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Category: Prayerbook Musings

A Journey from Rosh Ha-Shanah to Yom Kippur (and back)

A Journey from Rosh Ha-Shanah to Yom Kippur (and back)

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We enter Rosh HaShanah with a powerful awareness that H’ is Other; the liturgy insistently employs the image of King, a majestic, all-powerful being that governs our destinies, weighs us in the balance, is unpredictable in judgments, and is barely approachable. The gulf is almost unbridgeable. יהוה מלך Ten days later, the Yom Kippur services conclude with the exultant cry, repeated seven times, “H’ is All,*” in which we proclaim the Unity of all Being. God and the world, Creator…

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Older Musings

Older Musings

August 26: Prayer before going to sleep בְּיָדוֹ אַפְקִיד רוּחִי, בְּעֵת אִישַׁן וְאָעִֽירָה. וְעִם רוּחִי גְּוִיָּתִי, יְיָ לִי וְלֹא אִירָא. The Sh’ma al ha-Mittah (the Jewish bed-time prayer service) demands of us that we not slip mindlessly into slumber, but rather make conscious the transition from the active, daytime world, of business, of relationship, in which we have relative control over our lives, to the realm of sleep, in which we have none, are powerless. It opens with a dramatic…

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