TORAHTREK - Key Persons
Anthony Bloom was founder and for many years bishop - then archbishop, then metropolitan - of the Diocese of Sourozh, the Patriarchate of Moscow's diocese for Great Britain and Ireland. As a bishop he became well known as a pastor, preacher, spiritual director and writer on prayer and the Christian life.
The founder of Hasidism, the Baal Shem Tov, considers the inevitable ups and downs in one's spiritual life.
"To love YKVK your God, to go in all His ways and to cleave to Him" [Deuteronomy 11:22]:-We read regarding this [see Babylonian Talmud Sotah 14a] "Is it possible that one might bind oneself to Him? Is He not a consuming fire? Rather cleave to within His attributes. As He is compassionate, so, you be compassionate." Indeed one ought always to be able to serve the blessed Name with the enthusiasm of the heart; and this is the true cleaving to Him Whose Name is blessed. However, it is impossible that this be one's constant state. Rather, one moves toward it and then away, like [the movement of] a flame. And just as with fire, if one breathes oxygen into it, it first becomes nearly extinguished and then the fire becomes greater-and the fire itself is always rising and descending, being always in motion-so too, with one's enthusiasm. For constant pleasure ceases to be pleasurable. This, then, is the question raised by the Talmud [BT Sotah 14a]: Is he not a consuming fire?"-i.e., Isn't enthusiasm something that is not constant? Thus the answer given is "cleave to within His attributes"-referring to the letters of the Torah, for it is indeed possible to be always occupied with the letters [of the Torah]; and the Torah is the Divine Garment. Even when talking to people, bear in mind that the 22 letters that constitute the means of common speech are ultimately the substratum of the Torah.
In this teaching, the founder of Hasidism, Rabbi Israel ben Eliezer, the Baal Shem Tov, recognizes that one's passion for prayer and one's closeness to God cannot be equal at all times. Such is the human condition. But one can always engage in Torah study out of reverence for God, which hopefully re-establishes a sense of the Divine and rekindles one's enthusiasm for prayer. Rather than dwell in shame for the "failure" to maintain passion for God at all times, which can be paralyzing, one should direct his or her energies in a different, but still God-oriented, way.
We all know the importance of gratitude, but do we practice it? Cantor Ellen Dreskin speaks about starting the day with modeh ani, "I am thankful" and creating a daily gratitude practice.
Cantor Ellen Dreskin is a native Texan, a 1986 graduate of HUC-JIR School of Sacred Music, has a Master's Degree in Jewish Communal Service from Brandeis University, and is the Coordinator of the new Cantorial Certification Program at the Debbie Friedman School of Sacred Music at HUC-JIR in New York. A frequent Scholar-in-Residence at synagogues and workshop/prayer leader at national conferences, Cantor Dreskin served as the Director of Programs for Synagogue 2000, a national, not-for-profit institute dedicated to revitalizing and re-energizing synagogue life in North America.
She is married to Rabbi Billy Dreskin, and is extremely proud of their joint projects: Katie, Jonah (z"l), and Aiden.
Is prayer a form of talking? Must it involve words? A woman wrote to me, "I feel a deep desire to pray, but I cannot bring myself to use words. They seem unnecessary and silly." Oscar Wilde had similar doubts about his words. He once wrote, "I do not talk to God so as not to bore him."
Larry Dossey, M.D., is the former chief of staff at Humana Medical City Dallas and former co-chair of the panel on mind/body interventions for the National Institutes of Health. He is the author of many books, including Healing Words, Recovering the Soul, and Meaning and Medicine.
Named the most influential Rabbi in America by Newsweek Magazine and one of the 50 most influential Jews in the world by the Jerusalem Post, David Wolpe is the Rabbi of Sinai Temple in Los Angeles, California. He previously taught at the Jewish Theological Seminary of America in New York, the American Jewish University in Los Angeles, Hunter College, and UCLA. Rabbi Wolpe regularly writes for The LA Times, the Washington Post's On Faith website, The Huffington Post, and the New York Jewish Week, among others. He has appeared on the Today Show, Face the Nation, ABC This Morning, and CBS This Morning, and in series on PBS, A&E, the History channel, and the Discovery channel. Rabbi Wolpe is the author of eight books, including the national bestseller Making Loss Matter: Creating Meaning in Difficult Times. Rabbi Wolpe's new book, titled David, the Divided Heart, will be available from Yale University Press in November 2014.
