Asher Yatzar (the “bathroom blessing”, traditionally said every morning and after every time one goes to relieve oneself) has always rung hollow to me, at best, and at worst has been a prayer not celebrating beauty but highlighting pain. The original version praises bodies whose nekavim nekavim ḥalulim ḥalulim (“all manner of ducts and tubes”) are properly opened and closed—yes, in a digestive/excretory sense, but it is quite easy to read a reproductive sense into it as well. What do you do if the “ducts and tubes” in your body are not properly opened and closed, what if one is open that should be closed, or vice versa? . . .

Haggadah Shir Ge’ulah, the Song of Liberation, is a new Haggadah for Passover. It is at once traditional and radical, featuring egalitarian Hebrew and English, full transliteration, progressive theology, and a focus on modern issues of oppression and liberation. It is my hope that this Haggadah will elicit questions from all participants, and that everyone will find something in it to challenge them: both people steeped in Jewish learning and used to traditional texts, and also people who are new to the Passover seder or are coming from different worldviews and ideologies. . . .

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). . . .

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. . . .

This kavvanah preceding the great vidui, appears in מַחְזוֹר בִּרְכַּת שָׁלוֹם Maḥzor Birkat Shalom, an egalitarian Rosh haShanah & Yom Kippur maḥzor (Havurat Shalom 2014/2022). The kavvanah was composed by Reena Kling ז״ל, and translated into Hebrew by Emily Aviva Kapor, with editing by Aliza Arzt. . . .

This prayer for rain, adapted by Rabbi Emily Kapor-Mater in 2013, appears in סִדּוּר בִּרְכַּת שָׁלוֹם Siddur Birkat Shalom, an egalitarian Shabbat morning siddur (Havurat Shalom 1991/2021), in the “Holiday Prayers” section, pp. 197-202. . . .