Tefillah Blog

Passages of Song

The Talmud states that one should first recount the praises of God and then pray.

The second section of the morning service is the P'sukei d'Zimrah the traditional beginning of the worship ritual and is made of praises and songs.

• Baruch She'amar
• 1 Chronicles 16:8-36
• Romemu
• Psalm 100
• (Shabbat will include additional Psalms)
• Y'hi Ch'vod
• Ashrei
• Psalms 146-150
• Psalms 89:53, 135:21, 72:18-19
• 1 Chronicles 29:10-13
• Nehemiah 9:6-14
• Exodus 14:30-15:18
• Psalm 22:29
• Obadiah 1:21
• Zechariah 14:9
• Nishmat Kol Chai
• Yishtabach Shimcha
• Chatzi Kaddish

I try to use some imagery in the form of a diagram or map of how the services are laid out from a spiritual perspective. This map shows that we first wake up and acknowledge the presence of God in our lives (originally performed at home). The worship service is like a journey up the mountain to God's presence. The praise section is like our climbing up the steps to His sanctuary. The Sh'ma section is our approaching His presence in His sanctuary. The Amidah section is our communion with God. The Torah section is our lingering in His sanctuary and exploring His words and recalling our history. The concluding section is our return to everyday life.

In class we also taught some popular Israeli folk dances as an ancient and tangible way of expressing praise to God. We may also create a video of one or two of these dances and post them to YouTube in the future.

Today we also heard from a distinguished scholar of Jewish and New Testament studies, Dr. Michael Cook. This week he has been the community's "scholar in residence" and delivered a number of highly thoughtful discussions on how Christianity relates to the Jewish community. Today's discussion with the school was about Christian missionary activity directed at Jews. 

Awaken

The first section of the traditional Morning Prayer service begins with the Birchot HaShachar (the Blessing of the Dawn) section which contains:

·         Mah Tovu

·         [donning the] Tallit [prayer shawl]

·         [donning] Tefillin [phylacteries]

·         Adon Olam

·         Yigdal

·         Asher Yatzar

·         Brachot for Torah study

·         Torah Study
Numbers 6:24-26
Mishnah Peah 1:1
Talmud Shabbat 127a

·         Elohai N'shama

·         Birchot HaShachar

·         Vihi Ratzon

·         Ribon Kol HaOlamim

·         Readings
Numbers 28:1-8
Leviticus 1:11
Mishnah Zevachim 5

·         Rabbi Ishmael's thirteen rules for interpreting Torah

·         Kaddish d'Rabbanan

·         Psalm 30

·         Kaddish Yatom

The morning ritual was at one time performed at home but as this was observed more infrequently this ritual was adopted into the morning synagogue services. The liturgy varies by denomination such as the 15 blessings that make up the "Birchot HaShachar" contain controversial brachot such as for "not making me a woman". Conservative liturgy changes this to "who made me in God's image" whereas Reform liturgy simply omits the bracha altogether.

As the first of six sections that make up the prayer cycle not only does this section apply to the morning ritual of waking up from slumber but also metaphorically to a spiritual awakening. Prayer is distinguished fundamentally from our rational thinking processes that consider the physical world by focusing on the spiritual realm. Chasidic tradition relates to living in a universe that is composed of a physical world and a spiritual world under one God (where the ideal is a balance of the two). The Birchot HaShachar section is thus an ideal way to begin the day reminding us of the two worlds we can choose to function in by recognizing the awakening of our physical and spiritual beings.

If prayer is our vehicle to communicate with God then Birkat HaShahar is the first step in preparing our consciousness to open our minds.

In class I presented the Book of Ruth as an example of how to deliver a project. Since the book is in narrative form with a lot of dialog and very short I chose to have the students act out the whole book with a script I put together. At the end of the story one of the students blurted out, “you mean Ruth is going to marry that old guy [Boaz]?”! I think they got it.

Afterwards the students worked on researching their books by using the Internet (Wikipedia, iTunes, YouTube) and the Temple library.

We then studied Birchot HaShachar including comparing different siddurim and practiced putting on the Tallit.

Siddur

The last Sunday's lesson was on the siddur (סידור) or Jewish prayerbook.

Different denominations have specific siddurim they use and often with newer or older versions in common use. Reform congregations typically use Gates of Prayer (but with a wider diversity of choices and the least traditional of the prayer books and services); conservative congregations often use Siddur Sim Shalom (which blends traditional and modernizing elements); modern orthodox congregations will often use the Artscroll Siddur (traditional services with some English); and Chasidic congregations use HaAri or Siddur Tehillat HaShem among Chabad (traditional with mystic emphasis). Many other variants exist but the differences are far outweighed by the similarities.

The siddur is a basic framework of liturgy that has developed over thousands of years with key prayers having crystallized around 2000 years ago before the Diaspora. The first printed prayerbooks were made around 500 years ago in Europe. The siddur reflects the shift from temple (sacrificial) service to communal prayer (synagogue) service. Someone who is familiar with the traditional prayer service will easily be able to recognize almost any prayer service from most any denomination around the world. Indeed my wife and I walked in to a traditional orthodox service in a suburb of Istanbul several years ago and despite our inability to understand Turkish we were able to participate in the service. The most modern services (such as Reconstructionist and Reform) are the least recognizable of the services but with careful attention the same basic structure is discernible although noticeably shortened.

There are four basic patterns made from the same six "building blocks" with some variations for holidays. Traditional practice calls for services three times daily:

Ma'ariv (evening service) consists of

1.     Warm up section (short meditation)

2.     Sh'ma section (ancient Jewish creed and preparation to speak to God)

3.     Amidah (ancient Jewish prayer service conducted while standing before God)

4.     Conclusion (reminders of God's greatness and societal concerns)

Shacharit (morning service) consists of:

1.     Wake up rituals (carryover from home rituals once observed widely)

2.     Warm up section (formally larger P'Sukei D'Zimrah or praise section)

3.     Sh'ma section (ancient Jewish creed and preparation to speak to God)

4.     Amidah (ancient Jewish prayer service conducted while standing before God)

5.     Torah section (reading from the Bible and remembering God's guidance and history)

6.     Conclusion (reminders of God's greatness and societal concerns)

Shabbat Shacharit (Sabbath morning service) consists of:

1.     Wake up rituals

2.     Warm up section (formally larger P'Sukei D'Zimrah or praise section)

3.     Sh'ma section

4.     Amidah (shortened version of the "18 blessings")

5.     Torah section (reading from the Bible and remembering God's guidance and history)

6.     Musaf (additional recitation of Amidah parallel to additional offerings of ancient temple worship)

7.     Conclusion (reminders of God's greatness and societal concerns)

Mincha (afternoon service and shortest of the services) consists of:

1.     Warm up section

2.     Amidah

3.     Torah section (shortened version)

4.     Conclusion

Each section is separated by a Kaddish prayer which sanctifies God.