Dear Temple B’nai Emet Family,
I spent a good deal of my life without prayer. I resisted it. I was bored with it. In many ways, I believe I resented it. It took both early religious training and some rather extraordinary, often painful, events, including the death of my father, to open my eyes to the possibility of what prayer could do for me. And even then, the process was far from easy.
Flashforward to today. I write this shortly after Rosh Hashanah, and I feel truly grateful for the way our community (including both familiar and new faces) has come together. That togetherness includes some rather emotional prayers on the High Holidays. Hopefully this trend continues by the time you receive the newsletter. When you are first able to read this, it is likely that we are finishing or just finished our Sukkot and Simchat Torah in joyous fashion.
But what about after that? I can think of at least two common reactions to the big, prayer-filled holiday month. One is something along the lines of: “That was a lot. I think I’m good for a while, maybe another year…” The other is something more like: “That was a lot. If I come back again soon, maybe I can experience a bit of that again…”
It’s obvious which of those reactions I hope you’ll have. And many of us have a little of both reactions. But if you just can’t normally bring yourself to prayer or other aspects of ritual life, I understand. That used to be me.
I try to make the experience as resonant as I can, and there are many of you that lift our services with your energy or contributions. But, sometimes, prayer just doesn’t seem to “work” for us. And even those of us that find benefit from it typically wonder whether we are getting as much from it as we ought to. Then again, what does it really mean for prayer to “work”? What’s the real point of it anyway?
This brings me to one of my early Clarion articles last summer. I highlighted—and still heavily believe in—the ability of our community to come together and support each other through our struggles over health issues, loss, or worry about world events. And to celebrate each other’s successes as well. This alone can easily make regular service attendance worth it, even without knowing the purpose of each of the prayers.
But as I further explained in that article, there is so much more that prayer can do, whether or not God “answers” prayer. “The act of prayer … has enormous potential for our mental and spiritual health, even practical direction for our daily tasks…” This is all the truer if prayer is informed by a serious attempt at understanding.
And it is high time I make that a priority. Together, we have had a wonderful Intro to Judaism class and a Hebrew class taught by Rabbi Malka (that we are likely to be able to continue after the holidays!). Now, I would like to devote my own teachings primarily to the meanings of the prayers. This has been a special pursuit of mine for quite some time. Not just translation, but a way to appreciate what each prayer is designed to help us understand, connect to, yearn for, and achieve. More than that, I want to explore what each prayer can mean to each of us, whether or not that is connected to traditional meaning. We can pray together and create a safe discussion space where we can be vulnerable enough to share what we might pray for.
I often give a little mention of what prayers are about during services. And many of you attended a special session on prayer that I added to the Intro classes. I hope I have helped some of us find more meaning in the prayers. But there is so much more that we can learn. Our liturgy is beautifully rich and interconnected. And one cannot get a full appreciation in snippets.
I will kick off this learning with a special sermon on the purposes of prayer to be delivered over lunch on the Shabbat of October 24, 2026. After that, we will take the time to look deeply at the prayers as a community and as individuals. As we do so, we might adjust the way that we pray, including changes to our format based on a combination of tradition and what we decide is most important as a community. And I fully intend to help each willing congregant to develop an individual prayer routine, no matter the life circumstance or previous knowledge. In our Movement, tradition plays a substantial role, but so does personal need. No two people connect with any particular liturgical piece the same way.
Even if you don’t normally come to services, please give that sermon a shot. In person is best, but we will make sure to keep the Zoom connection on through lunch. Any time spent in synagogue, or investment made in a space of prayer, can benefit enormously from a good faith attempt at knowing what our liturgy developed over literal millennia can mean.
After praying regularly for many years, I realized I had little guidance, in any Jewish denomination, as to the depth of Jewish prayer. So, I undertook many years of prayer study. And I want you to have at least some of the guidance I wish I had to begin with, whatever your journey.
I will share more of my personal story, as well as a whole lot more about what prayer can do, in that upcoming sermon. In the meantime, let’s keep the faith together.
With love and hope,
Michael J. Feldman
