Liturgy

Historian Jonathan Sarna places a recent decision by an Orthodox synagogue to modify the "prayer for the government" into sharp historical focus.

When Synagogues Reopen, May the Congregation Permit a Bar Mitzvah Boy to Make Up His Torah Reading? Moshe Kurtz weighs in.

William Gewirtz explores the value of cantillation.

In this timely article, Wendy Zierler examines how Israeli poet Yehuda Amichai's "Beterem" can provide readers with the inspiration they need leading up to the Days of Awe

An exclusive look into Rav Dov Singer's new English work on prayer, Prepare My Prayer.

Many synagogue goers found the abbreviated High Holiday services we recently concluded quite appealing. Need we eventually go back to the way it was before coronavirus? Not really, argues Moshe Kurtz, surveying the substantial halakhic support for shortening the services every year.

In advance of Tisha Be-Av, Tzvi Novick annotates and interprets the kinnah of a’adeh ad hug shamayim by the master poet R. Eleazar ha-Kalir, unlocking its complex acrostic to determine who its speaker is meant to be.

With lyrical prose, Natan Oliff teaches us how to view prayer as a virtue and let it enter every aspect of our lives, making us into prayerful people.

Yaakov Jaffe argues that kids would be better served by coming to shul for the beginning of the Shabbat davening rather than the end.

Noam Stadlan offers a heartfelt reinterpretation of Tzidkatkha Tzedek.