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18 books match the query 'Prayers and devotions'

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Amen

Seeking Presence with Prayer, Poetry, and Mindfulness Practice

Rabbi Karyn D. Kedar

Central Conference of American Rabbis, 2020

Prayer is an articulation of our noblest desires, our deepest yearnings, and our darkest places. The prayers in this collection speak directly to the complexity of human life--whether you seek expression for joy, wonder, perplexity, or heartache, for personal use or for your community, you will find here a voice for your experience that will help you linger in the blessings and move forward through the pain. This collection includes prayers for personal use, prayers for use at communal gatherings, prayers and readings for moments of grief and moments of joy, a collection of daily Psalms, and focus phrases and questions for meditation. These readings for contemplative practice and communal gatherings will aid in the search for clarity, for strength beyond what we know, and for an affirmation of holiness, of goodness, of the grandeur of God.

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Birkon Artzi

Blessings and Meditations for Travelers to Israel

Rabbi Serge Lippe

Central Conference of American Rabbis, 2012

Birkon Artzi seeks to create spiritual opportunities and responses for the thousands of Jews who journey each and every year to visit, study in, and get to know the State of Israel.

With dozens of individual prayers, meditations, and readings, this pocket-sized birkon is your guide to uncovering the miracles and the magic of Israel. Entries include prayers before leaving, upon arrival, and for specific cities, bodies of water, unique moments, and well-traveled sites within the State of Israel.

This collection is an indispensable resource for anyone seeking to pause and acknowledge place and moment, to create connection, and to fashion memory.

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Black Fire

African American Quakers on Spirituality and Human Rights

Harold D. Weaver, Jr.

QuakerPress, 2011

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Books Like Sapphires

From the Library of Congress Judaica Collection

Ann Brener

Brandeis University Press, 2024

Illustrated highlights from the Judaica Collection of the Library of Congress.

Books Like Sapphires showcases a wide range of Hebraic treasures from the storied collection at the Library of Congress, many of them for the first time. Tracing the history of Judaica collecting in the twentieth-century United States, the book illuminates varied works, telling their stories alongside vibrant color images. These include a unique manuscript about a betrothal scandal in Renaissance Crete, an illustrated Esther Scroll, a poem from 1477 celebrating the new technology of printing, amusing rhymed couplets in sixteenth-century Padua, and the Washington Haggadah. This book also tells the story of the patrons and collectors, first among them Jacob Schiff, as well as archivists and curators, who made the storied Judaica archive at the Library of Congress the precious resource that it is today.

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Conversation with Christ

Douglas Gwyn

QuakerPress, 2011

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Covenant of Justice

Prayers, Poems, and Meditations from Women of Reform Judaism

Women of Reform Judaism

Central Conference of American Rabbis, 2025

Covenant of Justice is a dynamic collection of prayers, poems, and reflections on the most pressing social justice issues of our time, viewed through the lens of Jewish tradition and covenant. Written by a diverse group of female, nonbinary, and genderfluid contributors, the pieces address key topics including racial equity, climate justice, gender equality, and reproductive rights. With a focus on action rooted in the Jewish value of tikkun olam (repairing the world), this book serves as both an educational resource and a call to action. Practical insights, historical context, and modern interpretations of Jewish texts make this an essential guide for individuals and communities striving to effect positive change. Covenant of Justice is an accessible, inspiring resource and call to action for readers from all walks of life seeking to build a more just world.

Copublished with Women of Reform Judaism

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Gates of Prayer for Young People

Roy A. Walter

Central Conference of American Rabbis, 1997

Gates of Prayer for Young People fills the need for daily and Shabbat services in congregational worship and the religious school setting. Building on its forerunners Gates of Wonder and Gates of Awe, this innovative volume includes evening and morning services for weekdays and Shabbat. Enhanced by full-color art throughout, this text is contemporary, gender-inclusive and designed for young people between five and twelve years of age.

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Mishkan Ga'avah

Where Pride Dwells: A Celebration of LGBTQ Jewish Life and Ritual

Rabbi Denise L. Eger

Central Conference of American Rabbis, 2020

This groundbreaking collection of LGBTQ prayers, poems, liturgy, and rituals is both a spiritual resource and a celebratory affirmation of Jewish diversity. Giving voice to the private and public sectors of queer Jewish experience, Mishkan Ga'avah is also a commemoration of the fiftieth anniversary of both the Stonewall Riots and the first pride march, reflecting the longtime advocacy of the Reform Movement for full LGBTQ inclusion.

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Prayers and Rituals at a Time of Illness and Dying

The Practices of Five World Religions

Patricia Fosarelli

Templeton Press, 2008

In the course of caring for the ill or dying, health care professionals are sometimes the only ones available to provide spiritual comfort to their patients. In our modern pluralistic society, where patients could come from any number of religious traditions, it can often be difficult to find exactly the right words in these situations.

Prayers and Rituals at a Time of Illness and Dying: The Practices of Five World Religions by experienced physician and theologian Pat Fosarelli offers clear instructions for health care professionals on how to better understand the needs of their Buddhist, Hindu, Muslim, Christian, and Jewish patients during these difficult times. Devoting separate chapters to each tradition, Fosarelli briefly outlines the basic beliefs and then looks at the main tenets of each religion, exploring the varied approaches that they take to illness and end-of-life issues. For each tradition, she also describes practices and offers suitable prayers. Each chapter suggests modifications that may be necessary for Western hospitals, modifications for children, and specific suggestions about what not to do or say in respect to different faith traditions.

This easy-to-use, pocket-sized resource will be referenced again and again by physicians, paramedics, hospital and military chaplains, pastoral counselors, hospice providers, and other medical professionals.

