erets Yisrael | four worlds | global climate change | global warming | green ḥevrah | haggadah supplements | הללו־יה hallelu-yah | חרוסת ḥaroset | הבדלות havdalot | Hebrew translation | hymns of creation | inaugurations | interbreathing | interconnectedness | interpretation as prayer | interpretive translation | Isaiah | Israeli-Jewish settler violence | Israelis and Palestinians | ירושלם Jerusalem | Jewish Renewal | קדיש דרבנן Ḳaddish D'Rabanan | קדיש יתום Mourner's Ḳaddish | כוונות kavvanot | kindling | ל״ג בעומר lag baomer | liberation | Maggidut | מדינת ישראל Medinat Yisrael | Memorial prayers | Midrashic interpretation | Miriam | MLK | משיח Moshiaḥ | neo-lurianic | North America | Northampton | paraliturgical elohai neshamah | Paraliturgical Mourner's Kaddish | paraliturgical nishmat kol ḥai | paraliturgical shema | participatory | peace | פסוקי דזמרה pesuqei dezimrah | Philadelphia | Pnai Ohr | Pnai Or | Prayers as poems | prophetic revelation | Rainbow Day | recipes | reconstructing Judaism | Nusḥaot l'Yahadut Mitkhadeshet | Renewal | RRC | סגולות segulot | שבת נחמו Shabbat Naḥamu | פרשת נח Parashat Noaḥ | שמע shemaŋ | שירת הים Shirat haYam | social justice | State v. Chauvin | symbolic foods | talmud torah | תחינות teḥinot | Temple Mount | United States | והיה אם שמע v'haya im shemo'a | water protectors | Yah Bishvat | זמירות zemirot | Isaiah 57 | Isaiah 58 | 59th Presidential Inauguration | Deuteronomy 6:4 | Psalms 148 | Deuteronomy 11:13-21 | Numbers 15:37-41 | 1994 Cave of the Patriarchs massacre | 2019 Israeli legislative election | 2020 coronavirus pandemic | 2020 United States racial reckoning | September 2020 Western United States wildfires | 20th century C.E. | 21st century C.E. | 58th century A.M.
Leila Gal Berner | Aharon N. Varady (transcription) | Phyllis Berman | the Shalom Center | the Mesorah (TaNaKh) | Unknown | David Seidenberg | Neohasid·org | Sarah Barasch-Hagans | Zalman Schachter-Shalomi | Mishkan Shalom | Jack Kessler (trōpification) | Zalman Schachter-Shalomi (translation) | Elat Chayyim Center for Jewish Spirituality | Isaac Gantwerk Mayer (translation) | Marcia Falk | Tamara Cohen | Yeshayahu ben Amōts
Blessing Group Torah Study with Brakhot, Ḳaddish, and Kavvanah, by Rabbi Arthur Waskow
Contributed by Arthur Waskow | the Shalom Center | ❧
What the Rabbis taught about teaching and learning was that all Torah study should begin and end with blessings, just as eating does. Often, in liberal Jewish circles today, these blessings are not done. But without them, it is easier for Torah study to feel like a mere academic discussion, devoid of spirit. And where the blessings are said but only by rote, it is easier for Torah study to feel merely antiquarian and automatic. In Jewish-renewal style, how can we bring new kavvanah — spiritual meaning, intention, focus, intensity — to these blessings — and therefore to the process of Torah study itself? . . .
