JEWISH RITUAL — 4.3 (Tefillin)

THE BASICS OF USING TEFILLIN EACH DAY

Tefillin are worn each morning (except on the Sabbath and holidays) and during the afternoon on Tisha B'Av (a summer holiday commemorating the destruction of the ancient Temples). With a special formula of blessing, they are usually put on at the very beginning of the morning prayer service and kept on through its conclusion. First comes a meditation to help us get spiritually focused on the task. Some use words that spring from their hearts. Others utter prayers that are included in most prayer books. This is one of my favorites, penned by Rabbi Rami Shapiro:

I welcome this morning in peace; opening my heart to wonder and feeling the presence of God around and within me. I reach out and connect with all those who lift their souls in prayer, adding my voice to theirs in a choir of  peace and healing.

Then the arm is placed through the loop of the tefillin. We pause and say a blessing before wrapping the arm:

Barukh ata Adonai Eloheynu Melekh ha-olam asher kidshanu bemitzvotav vetzivanu lehaniach tefillin.

Praised are You, Adonai our God, Sovereign of the universe, who has made us holy with mitzvot and instructed us to wrap tefillin.

We temporarily wrap the remaining length of strap around the hand and pause so that we can place the head tefillah (singular) where it belongs, on the forehead. We pause once again for a second blessing, much like the first, followed by a statement of affirmation:

Barukh ata Adonai Eloheynu Melekh ha-olam asher kidshanu bemitzvotav vetzivanu al mitzvat tefillin.

Praised are You, Adonai, our God, Sovereign of the universe, who has made us holy with mitzvot and instructed us concerning the mitzvah of tefillin. 

Barukh Shem kavod malchuto l'olam vaed.

Praised is God's name whose sovereignty endures forever.

Then as we unwrap the loosely wrapped hand and wrap it again in a particular way around the fingers and hand, we recite words from the prophet Hosea:

Ve'ayrastikh lee l'olam ve'ayrastikh lee betzedek u'mishpat u'vchesed u'vrachamin ve'ayrastikh lee be'emunah veyda'at at Adonai.

I will betroth you to Me forever. I will betroth you to Me with righteousness, with justice, with kindness and with compassion. I will betroth you to Me with faithfulness, and you shall know God.

—HOSEA 2:21-22

It is one complete sequence of rituals, done without interruption.

Tefillin are wrapped around your weaker arm. Therefore, right-handed people wrap them around the left arm, and left-handed around the right arm. While the manner in which they are wrapped differs slightly in some communities (for example, some wind clockwise while others wind counterclockwise), the straps of the tefillin symbolically spell out the letters that form a name of God (Shaddai/Almighty; note that shaddaim is the Hebrew word for "breasts," emphasizing the nurturing aspect of God).

Each tefillah contains four excerpts from the Scriptures, but the order and placement of these biblical texts differs for each one. In the tefillah for the arm, all four section appear together on one piece of specially prepared parchment, written by hand with special ink. On the head tefillah, the excerpts are written on four separate pieces of parchment and separated into sections.

CHRISTIAN PRAYER-TOOL PARALLELS

There is one mention in the New Testament of tefillin. In the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus makes a comment about the phylacteries that the Pharisees in the Temple are wearing: "The scribes and the Pharisees sit on Moses's seat; therefore, do whatever they teach you and follow it; but do not do as they do, for they do not practice what they teach... They do all their deeds to be seen by others; for they make their phylacteries nroad and their fringes long" (Matthew 23:2-3,5). The comment seems to reflect contempt for those who wear tefillin as an outward sign of piety but who are far from pious in their actions. Interestingly, some scholars do not read this as a rejection of the ritual practice of tefillin. On the contrary, they see this as Jesus literally telling his followers that their tefillin should not be as broad as the Pharisees'. If Jesus himself donned tefillin (a distinct possibility), then the two traditions might have been much closer in practice had the early church sought to emphasize its ties with Judaism rather than playing up its differences.

Christian tradition does not have a close parallel for the donning of tefillin, although the physicality of the tefillin may remind some of the rosary beads that Catholics use for prayer. Traced back to the ninth century, the rosary is used by Roman Catholics and Anglicans to focus their prayers or meditations.

At a deeper level, what the rosary and the tefillin have in common is the desire for a tactile sensation of prayer. Both of these rituals allow you to literally feel prayer in your hands and on your body. This physicality may be a natural impulse for people who pray regularly. Both of these rituals allow the body to pray, as it were, with the mind and the soul.

[...go to the next Jewish Ritual post =>]

[<= go back to Jewish Ritual 4.2]

JEWISH RITUAL — 4.2 (Tefillin)

TEFILLIN: MY OWN EXPERIENCE

by Kerry M. Olitzky

While the practice of putting on tefillin has been part of the (solely) male Jewish experience for many generations, tefillin were not a constant part of my own life. My traditional grandfathers used them daily—they were even buried with them. My own father used tefillin as a young adult, but I have no recollection of ever seeing him put them on.

My own daily spiritual practices grew as I passed into adulthood, but tefillin remained foreign to me. Nonetheless, I purchased for each of my sons a pair of tefillin for their bar mitzvah (a Jewish rite of passage for thirteen-year-old boys), gifts brought back from annual trips to Israel. I wanted them to have this ritual opportunity that had passed me by in my youth. Something deeply embedded in my soul yearned for expression through tefillin, though I did not know how to articulate it and did not realize that I could give it voice by simply putting them on. Instead, like so many other things we do as parents, I tried to express myself vicariously through my children.

