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The Jewish Appleseed Foundation is no longer accepting funds or operating as a foundation. However, the Ask the Rabbi service is still active. Thank you for your support through the years. Please visit my other sites: RabbiJoDavid.org, HealingandHope2011.com, and WeddingRabbi.org. Go to my  facebook page.
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Monthly Meditations
Prayer for Healing in the New Year |
Reflection
May it be Your will, Eternal One, to help me search my heart. Help me experience the ways in which I can make my life more blessed. Help me to see the changes I must make in my life to add to my sense of joy and well-being. Give me the courage and the strength to be honest with myself about my weaknesses, and help me to embrace my strengths. Help me to be a force for healing and goodness in the world through my acceptance of my own humanity. Amen. |
Prayer
I turn my heart to You, Holy One, seeking healing. During this time of assessment and redemption, may I be blessed with a deep sense of the presence of Your strength and love. As I attempt to begin anew, may I be granted a true knowing that You are like a loving Parent who guides, supports and encourages me. May this knowledge transmute my struggles to joy and my hurt to wholeness. Blessed are You, the One that I trust, who heals the wounded. Amen. |
A Prayer for Balance |
Reflection
Because Cheshvan is the only month in the Jewish calendar with no holidays, it is called “Mar Cheshvan” (Bitter Cheshvan). But Cheshvan provides a much-needed balance between the month of Tishrei, so filled with holidays, and Kislev, the month in which the eight-day festival of Chanukkah occurs. Balance is needed if we are to see the world clearly. Balance helps us order our priorities and understand our place in the world. The month of Cheshvan lets us move beyond the highly emotional days of the New Year, Sukkot, and Simchat Torah. It gives us time to think about the meaning of Jewish identity and the importance of the Jewish homeland, central ideas related to the celebration of Chanukkah. |
Prayer
Blessed are You, Adonai, Praised are You, Shechina, the One who encompasses all possibilities. I turn to You in this month of blessed quiet to ask for balance in my life. Help me to see clearly my place in the world. Help me to understand my role as Your partner in the continuing work of creation. Help me to balance my personal needs and my responsibilities to others who look to me for nurturing, assistance, and support. Give me the energy and the will to focus each day on maintaining a life that is a healthy balance of work, relaxation, love, and play. I give thanks to You, Eternal One, who provides us with the ability to create harmony in our lives. Amen. |
A Prayer about Darkness and Light |
In the month of Kislev, we experience the winter solstice, when the length of daylight reaches its shortest point in the year. Kislev is also a month of promise, because the daylight begins to lengthen again. Darkness and light are powerful symbols that work on the human heart and the human mind, often without our awareness. The lighting of Chanukah candles is a strong statement of our belief that darkness can be changed to light through our own efforts. |
As the days grow shorter and the darkness grows longer, may the light of Your presence, O God, burn even more brightly in my heart. Illuminate the path of my life so that I can travel it with confidence and clarity of thought. As the days begin to grow shorter and the darkness longer, help me to be a light to others through the way in which I live my life. Blessed are You, Torch in the Darkness, Who lights the way for all who seek You. Amen. |
Prayers for Spiritual and Emotional Freedom |
The month of Nisan is the first month of the Jewish calendar year. In ancient times, the 1st of Nisan was the New Year for Kings — the beginning of another year of a ruler’s reign. It was a time to give thanks for stability and continuity in government.
Nisan is a new beginning for the natural world. Bold narcissus, tulips, daffodils, and crocuses push through winter-crusted earth to reach toward the warming rays of the sun. New lambs totter after their mothers. Birds begin their migration to their northern homes. It is a time to give thanks for the cycle of life and renewal that is one of the miracles of our world. Nisan is the month in which we celebrate Passover — Pesach in Hebrew — a holiday of redemption. Over three thousand years ago, our ancestors were taken out of slavery in Egypt and given laws that made them a people. In our century, Jews who worked as slaves in Nazi camps were liberated from bondage and brought back from the dead. Each of us struggles with feelings, addictions, ideas that, in some way, enslave us, keep us from achieving the happiness we desire. During Nisan, we reach toward ways to realize our redemption from those things that enslave us. |
Personal Prayer for Nisan
In this month that is filled with the potential for new beginnings, may it be Your Will, Holy One, to help me make those new beginnings that will be most beneficial for me. Help me to understand and be grateful for those things that are stable, enduring and healthy in my life, even if they are not exciting and mysterious. Help me to rejoice in the simple beauties of the world around me. Help me to see Your work in those things that are familiar and sweet. Help me to look honestly at those things in my life that limit my potential. Give me the courage to confront them and master them, so that I can be free. Redeem me, Eternal One, and make this month a time of renewal and blessing for me. Amen.
