This is an archive of prayers collected around the practice of teshuvah, a commitment to self-correction built upon developing self-awareness, social awareness, and empathic concern and consideration for the needs of others. Filter resources by Name Filter resources by Tag Filter resources by Category
“The Pious Man” is a prayer-poem from Mordecai Kaplan’s diary entry, September 19, 1942, on the virtue of piety as expressed in an essay published earlier that year by Abraham Joshua Heschel. Piety was a Roman virtue, but in this essay, A.J. Heschel appears to be describing an idealization of Ḥasidut. . . . A prayer-poem by Rabbi Mordecai Kaplan based on the writings of Rabbi Leo Baeck, as published in the Sabbath Prayer Book (Jewish Reconstructionist Foundation 1945), p.426-7. . . . “That Religion Be Not a Cloak for Hypocrisy,” by Rabbi Mordecai Menaḥem Kaplan can be found on p. 435-5 of his The Sabbath Prayer Book (New York: The Jewish Reconstructionist Foundation, 1945). . . . Tags: 20th century C.E., 58th century A.M., communal shame, corruption, difference disagreement and deviance, English vernacular prayer, false piety, חלול ה׳ Ḥillul Hashem, improper use of the crown, inclusion and exclusion, labor exploitation, Psalms 5, religious hypocrisy, tolerance and intolerance “Apologia on the Sabbath” by Rabbi Morrison David Bial was first published in his anthology, An Offering of Prayer (1962), p. 31, from where this prayer was transcribed. . . . “Thou Who Art Spirit” by Rabbi Morrison David Bial was first published in his anthology, An Offering of Prayer (1962), p. 54, from where this prayer was transcribed. . . . Avi Dolgin shares his mindful practice for maintaining “tashlikh consciousness” in the days leading up to Rosh Hashanah. . . . This liturgy is based on the traditional public confession of sins on Yom Kippur and is meant to complement the existing al ḥet found in the maḥzor. This prayer written by Rabbi Ed Feld in 2007 for Yom Kippur 5768 was first published at the website of RHR-NA (now T’ruah). . . . A prayer of forgiveness to convey to one’s inner and vulnerable self during the period of sometimes unrelenting and harsh introspection prior to the blessing for rain. . . . Tags: 21st century C.E., 58th century A.M., על חטא Al Ḥeyt, Correspondence as prayer, Correspondence to self, New York, North America, Prayers to self, סליחות səliḥot, וידוי vidui, זמן תשובה Zman teshuvah A poem with perspective by Eli Steier. . . . A disproportionate amount of the alarming gun violence in Chicago takes place on the South Side, yet the South Side lacks even a single level one adult trauma center. Consequently, gunshot victims sometimes minutes from death must be transported miles away to Downtown or North Side hospitals. In 2010, after Damien Turner, an 18-year-old resident of the South Side Woodlawn neighborhood, died waiting for an ambulance to drive him ten miles to a downtown hospital instead of two blocks to the University of Chicago Medical Center (UCMC), a grassroots collaboration of community organizations, faith leaders, and University of Chicago student groups began organizing the Trauma Center Coalition, dedicated to reopening a Level 1 adult trauma center at UCMC, the most well-resourced hospital on the South Side. So far, the university has refused. As part of the coalition’s ongoing campaign, last week [April 23, 2015], dozens of activists gathered on the university’s historic Midway field, for a vigil of prayer and song from different faith traditions. At dusk, participants lit candles to spell out “Trauma Center Now”, right across from the home of U. Chicago President Robert Zimmer, and then camped out for the night. As a representative of coalition partner Jewish Council on Urban Affairs, I was invited to offer a Jewish prayer, which is reproduced here; I read it in both the English and Hebrew. . . . Vidui means acknowledgment. It is not about self-flagellation or blame, but about honesty, coming into contact with our lives, our patterns and experiences, and ultimately about teshuva and learning. In contacting the pain and suffering which our modes of being have given rise to, our regret can help us to willfully divest ourselves of them and awaken the yearning for those modes of being which are life-affirming, supportive of wholeness, connection, integrity, and flourishing. With each one we tap on our heart, touching the pain and closed-heartedness we have caused, and simultaneously knocking on the door that it may open again. . . . A thought about the need to seek forgiveness from those you’ve wronged during this week before Yom Kippur: . . . Today I turned my heart toward the new year and wrote a prayer-poem for Tashlikh, the Rosh haShanah ritual of casting bread or stones into the water to cast off one’s past wrongdoings. . . . |
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