mi-shebeirach

Creating a More Meaningful Torah Service

When the words of the chapters assigned to a particular week enter our consciousness and our "soul stream," we can learn something new and interesting about ourselves as individuals, families, humans and peoples. This new awareness is what may be meant by the term "revelation." This is Judaism at its best -- exciting, meaningful, growthful. Torah reading can be a high point of a services. Here is how to give everyone present a greater opportunity to be included in the Torah reading.  I first saw Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi lead a service using this method at Philadelphia's P'nai Or community, and he is indeed, credited with having developed it. During my travels I'm seeing this approach beginning to appear across the full spectrum of Jewish life.