And then my boys, prompted by their involvement in our local synagogue youth group and the conventions and trips in which they participated, started getting up early each day to put on tefillin before going to school. There was no internal debate, no one there to question their motives or practice. Sleepily, they would wake early and lovingly wrap these leather straps around their young and innocent arms and heads as inoculation against the world's callousness. I pretended to pass their rooms each morning for different reasons, but the real reason remained the same: I was taken by the expression on their faces that accompanied their daily practice. Tefillin helped center the roller-coaster ride of adolescence that they endured each day. "Perhaps it might help center me as well," I thought. So, one morning, I added the practice of tefillin to my daily morning routine.

It was awkward at first. I knew the rules and the how-to of the wrapping technique. I knew the laws and texts. But they had become somewhat irrelevant. I knew that routines take time to develop and I had to work out my own. Like new physical exercises that are peculiar at first, the fluidity of this practice was slow in coming, so I worked at it each day, carefully binding myself in the leather straps and prayer boxes, concentrating and focusing, avoiding the distractions of the emerging day. In some ways, these first days of laying tefillin were among the most honest ritual practices in which I have ever engaged. The practice of tefillin demanded my attention, for it did not come naturally or easily. I could not multitask as I did it or do it half-heartedly. After all, I was attempting to make contact with God.

After my morning prayers are finished and I remove the tefillin, telltale signs of the practice are left behind—reddened skin indentations on the arm and forehead, and a messy head of hair. But these are not disconcerting. Rather, I find these signs comforting as I look in the mirror and finish the process of readying myself for the day. I am proud of these marks, and I sometimes look for them on others as I encounter them on my way to work. This may remind Christians of the feeling they have following Ash Wednesday service, when they have ash on their foreheads and wonder "Should I wash it off, or am I supposed to leave it there all day?" In a similarly physical way, through my tefillin practice I remind myself daily of God's presence in my life, the nearness of the Divine, and the inspiration and guidance that I constantly seek.

Each morning I get up, get mostly dressed, and put on my tallit (prayer shawl) and tefillin before finishing my morning routine and rushing off to work. Sometimes I get up a little earlier, stow my tallit and tefillin in my briefcase, and make a stop at a neighborhood synagogue or one near my office for morning prayers. I also keep a set of tefillin in my office, which is particularly helpful in winter, when I often get to my office before the sun is up. As personal as the practice of tefillin is for me, I often yearn for a greater sense of community. I feel better when I join with others in a practice that makes me feel like a disciplined Jew. And I get particular joy from helping a new person who has joined us, awkwardly struggling with the practice, not wanting to ask for help or appear unsure about what to do.

So I gain a significant measure of spiritual fulfillment through my discipline. In an odd sort of way, it is a feeling similar to the one I get after forcing myself on the treadmill each evening, knowing how much better I will feel at the end of my workout, even if I dream up lots of excuses not to do it in the first place.

[...continues onto the next post =>]

[<= go back to Jewish Ritual 4]

JEWISH RITUAL — 4 (Tefillin)

PUTTING ON TEFILLIN

(PRAYER BOXES)

Bind them as a sign on your hand and let them serve as a symbol on your forehead.

—DEUTERONOMY 6:8

THE BASICS OF USING TEFILLIN

Phylacteries. Black leather boxes. Laying tefillin. Wrapping the straps. These are words and phrases that refer to the admittedly peculiar Jewish practice of literally binding ourselves with the word of God by wrapping a black leather strap – attached to a specially made matching leather prayer box – around the arm and hand. A separate strap with a slightly larger box is wrapped around the forehead – straps left dangling on the side, draped around the neck, hanging down in front. This is what is referred to by the general term tefillin (Israeli Hebrew: [tfiˈlin], תפילין), a plural Hebrew word that emerges from the root word for prayer, tefillah. In these boxes are contained essential Jewish prayer texts, taken from the Torah, teachings that bind us to God. Putting on tefillin is a ritual act that reflects faithfulness and is based in biblical instruction. In addressing the ancient Israelites, this is the way that the Bible frames it:

Pay attention, Israel! Adonai is our God, Adonai alone. You should love Adonai your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your substance. Take to heart these instructions with which I charge you this day. Impress them on your children. Recite them when you stay at home and when you are away, when you lie down and when you get up. Bind them as a sign on your hand and let them serve as a symbol on your forehead, inscribe them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.

—DEUTERONOMY 6:4-9

The preceding text from Deuteronomy, one of the four texts written on parchment and actually encased in the tefillin, is from the creedal prayer called the Shema, which contains within it the commandment to wear tefillin. The Rabbis of the Talmud maintain that if you say the Shema without wearing tefillin, you are a liar. Since the Shema prayer includes the commandment for tefillin and the essence of wearing tefillin and saying the Shema is the same – to recognize God's power – if you did one without the other, you would be inconsistent, and thus a liar.

FOLLOWING GOD'S INSTRUCTIONS FOR YOUR LIFE

Another of the four texts contained in the tefillin is the second paragraph of the Shema prayer. These verses do not use the word tefillin; rather, they literally say to wear "symbols" between the eyes. Jewish tradition has always taken the Hebrew word for "symbols", totafot, as referring to tefillin. But Jewish practice is to wear the tefillin on the forehead and not exactly between the eyes, as the Bible suggests. The Rabbis of the Talmud explore this point in depth and conclude that between the eyes is too small an area; therefore, the Scriptures must mean the place where you can make a bald spot, that is, the forehead:

If you obey the instructions that I give you today, loving Adonai your God and serving God with all your heart and soul, I will grant the rain for your land in season, the early rain and the late. You will gather in your new grain, wine, and oil—I will also provide grass in the fields for your cattle. Thus, you will eat your fill. Take care not to be lured away to serve other gods and bow to them. For God's anger will flare up against you, and God will shut up the skies so that there will be no rain and the ground will not yield its produce; and you will soon perish from the good land that God is assigning to you. Therefore impress my words on your very heart; bind them as a sign on your hand and let them serve as a symbol on your forehead, and teach them to your children – reciting them when you stay at home and when you are away, when you lie down and when you get up; and inscribe them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates – to the end that you and your children may endure, in the land that Adonai promised to your ancestors to assign to them, as long as there is a heaven over the earth.

