Night: Fear, Power, Divine Presence (Shekhinah)
Oct 29, 2013 By Samuel Barth | Commentary
Transitions are times of vulnerability, anxiety, even fear. The mezuzah guides us through the transition between our home and the outside world. The words of the challenging, non-Israelite Prophet Balaam welcome us into the synagogue: “Mah Tovu (How beautiful are your tents O Jacob).” I wrote several reflections on the prayer texts that support us from sleep to wakefulness, giving thanks for soul and body restored to strength and vitality for another day.
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Mizmor LeDavid (Psalm 23)—Time, Text, Melody
Oct 23, 2013 By Samuel Barth | Commentary
Psalm 23 is beloved in much of the English-speaking world for affirming a certainty of the divine presence—even in times of dread and adversity—in the most hauntingly beautiful language. The paean to the Psalm by 19th-century American pastor Henry Ward Beecher is widely cited.“The twenty third psalm is the nightingale of the Psalms. It is small, of a homely feather, singing shyly out of obscurity; but oh! it has filled the air of the whole world with melodious joy, greater than the heart can conceive” (Life Thoughts).
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Prayer: Invitation and Outcry
Oct 16, 2013 By Samuel Barth | Commentary
October is Domestic Violence Awareness Month (DVAM), with many organizations and agencies working together to spread awareness and the understanding that this scourge is endemic in modern society—and that no religion and no sector of society is exempt. My friend and colleague Rabbi Lisa Gelber, associate dean of The Rabbinical School of The Jewish Theological Seminary, was invited by FaithTrust Institute to write the “Universal Prayer” for the call of unity that opened DVAM, and the National Resource Center on Domestic Violence (which convened the call) then created artwork to frame the prayer on a flyer. The prayer has found wide acceptance and recognition.
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Words of Prayer: New and Old
Oct 9, 2013 By Samuel Barth | Commentary
“What Page Are We on in the Prayer Book Blues” is a lighthearted song made famous by a pair of Orthodox artists in the 1980s called the Megama Duo (start at 3 minutes and 22 seconds in the linked video). The song would never have become as (in)famous as it was if the experience of “not being able to find the place” was unfamiliar. But, on the contrary, we have all been there, and it’s good to laugh at, and with, ourselves. When we do find the place in our prayer books, we see lines and paragraphs and pages of text, and it is often hard to find ourselves in the words.
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Simhat Torah: Which Way When the Circle Ends
Sep 23, 2013 By Samuel Barth | Commentary | Simhat Torah
The annual celebration of Simhat Torah brings great joy to so many of us of all generations, and it is a fitting and triumphant conclusion to the long and multifaceted season of intense Jewish observance and focus that began (a little before Rosh Hashanah) with Selichot. In Israel and in congregations observing a single day of festivals, Simhat Torah is blended with Shemini Atzeret, offering the intense experience in the morning of Hallel, Hakkafot (processions with dancing) and Geshem (the prayer for Rain).
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Welcome Guests—Visible and . . .
Sep 16, 2013 By Samuel Barth | Commentary | Sukkot
The sukkah is fragile and temporary, yet stands as a symbol of joy and celebration. Rabbi Reuven Hammer, in his commentary Or Hadash (Siddur Sim Shalom, 331), reminds us of a debate about the meaning of Leviticus 23:43 (“You shall live in Sukkot for seven days . . . in order that future generations will recall that I made the Israelite People dwell in Sukkot when I brought them out of Egypt”): “Rabbi Eliezer said that [these sukkot] were clouds of glory and Rabbi Akiba said they were actual huts (B. Sukkah 11b).”
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Ne‘ilah: Final Closing, or Not Quite?
Sep 11, 2013 By Samuel Barth | Commentary | Yom Kippur
“P’tach lanu sha’ar” (Keep open the gate for us) are the words of a fragment of a piyyut attributed to Elazar Kallir (6th century, Land of Israel) [see the Rabbinical Assembly’s Mahzor Lev Shalem, 414].
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Zichronot (Memories)
Sep 3, 2013 By Samuel Barth | Commentary | Rosh Hashanah
In the three great themes of Rosh Hashanah, the encounter with memories (zichronot) is nestled between the power of sovereignty (malchuyot) and the triumphant, enigmatic sound of the shofar (shofarot). Zichronot reminds us that each of us is remembered, that our acts are significant, that we come, each of us individually, into the divine presence. In spite of the massive processing power of our machines, there are problems that cannot be solved—even if every computer on earth were to be harnessed in parallel.
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