Contributed by: Aharon N. Varady (translation), Jonathan Schachter, Unknown
An egalitarian liturgical innovation for the ḥatimah of the first blessing of the Amidah, magen avot in which the divine is described as the fortress of Sarah.
Contributed by: Jonathan Schachter
A prayer offered immediately following the Omer count for those who find it difficult or problematic to simply ask for a return to the days of animal sacrifice in the Beit HaMiqdash, and who long for reconciliation, sensitivity and peaceful coexistence between and among all Jews and the other Peoples of the Earth (as well as all living creatures!), as envisioned by the Prophets.
Contributed by: Aharon N. Varady (translation), Jonathan Schachter
In the period following the second destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem, rabbinic Jewish liturgy reïfied the teaching to replace sacrificial offerings with offerings of the lips (per Psalms 51:18) by directly quoting those verses from the Torah dictating those sacrifices. This formula is evident in the the blessing meqadesh hashabbat for the musaf Shabbat Amidah, in which the musaf offering is invoked directly via Numbers 28:9, while blessing Hashem, hallower of the Shabbat. For this blessing, my ḥavrutah Jonathan Schachter would remind those davvening with him musaf that they could follow the recitation of this verse with that of Hosea 14:3, our oldest scriptural witness to a counter-tradition of prayer as a surrogate for animal sacrifice. We offer this amendment to the Shabbat musaf Amidah as a corrective to the notion that the return of the Temple cult must necessarily bring a return of animal sacrifice and to bolster long extant Jewish traditions that regard with love and dignify with inclusion all those tame animals (behemot) within our shabbat boundaries as respected members of our community (find Deuteronomy 5:14).