—DEUTERONOMY 11:13-21

The practice of putting on tefillin is a concrete response to the instructions from the Bible to "bind them as a sign upon your hand and let them serve as a symbol on your forehead." Wearing tefillin is a reminder of our responsibilities to God in appreciation for setting us free from Egyptian slavery, Tefillin are wrapped around the arm to remind us of God's "outstretched arm" and God's "mighty hand" – phrases in the Bible that describe God saving Israel from the Egyptians. By recalling God's power in saving ancient Israel from Egypt, we daily remind ourselves of God's power to save us from spiritual and physical enslavement.

By literally binding God's word to the arms, we give unique physical expression to the abstract notion of inviting the Divine into our life for inspiration and guidance. Laying tefillin (a Yiddish expression for putting them on) is the way practicing Jews begin each day; it is part of the morning prayers and serves as a foundation for the hours that follow.

[...continues onto the next post =>]

[<= go back to Jewish Ritual 3.2]

JEWISH RITUAL — 3.2 (Tallit)

HOW THE TZITZIT ARE USED DURING PRAYER AND AT OTHER TIMES

Sh'ma Yisrael Adonai Eloheinu Adonai Ecḥad

"Hear, O Israel: the LORD is our God, the LORD is One." 

The tzitzit are used at various times during a service. Just before reciting the Shema prayer, those at prayer gather together the four tzitziot (plural of tzitzit) and hold them, using them to cover the eyes during recitation. Some people suggest that this symbolically helps worshippers focus on the unity of God, and gives them a special awareness that helps them concentrate on the words of the prayer. It is customary to kiss the tzitzit during recitation of Numbers 15:37-41, when the word tzitzit is mentioned as part of the Shema prayer.

Jewish people also use the tzitzit as a way of kissing the Torah during its procession around the synagogue before and after its reading. It is also a custom to take the tzitzit and lift them toward the Torah when it is raised following its public reading. When called up for a Torah honor (the blessing before and after the Torah reading), it is customary to take the fringes and touch the section of the scroll about to be read, kiss the tzitzit, and then recite the blessing before the reading. This procedure is repeated following the reading and before the second blessing.

Traditionally, men are buried in their tallit with a tzitzit cut to make it ritually unfit, since one should not bury a ritual object that is still able to be used. The tallit follows you from birth to death; it is often used to wrap a baby during the ritual of brit milah (circumcision) or baby naming (for girls), and it is often draped across the casket during a funeral. Although the tallit accompanying a deceased person is no longer fit for use, Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz says that it still offers a kind of divine protection for the perilous journey he or she may face.

The tallit is sometimes used as a chuppah (marriage canopy). In addition, it is worn by those carrying the Torah scrolls during the Torah procession in the synagogue prior to and after its reading, as well as on Simchat Torah, the holiday celebrating the completion of the yearly cycle of Torah reading.

WOMEN AND WEARING A TALLIT

In writing an introduction on Jewish rituals, we run the risk of giving readers the mistaken impression that, because we state things in a direct manner, the issues we address are relatively free from complication. For example, women in liberal synagogues may wear a tallit if they choose, while women in Orthodox synagogues are not allowed to wear a tallit – plain and simple. Well, actually not so simple.

Throughout history, some Orthodox Jewish scholars have argued for allowing women to wear talliot (plural of tallit). The Talmud (Menachot 33b) records a debate on this subject between two Rabbis: one permits women to wear a tallit and the other does not. While no one knows who won the debate, we can see that, almost two thousand years ago, some women were doing something that is not permitted today in many circles. In fact, the great medieval Jewish scholar Maimonides wrote in his collection of Jewish law that women may wear tzitzit if they so desire (Hilkhot Tzitzit 3:9). They are not obligated to do so, as men are, but they are not prohibited from doing so either. Orthodox women today do not wear a tallit because of religious and cultural norms. But because there is some basis in Jewish sources for women wearing a tallit, there may yet come a time in the Orthodox world when this becomes accepted practice.

CHRISTIAN PARALLELS TO WEARING TZITZIT

Just as with the wrapping of tefillin, the Gospels suggest that Jesus himself wore tzitzit (on a tallit). The Gospel of Mark says that the ill would grab hold of "the fringe of his garment" (Mark 6:56, and in particular also the passage of  the bleeding woman, Matthew 9:20–22, Mark 5:25–34, Luke 8:43–48, etc.). The word used for "fringe" in this passage, the Greek word kraspedon, is also the word used for tzitzit.* Thus, some scholars infer that Jesus, as a ritually observant Jew, wore tzitzit.

Despite this mention in the Gospel, the practice of wearing tallit katan did not become a part of the early Christian tradition, and remains rather unique to Judaism, since it represents a way of literally wrapping yourself in God's commandments and acknowledging God's constant presence in your life. There are, however, come Christian parallels to the practice: many Christians wear a cross around their neck at all times, affirming their faith in Jesus; others wear the medal of a particular saint as an acknowledgement of God's presence in their life and the values represented in the saint's life; some members of monastic orders wear a scapular under their clothing – a small, woollen cloth that reflects, as the tallit does, a constant commitment to religious values; and some churches, particularly independent apostolic churches, have chosen to use liturgical vestments very similar to the tallit, which are seen as related to the original priestly garb of the ancient Temple in Jerusalem.