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Prayers for Dark People

W.E.B. Du Bois

University of Massachusetts Press, 1980

A collection of prayers written by Du Bois for students at Atlanta University, thoughtfully compiled and introduced by Herbert Aptheker. These prayers are deeply committed to paying attention to and caring for the inner lives of Black Americans. Biblical familiarity and agnosticity are both present in these autobiographical writings, uplifting the hopes and practices of W. E. B. Du Bois's life, while meditating on the still relevant question of how to make “a good life for all.”

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Rabbi's Manual

David Polish

Central Conference of American Rabbis, 1988

Written in contemporary, gender-inclusive language, the Rabbi's Manual contains traditional and innovative services and ceremonies for birth and infancy, adoption, public and private naming ceremonies, an 8th day covenant service for daughters, four wedding services and associated public prayers, a ritual release at divorce, services at death and memorials, prayers at a time of illness and Giyur (conversion) services and prayers.

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Reading Akkadian Prayers and Hymns

An Introduction

Alan Lenzi

SBL Press, 2011

A thorough text for students of ancient Mesopotamian religion and the Hebrew Bible

Alan Lenzi places Akkadian prayers and hymns within both a religious studies perspective and a Mesopotamian studies perspective. Complete with vocabulary glosses, grammatical notes, literary commentary, and comparative suggestions to biblical material, this book provides a crucial tool for accessing ancient texts related to our understanding of the Hebrew Bible.

Features:

Background essays
Discussion of classes of Mesopotamian prayers and their comparative use in biblical studies
Akkadian text, transliteration, translation, and commentary
Notes on vocabulary and grammar

Alan Lenziis Associate Professor of Hebrew Bible and Ancient Near East at University of the Pacific. He is the author of Secrecy and the Gods: Secret Knowledge in Ancient Mesopotamia and Biblical Israel (Neo-Assyrian Text Corpus Project).

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Seder Tu Bishevat

The Festival of Trees

Rabbi Adam Fisher

Central Conference of American Rabbis, 1989

The Festival of Trees, Tu Bishevat, celebrates nature's rebirth after winter. Seder Tu Bishevat not only marks the observance but celebrates Judaism's appreciation of the larger cycle of nature as the work of God. This volume contains two Seders: Seder I addresses both adults and children of various ages; Seder II is specifically designed for the understanding and participation of younger children. The book includes prayers and selections from traditional sources, original poetry by Rabbi Fisher, and 20 songs with complete chording for guitar. Ideal for congregational or home use.

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The Athenian Adonia in Context

The Adonis Festival as Cultural Practice

Laurialan Reitzammer

University of Wisconsin Press, 2018

Ancient sources and modern scholars have often represented the Athenian festival of Adonis as a marginal and faintly ridiculous private women’s ritual. Seeds were planted each year in pots and, once sprouted, carried to the rooftops, where women lamented the death of Aphrodite’s youthful consort Adonis. Laurialan Reitzammer resourcefully examines a wide array of surviving evidence about the Adonia, arguing for its symbolic importance in fifth- and fourth-century Athenian culture as an occasion for gendered commentary on mainstream Athenian practices.
Reitzammer uncovers correlations of the Adonia to Athenian wedding rituals and civic funeral oration and provides illuminating evidence that the festival was a significant cultural template for such diverse works as Aristophanes’ drama Lysistrata and Plato’s dialogue Phaedrus. Her fresh approach is a timely contribution to studies of the ways gender and sexuality intersect with religion and ritual in ancient Greece.

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The Days Between

Blessings, Poems, and Directions of the Heart for the Jewish High Holiday Season

Marcia Falk

Brandeis University Press, 2014

The Jewish High Holidays—the ten days beginning with the New Year Festival of Rosh Hashanah and culminating with Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement—constitute the most sacred period of the Jewish year. During this season, religious as well as nonaffiliated Jews attend synagogue services in unparalleled numbers. Yet much of what they find there can be unwelcoming in its patriarchal imagery, leaving many worshipers unsatisfied. For those seeking to connect more deeply with their Judaism, and for all readers in search of a contemplative approach to the themes of the fall season, poet and scholar Marcia Falk re-creates the holidays’ key prayers and rituals from an inclusive perspective. Among the offerings in The Days Between are Hebrew and English blessings for festive meals, prayers for synagogue services, and poems and meditations for quiet reflection. Emphasizing introspection as well as relationship to others, Falk evokes her vision of the High Holidays as “ten days of striving to keep the heart open to change.” Accessible and welcoming to modern readers, The Days Between is steeped in traditional sources and grounded in liturgical and biblical scholarship. It will serve as a meaningful alternative or supplement to the traditional liturgy for individuals, families, synagogues, and communities small and large—that is, for all who seek fresh meaning in the High Holidays.

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This Grateful Heart

Psalms and Prayers for a New Day

Alden Solovy

Central Conference of American Rabbis, 2017

This Grateful Heart offers an anthology of modern day psalms and prayers to lift us up, inspire our days, and mark our milestones. Written by Jewish poet and liturgist Alden Solovy, the collection provides nearly 100 readings, spanning topics from the simple delights of daily living to the complexities of grief; from the celebration of major turning points like bar and bat mitzvah to the more solemn commemoration of lost lives and ended relationships; and from the awe-filled moments of the High Holy Days to the observance of secular holidays. For clergy, this collection offers supplementary material for use in services and life cycle rituals; for the individual, this collection can serve as a way to give voice to the joys and sorrows of everyday life.

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This Joyous Soul

A New Voice for Ancient Yearnings

Alden Solovy

Central Conference of American Rabbis, 2019

Like its predecessor, This Grateful Heart, this volume of creative liturgy opens a door into the transformative power of prayer. Structured to reflect the morning service found within Mishkan T'filah, this collection invites a deeply personal prayer experience that will strengthen our connection to Judaism and to the Reform siddur.

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