Prayer lesson 199: The Psalm for the Days of Awe, Psalm 27
From the beginning of the month of Elul through the [...]
Prayer lesson 198: “You sanctified…”: the middle blessing of the Friday night Amidah
All Amidah prayers (“amidot’) begin with the same three blessings, and end [...]
Prayer lesson 197: Time is on your side: The first blessing before the Sh’ma
Before and after we recite the Sh’ma, we reflect on [...]
Prayer lesson 196: Baruch She’amar—”Blessed be the One who brought the world into being.”
What do we think of when we hear the word [...]
Prayer Lesson 195: Trees obscure the forest until kiddush lunch: The structure of the service
I once took a class on how to explain our [...]
Prayer lesson 194: “Not one of them remained”
The blessing right after the Shma, and right before the [...]
Prayer Lesson 193: “Heal us and we will be healed, the 8th blessing of the weekday Amidah”
The opening line of this blessing is a variant on [...]
Prayer Lesson 192: “For the Righteous…”
The 13th blessing of the Amidah begins this way: “Let [...]
Prayer Lesson 191: Shema: the hard part
When I first began davening in earnest, in my late [...]
Prayer Lesson 190: On separating “challah” from the dough
In the ancient world, our ancestors would routinely take [...]