Another interesting Christian parallel to the wearing of a tallit comes from the Church of Latter Day Saints (the Mormons). Just as a tallit katan is worn under clothing, Mormon tradition holds that followers wear a special garment beneath their clothes. Some speculate that this practice originated because the founder of the Mormon Church studied Hebrew with an observant Jew. Similar to the rabbinic story related previously – about the man whose tallit keeps him from sleeping with a prostitute – there is a Mormon story that says this special garment keeps a man from sleeping with a woman who tries to seduce him, only to eventually marry her after she becomes a pious woman.
____________________
* Paula Fredriksen, Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews, (Vintage Books, 2000), 109.

[...go to the next Jewish Ritual post =>]

[<= go back to Jewish Ritual 3]

JEWISH RITUAL — 3 (Tallit)

WRAPPING THE TALLIT

(PRAYER SHAWL)*

Speak to the Israelites and tell them they should make fringes on the corners of their garments for generations: they should place a twisted thread of blue on the corner fringes... When you see it, you will remember all of the instructions of God and you will do them. You will not follow after your heart and after your eyes by which you are seduced. Thus you shall be reminded to do all My commandments and be holy to your God.

—NUMBERS 15:38-40

THE BASICS OF WEARING A TALLIT

In one simple, straightforward statement, the Bible make clear its instructions to wear a garment with fringes on it: "You shall make for yourself fringes (tzitzit) and the four corners of your clothing with which you cover yourself" (Deuteronomy 22:12). The fulfillment of this commandment to wear tzizit (fringes) takes the form today of a small, four-cornered, fringes garment (called a tallit katan, "small tallit") worn under one's clothing; and a specially designed shawl (called a tallit gadol, "large tallit") worn over one's clothing during morning prayers.

The tallit katan is the less well known of the two forms because it is worn, for the most part, only by Orthodox men. It is put on in the morning and worn all day. While it is generally worn under other clothes, some let the tzitzit of the tallit katan hang out from underneath whatever they are wearing. Others choose to wear it over their other clothes as an outer garment.

The tallit gadol, generally referred to simply as a tallit, is worn by Jews of all movements every day during morning prayers. On only one occasion of the year is the tallit gadol worn at night – on Yom Kippur (the Day of Atonement), the most sacred holiday of Judaism. Normally the tallit gadol is wrapped around the shoulders, but some people cover their heads with the tallit during the recitation of the Amidah prayer (which forms the core of each prayer service). This allows us to withdraw from the congregation in personal prayer even as we are in the midst of others. The tallit is commonly worn by the service leader during afternoon and evening services as well.

WHY WEAR A TALLIT?

We wear the tallit to constantly remind ourselves to stay away from sin, and to aspire to holiness at all times. This first aspect – the avoidance of sin – is seen in a colorful talmudic story (Menachot 44b) about a man who desires to sleep with a prostitute, known throughout the land for her beauty and wealth. Before he goes ahead with this plan, though, the fringes of his tallit miraculously rise up and slap him in the face to remind him that he is straying from the right path. Upon seeing the man's piety and self-control, the prostitute recognizes the error of her ways, repents, and marries him.

Christian readers may be surprised to learn that a story in the writings of the Rabbis concerns visiting a prostitute, but the Talmud is quite explicit about the necessary role of sexuality in our lives. This story is, however, more about piety than sex. It is admittedly fanciful, but its hyperbole spotlights the power of the tallit: it slaps us on the face as a constant reminder to stay on the proper moral path.

The other aspect of the tallit – to remind us to aspire to holiness – is woven into the material of the tallit itself. The Rabbis of the Talmud tell us that the fringes of the tallit are made of a blend of linen and wool, a combination that the Bible prohibits (Deuteronomy 22:11). You should, of course, presume that the tallit would be made from anything but a prohibited material. But the Rabbis understood that garments of linen and wool were prohibited because the priests in the holy Temple wore this mix of material and it would be presumptuous to wear priestly garb. However, the Rabbis decreed that we are allowed to wear a small symbol of priestly clothing, to remind all of Israel to strive for the level of holiness associated with the priesthood.

By putting on tzitzit (also called tallit katan) each morning, we perform a concrete ritual to remind us throughout the day of our personal covenant with God. In a very intimate way, we renew this covenant each morning afresh. The practice of donning a tallit may remind some Christians of the cross worn on a chain around the neck or, for young people, the WWJD? bracelets.

The tallit katan that is worn under clothing also reminds us of the holiness of the body. When the Bible says that each person is created in the image of God, this does not mean that God looks like a human being. It means that our bodies and spirits are holy. By wearing a holy garment next to our skin, we are reminded of this profound notion, and we can feel, in a very physical way, that we are created in the image of God.

There is another rationale for wearing a tallit that comes from Jewish mystical sources. Rabbi Yehuda Leib Alter of Ger, a nineteenth-century leader of the Hasidic tradition (a revolutionary movement within Judaism that originated in Eastern Europe in the eighteenth century), says that we wrap ourselves in a tallit "to unite with the root of Oneness." The four corners of the tallit, according to the Rabbi of Ger, are symbolic of the four corners of the universe, and wearing the tallit symbolizes bringing together the corners of the world into one place and one being. This gathering together of separate things is a form of unification, an act of oneness connecting us, as wearers of the tallit, with the Oneness at the root of our soul.

Moving from the symbolic to a more practical level, the tallit gadol that is worn during morning prayers can also enhance the focused, meditative concentration in prayer, what is called kavanah  (כַּוָּנָה; in Biblical Hebrew kawwānā – literally, "direction," as in turning your thoughts in the direction of heaven during prayer). By simply pulling the tallit gadol over the head, a person at prayer can block out the world's distractions. We can be in a synagogue full of people or at home while family members rush around in the morning to get ready for school or work, yet by donning a tallit gadol, we feel that we are standing alone before God.
____________________
* Some of the material in this chapter is based on "Tallit and Tallit Katan" by Haviva Ner-David in The Rituals and Practices of a Jewish Life: A Handbook for Personal Spiritual Renewal.(Jewish Lights Publishing, 2002), 23-40.

