Rabbi's Week in Review Blog

In our limmud, our study together, we have been delving into prayer. Specifically, we have been studying “why we pray what we pray.” The group discussions and insights that have ensued have been extraordinary. We are gaining a deeper understanding of prayer with a greater sense of intention over our prayers. We have seen how prayers serve to create our very complex relationships with G-d, with each other as Jews, and with the broader world.

I am so very grateful for the way in which our congregation engages in this heady topic — with curiosity, great intellect and care for different points of view. Yet I have also come to realize that while we have not reached the end of our exploration of Jewish prayer, we do need to change things up with a little greater frequency.

It is with that in mind that I am throwing out a challenge to all of you. I am asking you to form our curriculum for our future study, which will be based on “Asking the Rabbi.”

This actually comes from somewhere — Questions Jews Ask, a book written in the 1950s by Rabbi Mordecai Kaplan. I have the book, which was given to my father z”l, of blessed memory, by a Sunday-morning prayer and breakfast group at Beth Shalom. 

Any Jewish question is a good question. To begin studying these questions, I ask you to submit your questions to me by the beginning of Hanukkah, December 18. Our goal is to have as many of you as possible submit a total of 100 questions. We will track our progress each week. At the beginning of January, I will announce the question or questions we will use for each of our study sessions.

Submit your questions via email to rabbidoug@kolamikc.org.

Let’s get to 100! I look forward to our studies to come.