Job Titles:
- Rabbi
- Rabbi Elie Kaplan Spitz Speaks on the Ripples of a Regular Prayer Practice
Rabbi Elie Kaplan Spitz speaks on the ripples of a regular prayer practice.
Elie Kaplan Spitz davens daily and usually begins with twenty minutes of meditation beforehand. He has served as Rabbi of Congregation B'nai Israel for twenty-five years and has served on the Conservative Movement's Committee of Law and Standards for sixteen. He is the author of two books with Jewish Lights Publishing: Does the Soul Survive: A Jewish Journey to Belief in Afterlife, Past Lives, and Living with Purpose; and Healing from Despair: Choosing Wholeness in a Broken World.
Rabbi Elliot Cosgrove reflects on prayer as a constitutive part of his identity, and community as a constitutive part of prayer.
Rabbi Elliot J. Cosgrove, Ph.D., a leading voice in the Conservative Movement, began his tenure at Park Avenue Synagogue in 2008. Ordained at The Jewish Theological Seminary, Rabbi Cosgrove earned his Ph.D. at the University of Chicago Divinity School. His dissertation on Rabbi Louis Jacobs, a leading Anglo-Jewish theologian of the 20th century, reflects his passion for the intersection of Jewish scholarship and faith. Rabbi Cosgrove is the author of five collections of selected sermons, including Hineni (2012), and A Place to Lodge (2013). He is also the editor of Jewish Theology in Our Time: A New Generation Explores the Foundations and Future of Jewish Belief (Jewish Lights), hailed as a provocative and inspiring collection of essays by leading rabbis and scholars.
In addition, Rabbi Cosgrove sits on the Chancellor's Cabinet of JTS and on the Editorial Board of Conservative Judaism. A member of the Executive Committee of the Rabbinical Assembly, he is also an officer of the New York Board of Rabbis and a member of the Board of UJA-Federation of New York. He serves as Rabbinical Advisor on Interfaith Affairs for the ADL and he is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.
Does it make sense to pray petitionary prayers, or pray at all, if you don't believe in a God who "decides" to grant or deny your wishes? Rab bi Dr. Jay Michaelson shares his approach, and places the question in the historical context of Jewish prayer.
Jay Michaelson is the founder of Nehirim. For the last ten years, Jay has been a leading advocate for the inclusion of sexual minorities in religious communities, and his work in this area has been featured on NPR, CNN, and the New York Times. Jay is also a contributing editor to the Forward, Associate Editor of Religion Dispatches magazine, and a regular contributor to the Huffington Post. In 2009, he was included on the Forward 50 list of the top-50 men and women leading the American Jewish community into the 21st century. He is the author of four books, including Evolving Dharma: Meditation, Buddhism, and the Next Generation of Englightenment and God vs. Gay? The Religious Case for Equality.
Job Titles:
- Rabbi
- Senior Rabbi of Temple Emanuel in Beverly Hills
Rabbi Laura Geller is the Senior Rabbi of Temple Emanuel in Beverly Hills. Prior to being chosen for this position in 1994, Rabbi Geller served 14 years as the Director of Hillel at the University of Southern California and then served as the Executive Director of the American Jewish Congress, Pacific Southwest Region. Among her accomplishments at AJCongress was the creation of the AJCongress Feminist Center, which became a model for other Jewish feminist projects around the county.
