Prayer Lessons

The great writer Jorge Luis Borges once wrote, “Don’t speak unless you can improve the silence.” The silent Amidah is [...]

The final blessing of the Amidah is the blessing of peace. It comes in two versions: sim shalom in the [...]

The most important words in any language are those that can’t be easily translated. “Modim,” which begins the 6th blessing [...]

The fifth blessing of the Shabbat amidah (which is the same as the 17th blessing of the weekday amidah) is [...]

All amidah prayers—weekday, Shabbat, holiday, high holiday—consist of the same three opening and closing blessings. The middle blessings vary with [...]

A prayer of consolation for Tisha B’Av This week, we will be commemorating the saddest day of the year, the [...]

Someone recently asked me if we have a prayer for light, the same way we have a prayer for peace. [...]

The high point of the amidah is found in the third blessing, the one that refers to the holiness of [...]

The second blessing of the Amidah is a praise of G-d’s power. Four times, it mentions the concept “techiat hametim,” [...]

The second blessing of the Amidah refers to manifestations of G-d’s power. One of those manifestations has to do with [...]

The first blessing of the Amidah begins in an odd fashion. As I mentioned last week, we bless the G-d [...]

We turn now to the Amidah, literally, the “standing prayer,” recited…wait for it…standing. It is, in many ways, the high [...]

Each day of the week, we recite a psalm linked specifically to that day. The links, however, are less than [...]

Before reciting the Ten Commandments, I first ask permission and approval To start with two or three stanzas in fear [...]

After introducing G-d as the Creator, and then the Revealer, the last blessing after the Shema goes on to talk [...]

Our recent prayer lessons have dealt with the Shema and its attendant blessings. But at a recent question and answer [...]

Immediately following the Shema, we read the blessing of redemption. This serves as the concluding crescendo of the series of [...]

Before we begin the Shema, we gather the four tzitzit of our tallit. The point at which we gather them [...]

When reciting the Shema without a minyan, we introduce the prayer with the words Kel melech ne’eman, “G-d is a [...]

The havdalah ceremony marks the transition from a sacred day (most often, Shabbat) to a less sacred day (most often, [...]

There’s something very peculiar about the fact that the single most important statement in all of Judaism begins with the [...]

After the call to prayer (barchu), the prayer about creation, and the prayer about revelation, comes the Shema, which opens [...]

As mentioned last week, the core of the service consists of two parts, the Shema (and its accompanying blessings) and [...]

After the Barchu, the call to prayer, we begin the core of the service. It consists of two parts: a) [...]