Tag Archives: liturgy

Avinu Malkeinu Splits the Difference

Posted on October 3, 2025 by zjb

Jewish tradition is internally oriented and self-reflecting. As the concluding refrain of Yom Kippur, the Avinu Malkeinu, Our Father Our King, splits the difference between maintaining vigilance vis-a-vis anti-Jewish violence and communal sin and iniquity. The prayer holds the tense … Continue reading →

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(Judgment) Rosh Hashanah (Mercy)

Posted on September 26, 2025 by zjb

Here is one way to juxta-position what is the combination of judgment, on the one hand, and, on the other hand, the canny confidence with which Jewish tradition meets the new year. The relation is not one thing next to … Continue reading →

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(Reader’s Digest) ME’OR ‘EINAYIM (Theology of Mind and Cossack Baroque)

Posted on January 10, 2025 by zjb

What follows in this post after a quick introduction is a digest of my reading notes to Me’or ‘Einayim (Light of the Eyes) (1763 -1797). Translated into English with erudite care by Arthur Green, this early Hasidic text is a … Continue reading →

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(Isaiah) Place of Consolation (7 Weeks)

Posted on August 20, 2024 by zjb

(Isaiah) What is Consolation (7 Weeks) In the prophetic imagination, consolation is a super violent and theopolitical counter-reality. Other-worldly without being otherworldly is the liturgical view drawn from the 7 haftaroth of consolation recited in the synagogue on Shabbat between … Continue reading →

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(Jewish) Prayer (Gentile Kings and Democratic Country)

Posted on January 11, 2021 by zjb

  This 16th prayer, of Portuguese origin, Ha’Noten Teshua (He Who Gives Salvation) was then translated into English and presented by  Menasseh ben Israel to Oliver Cromwell in 1655. It became the template in traditional Jewish prayer and still appears … Continue reading →

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(Everyone Trusts) God Is Good To The Wicked (Machzor)

Posted on September 24, 2020 by zjb

The liturgical poem or piyyut, V’chol Ma’aminim follows in the High Holiday Machzor the Unetaneh Tokef, the liturgical paean to human uncertainty and exposure and to the sovereign power of God. What appears on the surface to be a simple, … Continue reading →

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(1948) Reconstructionist Machzor (Holocaust & Zionism)

Posted on September 21, 2020 by zjb

This 1948 Machzor is a neat little time capsule. Of particular interest is the names of authors and translators in the back of the text. Included below are the authors and translators to the Yom Kippur section (vol.2). Also in … Continue reading →

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Genesis High Sublime English Bourgeois Dudgeon (Hertz Commentary)

Posted on October 14, 2018 by zjb

At Ansche Chesed the old Hertz edition of Pentateuch & Haftorah sits off neglected in the row of pews to the right and to the left of the two large rows of pews occupying the center column of the sanctuary. There, … Continue reading →

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A Yom Kippur Primer (Liturgical Highlights)

Posted on September 23, 2018 by zjb

A dear friend and close colleague of some twenty years in the Department of Religion, not Jewish, asked about Yom Kippur. Just what is Yom Kippur and what exactly does one do all day, assuming of course that one is … Continue reading →

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(Radical) Muhammad Ali (Funeral)

Posted on June 10, 2016 by zjb

Listening to the funeral of Muhammad Ali on NPR. Demonstrating something about the power of liturgy, the spirit is personal, religious, and political. Is this a watershed event?  Personal memories about courage and compassion collide with histories –Jim Crow and … Continue reading →

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