Rabbi Geller has been named one of Newsweek's 50 Most Influential Rabbis in America for two years in a row and received the California State Legislature's Woman of the Year Award. She was also featured in the PBS Documentary called "Jewish Americans." Author of many articles in journals and books, she is a frequent contributor to the Huffington Post and served on the Editorial Board of "The Torah: A Woman's Commentary," in which she has two essays. Rabbi Geller is a Fellow of the Corporation of Brown University from where she graduated in 1971. She was ordained by the Hebrew Union College in 1976, the third woman in the Reform Movement to become a rabbi. She is married to Richard A. Siegel, and she is the mother of Joshua and Elana Goldstein and the step-mother of Andy and Ruth Siegel.
Shimshon Raphael Hirsch (1808 - 1888) was a German rabbi best known as the father of the Torah im Derech Eretz school of contemporary Jewish thought and driving force behind modern, Orthodox Judaism.
In my experience, and in observing others, discussions about prayer gravitate almost immediately to speculation about God. Does God exist? Does God "answer" prayer? Lately, I haven't been thinking about the great mystery to Whom I pray. I've been thinking about where I pray from.
The former never gave good results, because thinking about God is often abstract and speculative. But thinking about the source of prayer within me has been fruitful, not because I remove God from the equation or take a narcissistic approach. Rather, I find that thinking about God does not connect me to God. But dwelling on the spiritual dynamics of prayer - focusing on how to create "God-moments" rather than dissecting "God-ideas" - helps to connect me to God on a regular basis.
I start a prayer session with two deliberate moves. First, instead of jumping into prayer, I drop into my body. I close my eyes and breathe deeply, taking a bath in my own awareness. Where do I feel tense and agitated? I breathe into points of tension. Sometimes I discover that I already feel calm and relaxed. But usually it takes some time to get there.
I try to get out of my own way, by letting go of my neurotic, thinking mind, so that I can listen to the stirrings of my heart without judgment or control. I try to create the space for truths to emerge that are usually covered by the busy routines of my life.
© Copyright by Rabbi Mike Comins. You are welcome to reprint this article in your local newspaper, email list, Temple Bulletin or other communication if the following is appended: "This article is provided by the Making Prayer Real eJournal at RabbiMikeComins.com, where you will find outstanding resources on Jewish prayer."
Rabbi Comins founded TorahTrek Spiritual Wilderness Adventures in 2001 while serving the Jackson Hole Chaverim in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. The community's first resident rabbi, Mike helped the Jackson Jewish community establish itself while developing TorahTrek. Rabbi Comins returned to Los Angeles in 2004, where he met his wife-to-be, Jody Porter. He continued to grow TorahTrek and turned it into a non-profit (2009), now called the Center for Jewish Wilderness Spirituality, in order to create TorahTrek's leadership training program, the Guides Track, and the TorahTrek eJournal, an online publication exploring the intersections between Judaism, wilderness, ethics and spirituality.
A Wild Faith: Jewish Ways into Wilderness, Wilderness Ways into Judaism appeared in 2007 and his second book, Making Prayer Real: Leading Jewish Spiritual Voices on Why Prayer is Difficult and What to Do about It (both Jewish Lights Publishing) was published in 2010. In each, Rabbi Comins developed his "spiritual dynamics" approach to learning and teaching Judaism as a spiritual practice. He has also contributed to numerous books and periodicals.
Rabbi Comins created the Making Prayer Real Website in 2012, which hosts the MPR eJournal, providing resources and innovative thinking on prayer and spiritual practice. He also morphed Making Prayer Real into an online course taught on the website. He then adapted the online MPR Course for use in synagogues and schools, interviewing some 50 leading, Jewish spiritual teachers on video along the way. Hosted by the HUC-JIR College Commons, the video-based course is taught throughout North America.
The expertise Rabbi Comins gained in website technology and online learning led to the creation of Lev Learning, a platform for online education.
Currently based in Plano, Texas, a suburb of Dallas, Rabbi Comins is focused on writing. He works as a Scholar-in-Residence for synagogues and churches, and supports teachers using the MPR Course curriculum. While TorahTrek no longer sponsors its own programs, he continues to lead nature and wilderness programs for synagogues and other organizations.