[...continues onto the next post =>]

[<= go back to Jewish Ritual  2.3]

JEWISH RITUAL — 2.3 (Prayer)

PRAYER AND MEDITATION

One of the alternative modes of daily prayer that has gained renewed attention in recent years is Jewish meditation. Judaism has a long tradition of meditative techniques, most of which as associated with Kabbalah – Jewish mysticism. Some scholars contend, however, that meditation has historically been part of mainstream Jewish practice. Avram Davis, a leading contemporary practitioner and teacher of Jewish meditation, suggests that the word tefillah   (Hebrew: תְּפִלָּה, [tefiˈla] prayer) was actually used by the Rabbis of the Talmud to mean both prayer and simple meditation: "When they [the Rabbis] use the term tefillah, they can easily be referring to either meditation or prayer or possibly to both. It is both a strength and a weakness of modernity that we feel so sharply the need to differentiate between these transformative tools."1

Jewish meditation takes many different forms, and new approaches are constantly being explored. The basic goal of Jewish meditation is to clear your mind by focusing your intention on certain phrases from the prayer service or images from Jewish tradition. This helps you relax. Moreover, and more important, the goal of meditation is devekut , (Heb. דבקות; Mod. Heb. "dedication", traditionally "clinging on" to God) a "cleaving" to God by quieting the mind and making the ego fade into the background. A Jew who meditates might practice on a daily basis or follow the traditional pattern of morning, afternoon, and evening prayers and meditate three times a day. This is similar to Christian centering prayer, also called contemplation. Such prayer is beyond words and includes an opening of the mind and heart.

CHRISTIAN PARALLELS TO JEWISH PRAYER

According to a familiar maxim, Christians can walk into a synagogue and affirm just about everything that is said, because the prayers primarily praise and thank God, but Jews cannot walk into a Christian church and affirm any of what is said, because of the extent that Christian prayers invoke Jesus as Deity. While this may be substantially true, you can still find parallel themes in Jewish and Christian prayer services.

Much of Christian liturgy is based on Jewish models. In both Catholic worship services and traditional Jewish prayer services, there is a particular psalm associated with each day. The extensive use of the Hebrew psalms in Christian and Jewish liturgy points to the connection between Christian and Jewish liturgy. Even the most widely known Christian prayer, the Lord's Prayer (Matthew 6:9-13), is itself based on Jewish literature—almost every line in the prayer has a parallel in Jewish literature. The beginning invocation, "Our Father who is in heaven," is found in some of the blessings of the Amidah as well as in the High Holiday liturgy. Many scholars have also noted the close connection between the Lord's Prayer and the Kaddish prayer, which begins, "May God's great name be hallowed in the world that God created, according to God's will, and may God establish God's Kingdom... speedily and at a near time." The Lord's Prayer and the Kaddish similarly speak of the coming of a better world under God's providence.

Beyond the particular details, it should be noted that the basic categories of prayer – prayers of petition; prayers of thanksgiving; and prayers of confession, although they are limited in Judaism – are the same in both faiths. This may reflect some universal human traits – there are only so many ways to address God – but it also reflects the Jewish origins of the church. In those aspects of Christian prayer that do not center on Jesus's divinity or his suffering, we see similar language and a similar yearning to reach out to the God of all people.
__________________
1. Avram Davis, ed. Meditation from the Heart of Judaism: Today's Teachers Share Their Practices, Techniques, and Faith (Jewish Lights Publishing, 1997), 84.

[...go to the next Jewish Ritual post =>]

[<= go back to Jewish Ritual  2.2]

• A subsequent post will be dedicated to:
  SAYING GRACE AND NINETY-NINE OTHER BLESSINGS THROUGHOUT THE DAY,
  written by Rabbi Andrew Vogel and inspired by the work of Nina Beth Cardin.

JEWISH RITUAL — 2.2 (Prayer)

THE BASIC STRUCTURE OF A JEWISH SERVICE

The daily ritual of prayer begins with morning prayers called Shacharit  [ʃaχaˈʁlit] (Hebrew: שַחֲרִית šaḥăriṯ), continues with afternoon prayers called Mincha (Hebrew: מִנחַה, pronounced as /mɪnxə/), and concludes with evening prayers called Maariv (Hebrew: מַעֲרִיב, [maʔăˈʁiv]). Generally speaking, the liturgies of these services do not change from day to day, with the exception of the Sabbath and holidays, when the liturgy shifts to reflect the mood of the day. Orthodox Jews usually pray three times a day, and Jews from other movements do so as well, to a lesser extent. Services are held in synagogues, but because of the obligation to pray in the afternoon, when most people are at work, many people either pray alone or join with other Jews at their workplace for prayer. A service does not have to be held in a special place to be considered a prayer service (although there are some days of the week – Shabbat, Mondays, and Thursdays – when the Torah is read as part of the service, and Torah scrolls are generically only available in a synagogue.

Rather than reviewing the complete liturgy (a task beyond the scope of this brief introduction to the subject), we will focus on a few basic prayers said in every Jewish worship service. The Shema (or Sh'ma Yisrael; Hebrew: שְׁמַע יִשְׂרָאֵל; "Hear, [O] Israel") is perhaps the best known. The Shema is found in Deuteronomy 6:4: "Shema Yisrael, Adonai Eloheynu, Adonai Echad" (Hear O Ysrael, Adonai is our God, Adonai is One). Following the biblical directive to recite it "when you lie down, and when you rise up," the Shema is recited in both the morning and evening prayer service. Note that this is a collective prayer, addressed to the entire Jewish people rather than an individual person. At its core, the Shema is a statement of faith—that the Jewish people believe and accept one God and one God alone.

