Jewish Relationships Initiative

Category: Prayer

  • October 7 Commemoration

  • Shabbat Shalom

    As we prepare to welcome Shabbat, let the prayer of Joey Weisenberg help lift you up.

    Shabbat Shalom

    #BringThemHomeNow

  • Psalm 27 is added to our prayers during Elul and through the chagim.

    We prepare ourselves for this special time with the prayer that we might dwell in the house of the Divine.  May your experience this season be meaningful, filled with reflection, repentance, and renewal.

    Thanks to Chava Mirel for this beautiful rendition of Psalm 27:4.

    Shabbat Shalom

    #BringThemHomeNow

     

  • Shabbat Shalom

    This Hungarian orchestra shares Tumbalalaika.

    It is a love song in which a young man seeks a bride who can answer three riddles as the balalaika plays.  As we greet the Shabbat bride during Elul, the question perhaps is flipped: Will we be worthy of the bride?

    Shabbat Shalom

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  • Children slaughtered again

    What does it say about a society that allows, even supports, the murder of its children? That society is headed to Hell, if it isn’t already there.

    In biblical times, the Valley of Hinnom was a place where people practiced child sacrifice to the god Molech. The name of that place became Gehenna, which is now synonymous with Hell.

    As strange as it may seem, we appear to accept child murder. The ways to prevent it are within our reach. However, we prefer to keep the right for people to wield deadly weapons unfettered rather than to protect the lives of our youth. Once again, a disturbed individual obtained guns, brought them to a church, and slaughtered children while they were praying. Two dead, 17 injured. It is almost incomprehensible, but true. It is another episode of the carnage of our kids by guns.

    Furthermore, we are to blame.  The blood of those innocent children is on our hands because we refuse to enforce oversight to keep guns out of the hands of people who do such heinous things—shame on us.

    There is something profoundly wrong here. A society that accepts child murder as the price of freedom to bear arms has a name. Welcome to Hell.

  • Shabbat Shalom

    This song caught my heart today.  Thanks to the Maccabeats for Minyan Man.

    With so much divisiveness, it’s good to remember Kol Arevim Zeh laZeh, All Israel is responsible for one another.  Each of us is important. Each of us can make a difference.  Together, let’s welcome Shabbat and welcome God’s peace.

    Shabbat Shalom

    #BringThemHomeNow

  • Shabbat Shalom – Oseh Shalom

    Oseh Shalom, May there be peace for all of us.

    Thanks to Cantors Benji Schiller, Azi Schwartz, and Shira Lissek for this beautiful prayer.

    Shabbat Shalom

    #BringThemHomeNow

  • What’s in a name?

    What’s in a name?

    Genocide is a highly charged word.

    In Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, Juliet asks, ‘What’s in a name?’ Names are simply labels we use to identify things, but the true nature of those things exists regardless of what we call them. Genocide is a highly charged word. We get so caught up in the word and all of the intense emotional baggage it carries that we forget the underlying tragedy: it is an attempt to understand what is happening in Gaza.

    One side calls it a genocide; the other disputes that term, accusing the accusers of deliberately misusing the word, targeting the victims of such an experience as if they were the perpetrators of that very same horror. We get caught up in definitions, a kind of territorialism, claiming ownership of that word, and in doing so, we completely miss the point.

    The people suffering in the war in Gaza are truly experiencing pain. It’s not just about numbers—whether it’s one person or many—innocent victims of the Hamas-Israel conflict have died. They go hungry. They are homeless. They are victims. Although I do not trust the statistics from the Gaza Health Ministry, there’s no way to measure the full extent of the carnage accurately, and Hamas’s role in this is dehumanizing Palestinians, echoing what the Nazis did to Jews.

    We must navigate this challenging space and find ways to offer humanity and hope that we were denied, and, sadly, to the Palestinians as well. From the ashes of Auschwitz, we proclaimed Never Again. Was this declaration meant only for us? Our Jewish duty to be a light to the nations requires that it not be. We must uphold our tradition’s promise by maintaining our humanity and embracing the virtues of Pirkei Avot (2:5); in a world that has no worthy men, strive to be a man.

    Whatever you call it, the war and anguish must end.

     

     

  • Shabbat Shalom

    Shulem shares A New Day will Rise, a song of unity and hope.

    Shabbat Shalom

    #BringThemHomeNow

  • Shabbat Shalom

    Shalom Rav – a prayer for peace, is part of closing of the Amidah.  Cantor Azi Schwartz shares this beautiful version as we welcome Shabbat.

    Shabbat Shalom

    #BringThemHomeNow