Job Titles:
- Rabbi
- Leader of the Prayer Project of the Institute for Jewish Spirituality
I am practicing getting quiet and still. This is the first part of my practice, and it is key. When my parade of discursive thoughts/stories, self-concerns, and ego habits calm down, I open to what is all around me. "Be still and know that I am God." (I do this by sitting down in a quiet, solitary and safe place, with the intention of engaging in prayer for a certain amount of time, undisturbed. And then I just sit, with the intention of allowing preoccupying thoughts, feelings, and sensations, but especially thoughts, to simply loosen their grip, lessen their volume, drain away. As I do so, I come into an experience of my consciousness as being less separate from everything else that is.
Rabbi Nina J. Mizrahi, ordained by HUC-JIR, describes herself as a "community rabbi," focused on guiding seekers through a journey of spiritual discovery. Meeting people where they are, she honors all learning styles through her multiple-intelligence approach to Jewish learning. Her own spirituality continues to evolve and is shaped by traditional and post/trans-denominational Judaism, science, nature and an integrated practice of leading a prayer-filled life. For Rabbi Mizrahi, prayer opens her heart to the Boundless One while cultivating everyday virtues and values
Can prayer transform us? Renowned Jewish thinker and scholar Rabbi Rachel Adler, PhD, explains the process. Focusing on self-change in our society is often self-centered. But prayer that touches transcendence, teaches Dr. Adler, can help us to feel the suffering of others without succumbing to despair.
Rabbi Rachel Adler, PhD is the Rabbi David Ellenson Professor of Jewish Religious Thought and Professor of Modern Jewish Thought and Feminist Studies at HUC-JIR/Los Angeles. She was one of the first theologians to integrate feminist perspectives and concerns into the interpretation of Jewish texts and the renewal of Jewish law and ethics. Her essay "The Jew Who Wasn't There," first published in 1971, is generally considered the first piece of Jewish feminist theology. She is the author of Engendering Judaism which won the National Jewish Book Award for Jewish Thought. She is the first female theologian to win this award.
Adler's academic credentials include a PhD in Religion and Social Ethics from the University of Southern California with a conjoint certificate in Judaica from Hebrew Union College, an M.A. in English Literature from Northwestern University, and a Masters degree in Social Work from the University of Minnesota. She was ordained as a rabbi by Hebrew Union College in Spring 2012.
Job Titles:
- Rabbi
- Join Rabbi Shefa Gold in Her Chant a Spirit of "Yes!", a Practice for Harnessing the Power of the Positive.
- Join Rabbi Shefa Gold in Her Chant from a Narrow Place, a Practice for Moving from a Place of Constriction to Spaciousness.
- Join Rabbi Shefa Gold in Her Chant Peace Like a River, a Practice for Becoming Truly Present and Finding Our True Generosity.
- Join Rabbi Shefa Gold in Her Chant through the Waters, a Practice for Times of Transition.
If you are new to Hebrew chant, please view an Introduction to Hebrew Chant and a Demonstration of the Practice of Hebrew Chant with Rabbi Shefa Gold.
Rabbi Sheila Peltz Weinberg is a Reconstructionist rabbi, educator, poet and nationally recognized pioneer in the field of Jewish mindfulness practice. A co-founder of the Institute for Jewish Spirituality, Rabbi Peltz Weinberg has taught mindfulness meditation, yoga and Hasidic literature to hundreds of rabbis, cantors, and lay leaders. She has written extensively on a variety of subjects including Jewish spirituality, social justice, feminism and parenting. Her first book, Surprisingly Happy: An Atypical Religious Memoir, describes her remarkable life and spiritual quest in poetry, written prayers and meditation practices, along with a candid examination of her own struggles and ideas about family life and relationships.
But Rabbi Hirsch likely had other writings on prayer, and I doubt he meant this to the contradiction of prayer from humans to God. Rather, he highlights one of the central dynamics of fruitful prayer. We pray not only, and for me not primarily, to change God, but to change ourselves. And while that task benefits from pouring our hearts out to God, it also requires listening, and being vulnerable, to what the tradition (through the Siddur) and God (in drawing us close through prayer) call us to be.