Life with God isn’t purely intellectual. It isn’t purely emotional. And emotional-rationality doesn’t explain it all either. I am not alone, in the vast see of Jews and Christians, who feel we have connected in reality with God through experience. To the naturalist-rationalist-modernist this is nonsense, perhaps explained as some Freudian deficiency. To the emotive-mystic-non-rationalist this could be explained without reference to any scripture or theology at all. I think the best approach is rational-emotional-mystical. Experience guided by reason and sacred scripture, the Torah and the soul seeking union with God, devekut, as some traditions call it. Many Christian worship traditions also combine faith and experience, seeking union with God (note to theologians: I don’t mean losing oneself in God when I say union). For a Christian, an experience seeking closer connection with God might be something like meditation on a scripture, reciting the Lord’s Prayer, centering prayer, [...]
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In the fifteenth benediction of the Shemone Esreh we pray, "Et tzemach David avdecha mehera tatzmiach, vekarno tarum biyshuatecha ki lishuatecha kivinu kol hayom. Baruch ata Hashem matzmiach keren yeshua – (lit.) The offspring of your servant [King] David may you speedily cause to flourish and enhance his pride through your salvation, fo ...
A siddur (Hebrew: סידור; plural siddurim) is a Jewish prayer book, containing a set order of daily prayers. During times of prayer, a Siddur is used. Jews do not read through the entire prayer book at every service. Depending on the service, is the part of the Siddur which is used. Jewish prayer is as ancient as t ...
An old Jew had a parrot. After years of reciting his daily prayers, the man discovered that his parrot had learned to pray. On Rosh Hashana, he brought the parrot to synagogue and boasted that his parrot could daven. The congregants started betting whether the parrot would pray, and the old man happily took bets that eventually totaled $50,000. &nb ...
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