Franz Rosenzweig, a German Jewish philosopher of the early twentieth century, saw three themes worked out in the prayer service, using the Shema as the cornerstone of this idea. For Rosenzweig, the Shema represents revelation, our belief in a God who can respond to prayer and stands outside of nature and history. The prayer before the Shema contains a theme of creation, and the prayer after the Shema is a prayer of thanksgiving for the redemption from Egyptian slavery. Rosenzweig says these three themes – creation, revelation, and redemption – undergird all of Jewish life. These are not static notions; we experience them at every moment, and we acknowledge this when we recite the Shema. God is continually re-creating the world, God is continually revealing Godself to us, and God is continually redeeming us from the slavery (understood metaphorically) that afflicts us today.

The core of the prayer service is called the Amidah (Hebrew: תפילת העמידה, Tefilat HaAmidah, "The Standing Prayer"), literally "the standing prayer" because we are obligated to stand for it. The Amidah is actually considered the center of the Jewish prayer service, and it consists of nineteen smaller prayers, the bulk of which are petitionary prayers for such things as health, wisdom, and fertile land. On the Sabbath, the Amidah changes: The petitionary prayers are omitted and replaced with a prayer of thanksgiving for Sabbath. Jewish tradition understands that on the Sabbath, the day of human and divine rest, we do not petition God for anything. Perhaps the Amidah is considered so pivotal precisely because, on all days except the Sabbath, it gives us an opportunity to ask God for help. In doing so, we recognize how much of life is out of our control and how small a part of this vast universe we really are when we ask God for help to ensure our well-being.

On the Sabbath another ritual is added to the prayer service: the reading of Torah. (On Mondays and Thursdays the Torah is also read, but the ritual is most moving on the Sabbath.) The Torah comprises the Five Books of Moses written on a scroll. Precise rules govern how to write the scroll; it mus be done by hand, so it takes months – sometimes years – for a scribe (sofer, Heb: "scribe", סופר סת״ם) to finish writing one Torah. On the morning of the Sabbath, a portion of the Torah is chanted with a special melody, which changes from Jewish community to Jewish community. The portion being read, however, is the same in every Jewish community from New York to Buenos Aires to Tel Aviv. A central calendar established in the Talmud details which Torah portion is read each week.

Because Jewish tradition is grounded so firmly in the Torah and its interpretations, the reading of Torah is considered the highlight of the Saturday morning service. We express our love of Torah, and our reverence for God, by reading a portion of God's words to us. Usually, after a reading of Torah, someone gives a sermon based on that week's Torah portion.

HEBREW, THE LANGUAGE OF JEWISH PRAYER

Jewish prayers are generally said in Hebrew. Although worshippers in Reform synagogues do say some of the prayers in the vernacular (that is, English in North America and the UK), as do a lesser number of Conservative and Reconstructionist synagogues, by and large you can always expect a hefty dose of Hebrew in a Jewish prayer service. In American synagogues, many of the people praying do not know Hebrew fluently; still, Judaism considers the Hebrew language a touchstone for Jewish spirituality. Among Jews, Hebrew is called lashon kodesh (Heb.: לָשׁוֹן הַקֹּדֶשׁ; lit. "the tongue [of] holiness" or "the Holy Tongue"). Throughout Jewish history, Jews have spoken other languages, such as Yiddish, in their daily lives, but Hebrew has always been the vehicle for communicating with the Divine. Jewish mystics believed that the very shape of the Hebrew letters contain within them secrets for accessing the Holy.

PRAYING IN COMMUNITY

One distinctive aspect of Jewish prayer is the necessity of a quorum to say certain prayers. The chanting of the Torah can only be done with a quorum of ten present. Similarly, the Mourners' Kaddish, a prayer said in memory of those who have died, can only be said in the presence of ten Jewish people. (It must be ten men in the Orthodox Jewish community; it can be ten men and/or women in the other movements of Judaism.) This necessary quorum is called a minyan, although the term is often used to refer to small groups gathered for prayers, regardless of the number.

The minyan is a crucial part of Jewish prayer ritual. If you want to pray Jewishly, you must be part of a community. Imagine that you are a Jewish person who wishes to commemorate the loss of a loved one by saying the traditional Jewish prayer. No matter where you are in the world, you need to find a community of Jews conducting services. The requirement of a minyan is profound precisely because prayer can be such a personal and inward-looking experience. Judaism does not want you to lose yourself in that inwardness. So no matter how important prayer is to you, when you are seeking communion with the Holy One, you must always balance your private prayers with a sense that you are praying in community. There can be no Jewish prayer hermits; prayer – and life – must be done with other people.

THE MECHITZAH AND A BRIEF WORD ABOUT WOMEN AND PRAYER

Orthodox Judaism differs from the Conservative and Reform movements of Judaism in one extremely significant way: the mechitzah (Heb.: מחיצה, partition or division), a partition used in Orthodox synagogues to separate men and women during prayer. There are a number of reasons suggested for this separation. Foremost among these reasons is the contention that a woman's voice is a (sexual) distraction for men during prayer. The mechitzah is also used so that unmarried folk do not feel left out – we relate to God as individuals, not as spouses or partners – and to prevent an atmosphere of socializing.

The actual configuration of the mechitzah (i.e., whether the women sit in back behind a partition, or there is a partition down the middle) differs from synagogue to synagogue. The issue of separating the sexes during prayer has caused much debate within the Jewish world. Movements other than Orthodox do not separate men and women during prayer.

