Amidah Meditation

A guided meditation that takes you through the essential points of a weekday Amidah.

You may stand through this, or sit and imagine yourself standing.

Close your eyes.
Breathe.
Open your heart
To praise, hope and gratitude.

1.   ANCESTORS

Imagine you are standing in front of an ark, praying.

You take one step back, and you pray with your parents at your side.

Step back again, and you pray with your Grandparents.

Step back again, and your pray with all the Jews who came before you, your great-grandparents, the immigrants, the Jews of Europe, Spain, Morocco, Egypt, the Jews in Babylon and Palestine, the Jews of Eretz Yisrael, of Sinai, of Canaan...

Can you see their faces?  Are they praying with you?  If they pray with you, then step forward and they will come with you.  

If they are not praying with you, step forward anyway.

You are now with your grandparents.  Are they praying with you?  If they are, step forward and take them with you as you move up to your parents.

If your grandparents are not praying with you, step forward anyway.

You are now with your parents.  Are they praying with you?  If they are, include them as you see yourself bow down with the burden and pleasures of your history and their history as you begin this Amidah.

If your parents are not praying with you, pray anyway.

2.  GEVUROT - GOD’S POWER

Rambam says,
If you can’t imagine God then you don’t exist.

Imagine God.

3.  SANCTIFY GOD’S NAME

Quckly, what are all the names and metaphors you know for God?  

What was the first one that came to you?

4. What do you want God to help you understand?

5. You are so sorry.  You know what you did. 

6. Ask for forgiveness.  You know what you need to do.

7. You are forgiven.  

8 Imagine one part of your body that feels pain. Imagine all this pain gone, healed and made whole.   Imagine the pain of the world. 

9. Pray for the Earth, our home, and all that it gives us.

10.  May the homeless be housed.  May the hungry be fed. May the exiled go home.

11.  May all judges rule with kindness and compassion.  May we always refuse to participate in wrongdoing.

12.  Do you have any enemies?  Imagine a place where they are your friends.

13. We ask for the gift of mindfulness.  Whatever you are feeling right now, note it and let it go and go back to your breath.  

14. Let us think of Israel as the best version of itself that you can imagine.

15.  Isn’t it wonderful to be who and what you are?  Isn’t it just amazingly wonderful?

16.  Think about your prayers, your holy conversation, your kadosh kesher.  Ask to be heard.  

You are heard.

17.  Ask for opportunities to serve others with your gifts.

18. Give thanks for this beautiful and complicated world and this gift of life that was given to you.

19.  Shalom.  Salaam.  Peace.

May the words of our mouths and the thoughts of our hearts become joyful truth.

May the good things we pray for happen and, if not, 

May we never forget to hope. 

And when you are ready, 
open your eyes.

Blessing The Name

Bless Hashem, Bless The Name
Of The Creator of Light and Darkness.

This is sometimes hard to understand:
Blessing the name and not naming the name.
Perhaps it means
We are in awe
And can only touch the hem of the garment,
Not even the name itself.
But sometimes I think
It just means that we haven't yet come up
With a satisfactory nickname.

In Genesis
God created the wild beasts and all the birds of the sky
And brought them to Adam to see what he would calll them
And the man gave names to them all.
Did Adam gain control of the animals because he could name them?
Or was that only an illusion of control
To comfort Adam in his newborn bewilderment?

And sometimes I think
That the God who receives all this blessing
Watches us to see what we will call God.
Giving us the illusion of control
Over the Eternal Ineffable Unnameable One-ness
So as to comfort us in our spiritual infancy.

So we bless that gift of comfort and delusion,
One among many
As we come together,
To Bless the Name
Of the Creator of Light and Dark
Of Life and Death
Of Everything
We are in awe
And can only touch the hem of the garment
Not even the name itself.

It is so interesting.
It is so lovely.
We are so lucky.