Group Prayer for Nisan
We give thanks to the One Who led us out of slavery in Egypt and towards redemption. May it be the will of our Redeemer to help us sense the possibilities for healing and redemption in our daily lives. May we be given the strength to work for our personal salvation and for the healing of all the world. |
Prayers about Counting |
During the month of Iyar, each evening we say a blessing for the counting of the omer, a measure of grain. This counting begins at the end of the second seder and continues for 50 days until Shavuot, the holiday that commemorates the giving of the Torah to the Jewish people. In the spirit of this month, we think of the many things that we count and number.
Do we focus on material wealth — the amount of money we make, the number and type of possessions we acquire? Do we focus on spiritual wealth — living a Jewish life, performing deeds of loving kindness, and building our relationship with God? What is the affect of numbering and counting? Is there a way to live without the necessity of keeping score? Or is there, perhaps, a value in numbering and counting things? Does this help us to create balance in our lives? |
A Community Prayer
May it be Your will, O God who numbers our days, that we may learn to count not only our days, but our blessings. Help us to understand how we may make each of our days full of blessing and joy. Show us the way to wholeness and peace in our homes, in our community, and in the world.
A Personal Prayer
I lift my heart to the One in Whom I put my trust. I recognize that each day of my life is precious. Help me to make each day a day of blessing. Help me to understand the nature of the things I count, and the nature of the things I do not count. Help me to understand what is most important in my life. Support me in the work of making right choices, choices that are healthy for me, choices that are healing for the world. I give thanks to You, Holy One, Who helps and sustains me. |
A Prayer about Memory |
Tammuz falls in the summer, when the weather is hot and our thoughts turn to that which would keep us cool. In the month of Tammuz, traditional Jews also begin a three-week vigil that concludes with the observance of Tisha B’Av, which commemorates the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem and many other disasters in Jewish history. These three weeks are considered an “unlucky” time. Some modern Jewish theologians, however, suggest that the three weeks that begin in Tammuz and the observance of Tisha B’Av are no longer relevant. What is our responsibility to remember tragic events that occurred in the past? What is our responsibility in relation to tragic events that have happened in our own time? |
My heart is heavy, Eternal One, with trying to understand why so many tragedies have befallen our people. My heart is heavy, Rock of Our Salvation, with the burden of carrying so many years of pain and fear, destruction and death.
Open my eyes and heal my heart. Help me to understand how to honor millennia filled with horrors past imagining while being faithful to a vision of a world redeemed. Help me to remember with compassion and love without being overwhelmed by sorrow. Show me the way to give meaning to the death of innocent Jews. Help me to build a future in which memory and hope can co-exist, a future in which we clearly see Your love and care for us. Amen. |
A Prayer about Moving from Sorrow to Joy |
The month of Av is a microcosm of all emotions. On the 9th of Av, we mark the commemoration of the darkest times in Jewish history. This commemoration, called Tishah B’Av (which means the ninth of Av), is a time of fasting and mourning. Six days later, we mark the 15th of Av, Tu B’Av, a day of love and rejoicing. Tradition teaches us that beginning on Tu B’Av we can begin to wish one another a happy New Year. In Av, we go from despair and mourning to hope and renewal. |
In my sorrow, Holy One, I lift my heart to You and You answer me. I weep for those things in my past that hurt me and that hurt others. I regret actions I took that caused pain. I weep for others who have been hurt by things that are not of my making. In our joined tears we give thanks for our humanity that makes us able to care for one another.
In my joy, Holy One, I lift my heart to You and You answer me. I give thanks for those things in my past that have brought me joy and that have brought joy to others. I give thanks for actions that I took that created sweetness and happiness in the world. I give thanks for the miracles of kindness in the world that are not of my own making. I rejoice for others who have happiness in their lives. Our mingled gratitude and laughter reminds us that all people share the same joys and hopes.
May it be Your will, Source of Hope, to help me to recognize the common bond I share with all human beings. May it be Your Will, Source of Strength, to help me to use this understanding to create goodness in the world. I give thanks to You, Shechina, who loves me, for Your presence in my life. |
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The month of Elul is a time for reflection, meditation, and
seeking for answers. It’s a time for finding that which needs
healing within one’s self, within one’s family, and in the world. |
May it be Your will, Eternal One, to help me search my heart. Help me experience the ways in which I can make my life more blessed. Help me to see the changes I must make in my life to add to my sense of joy and well-being. Give me the courage and the strength to be honest with myself about my weaknesses, and help me to embrace my strengths. Help me to be a force for healing and goodness in the world through my acceptance of my own humanity. Amen.
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Go to the Hebrew Calendar for all holidays.
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