[...continues onto the next post =>]

[<= go back to Jewish Ritual  2]

JEWISH RITUAL — 2 (Prayer)

PRAYING DAILY

May the words of my mouth and the meditations of my heart be acceptable before You, Adonai, my Rock and my Redeemer.

—PSALM 19:15

THE PURPOSE OF PRAYER

The following is a famous story told by the Baal Shem Tov, the founder of Hasidic Judaism:

Imagine a person whose business takes him through many streets and across the city's business district all day long. As a result, he almost forgets that there is a Maker of the world. Only when it is the fixed time for afternoon prayers does he remember. He says to himself, "I must pray now." Then, from the bottom of his heart, along with his prayers, he heaves a deep sigh. He feels bad that he has spent his entire day focused on unimportant things. This attitude permeates each of his prayers. God holds this man very dear: his prayer pierces the heavens.1

Prayer helps us, Jews and Christians, make a personal connection to God. It enables us to enter into a sacred relationship with the divine and then to nurture that relationship through regular and ongoing dialogue. Prayer provides us with the foundation that makes our spiritual journey possible. Coming to know God through this relationship is probably the most challenging but also the most rewarding part of the journey. Not only does prayer help us grow closer to God but it also helps us face and meet the challenges of daily living. In so doing, prayer gives us a chance to reach beyond ourselves and encounter the Divine.

Why pray? There is an old Jewish adage that should be applied to this subject and perhaps just about every word of this book: for every two Jews you will find three opinions. It would be impossible to specify all the purposes of Jewish prayer. The primary purpose is to fulfill the obligation to serve God that is expressed in Exodus 23:25: "And you shall serve the Lord your God." While this act of service once included the Temple sacrifice, its reference today is primarily prayer. Jewish thinkers throughout the millennia have offered a variety of perspectives. Nonetheless, in this chapter, we will describe some of the basic views on the goals of prayer and how prayer functions in Jewish tradition.

The first view holds that the purpose of Jewish prayer is to assess how well you're doing in God's eyes. This comes from the Hebrew word for prayer itself, tefillah [tefiˈla]. Grammatically speaking, the word tefillah is in the reflexive form, meaning that it refers to something that you do to yourself. Thus, prayer becomes a vehicle for personal assessment, which can take the form of introspection and self-evaluation. Prayer means measuring your thoughts and actions and assessing where you can better yourself and come closer to acting in accordance with God. This takes on heightened meaning around the time of the Jewish High Holidays – Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur – where there is a great emphasis on figuring out where you have gone astray over the previous year and repenting for those actions.

Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel, considered one of the great rabbis of the twentieth century, holds a completely different view of the goal of Jewish prayer. For Heschel, prayer is not about judging yourself; rather, it is solely about praising God. In an interview Heschel gave before he died, he said, "The primary purpose of prayer [in Jewish tradition] is not to sing, to chant. Because the essence of prayer is a song, and man cannot live without a song. Prayer may not save us. But prayer may make us worthy of being saved. Prayer is not requesting. There is a partnership of God and man."2

Yet another view of Jewish prayer sees the goal as transcending the gulf between heaven and earth by transcending your ego. This view is central to Hasidic Judaism. In this view, what stands between people and God is the ego – our sense of self – and the goal of prayer is to subsume our consciousness of the self into the universal consciousness of the Divine. Two noted scholars of Hasidism put it this way: "The true goal of the worshipper is to enter the world where 'one may come to transcend time,' where 'distinctions between life and death, land and sea, have lost their meaning.' The worshipper seeks to 'concentrate so fully on prayer that one no longer is aware of the self... to step outside the body's limits.'"3

Another purpose of Jewish prayer comes directly from the Bible: prayer as a means of asking God to fulfill our needs. This may be considered the simplest and most elemental purpose of prayer. The Torah is replete with examples of petitionary prayers to God. For example, Moses petitions God on his sister Miriam's behalf after she has been stricken with leprosy: "Please, God, pray heal her!" (Numbers 12:13). The Torah says that "Isaac pleaded with the Lord on behalf of his wife because she was barren; and the Lord responded to his plea" (Genesis 25:21). Abraham's servant prays God for the successful completion of his mission, "O Lord, God of my master Abraham, grant me good fortune this day" (Genesis 24:12). Petitionary pleas are central to Jewish prayer. Traditional Jewish belief maintains that God is "One who hearkens to prayer"; that is, God will respond to our appeals. Prayers for healing, good health, wisdom, and safe journeys are all petitionary prayers that figure prominently in Jewish worship. Rabbi Joseph Soloveitchik, the leader of modern Orthodox Judaism for many years, said that prayer was the genuine articulation of our needs, so that we could bring those needs to God's attention and ask for help.

As you can see from this brief overview of the various Jewish views of prayer, some focus on ourselves and our needs; some focus solely on praise and thankfulness to God; and some (such as the prayer said on Yom Kippur, the Jewish Day of Atonement) act as confessions before God. All these views are authentic and mainstream. Many Jews hold these perspectives simultaneously. Nevertheless, while our approach to prayer may be different, our actual prayers – their words and structure – have remained relatively constant for millennia.
____________________
1. Adapted from Martin Buber, Tales of the Hasidim: The Early Masters (Schocken Books, 1975), 69.
2. Quoted in Abraham Joshua Heschel, Moral Grandeur and Spiritual Audacity: Essays, ed. Susannah Heschel (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1996), 397.
3. Arthur Green and Barry Holz, eds. and trans., Your Word Is Fire: The Hasidic Masters on Contemplative Prayer (Jewish Lights Publishing, 1993), 12.

[...continues onto the next post =>]

[<= go back to Jewish Ritual 1.5]

JEWISH RITUAL — 1.5 (Torah)

TORAH STUDY IN JEWISH LIFE

The laws of Torah study demonstrate how vital it is to Jewish communal life. Each Jewish community is obligated to build a house of study; this is considered even more important than building a synagogue. According to the Talmud, we are permitted to destroy a synagogue if it is necessary to do so in order to build a house of study (Megillah 27a). Torah study overrides even the building of the Holy Temple (Megillah 16b), and desire to study Torah is a permissible reason for children to ignore their parents' wishes (Shulchan Arukh, Yoreh Deah 240:05).

After the Romans destroyed the Temple in 70 C.E., the future of Judaism was tenuous. Rabbi Yochanan ben Zakkai asked the Roman emperor Vespasian for permission to set up an academy for Torah study in Yavneh. The request seemed ludicrous to the Roman, so he agreed. In a prescient way, Rabbi Yochanan understood that the constant study of sacred texts would preserve Judaism more than any buildings or riches (Gittin 56b). (While rabbis today share a great deal in common with pastors and priests, their role in the life of their congregation remains different. Rabbis do not see themselves as intercessors. Rather, they are primarily teachers and adjudicators of the law. Even their required role in lifecycle events is limited and primarily informed by the local conventions of religion.)

Jews have stubbornly continued to study Torah no matter what the circumstances. We study Torah for its own sake. We are not supposed to exploit learning or use it for anything other than trying to understand how to lead righteous lives. But the beauty of studying Torah is that taking the words of Torah to heart leads us to action –positive action that compels us to try to improve the world. Maimonides said that "the study of Torah is equal to all the other commandments because study leads to deed. Therefore study take precedence over deed" (Hilkhot Talmud Torah 3.3).


CHRISTIAN PARALLELS TO STUDYING TORAH

Studying sacred scriptures is central to both Christian and Jewish religious life. Although the content of what is studied differs, the way that study is revered in both traditions is similar. This is seen clearly, for example, when comparing Jewish and Christian liturgy.

During every Sabbath (holiday, Monday, and Thursday) morning prayer service, the Torah is carried in a processional around the synagogue. people kiss the Torah as a sign of reverence for it. (In some parts of the Jewish world, worshippers bow to the Torah instead of kissing it.) It is considered a high honor to be called to say a blessing before or after the public reading of the Torah. The Torah is treated the same way you would treat a cherished love letter. Christians have the same relationship to the Gospels – priests kiss the Gospel after reading.

In Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox churches, there is often a procession in which the Gospel that contains the day's reading is carried forward and placed on the altar. Sometimes it is carried into the midst of the congregation to be read there. The congregation rises for the reading of the Scripture, which is generally followed by a sermon. This is analogous to the brief lesson that is regularly offered after a Torah reading in Jewish worship services.

[...go to the next Jewish Ritual post =>]

[<= go back to Jewish Ritual 1.4]

JEWISH RITUAL — 1.4 (Torah)

THE TRUTH OF THE TEXT

One of the most difficult questions for modern readers of the Torah is simply this: Who wrote it? Modern scholarship of the Bible (both Jewish and Christian) suggests that the Torah is an edited or "redacted" compilation of the writings of many different authors. A close look at the biblical text supports this notion. Sections appear to be repetitive, obscure, even self-contradictory. If the Bible came from different sources, these discrepancies would make more sense as editing choices. However, for millennia traditional Judaism has taught that the Bible is not the work of human hands; rather, God revealed the Torah to Moses on Mount Sinai, and Moses simply acted as God's scribe and wrote it down.

For a modern religious reader, navigating between these disparate viewpoints creates tension. We could accept the claim that God gave the Torah exactly as written, but this ignores the work of critical scholars. On the other hand, if we accept the claim that the Bible is the product of several human authors, then the biblical text is reduced from divine revelation to a document of human imagination, not unlike a play by Shakespeare or a Greek epic. However, it is self-defeating to reject the Torah as merely a work of human origins and to assume that apparent paradoxes undermine its value. Perhaps the human authors were working under divine inspiration. Surely those who edited the Torah understood that there were so-called contradictions inherent in the text. Our challenge is to understand why these portions were left in and what their underlying message means to us.

The different Jewish movements have different positions on this issue. Orthodox Judaism treats the Torah as a text given by God through Moses on Mount Sinai. Therefore, from the perspective of Orthodox Judaism, the Torah is entirely the revealed word of God, and all of it is divine truth. Thus, much of the effort of Torah study is devoted to trying to follow the instructions of the Torah and to clarify whatever is unclear.

The Reform movement, on the other hand, does not accept the Torah as a document given by God at a specific time and place. The movement accepts the views of biblical scholars that the Torah is a composite document. Thus, aspects of the Torah have been taken as figurative rather than literal truth by Reform Jews. The founder of the Reform movement in North America, Rabbi Isaac Mayer Wise, considered the Ten Commandments as the only part of the Torah that was, in fact, revealed by God.

Reform Judaism speaks of the Torah as "evolving revelation". According to this view, the writing of the Torah was the work of religious geniuses who encountered God and wrote about their experience. Evolving revelation suggests that God is still communicating with us, and the purpose of studying Torah is to discover how God communicated to our forbears so that we might be able to discern God's presence in our own lives.

For the most part, Conservative Judaism follows Orthodoxy, although its scholars apply the scientific method to their study. While the Reconstructionist movement is currently undergoing renewal, its classic position is more akin to the Reform movement in its understanding of the Torah. Reconstructionism does not acknowledge an immanent God; as a result, such a God cannot inspire the direct development of a text. What makes the text so important is that it is the collective history of the folk, the people of Israel – a core concept in Reconstructionist thinking.

[...continues onto the next post =>]

[<= go back to Jewish Ritual 1.3]