Amidah Offering: Ancestors
The first blessing of the Amidah names God as “God of” Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and in liberal Jewish spaces, also God of Sarah, Rebecca, Rachel, and Leah. What does it mean to us to connect with holiness through our ancestors? How do we understand our lineage and our relationship to it? What traces do our generations leave for us? How does this prayer speak for us (or does it speak for us) — and can we affirm its vision of a relational God? These are some of the questions that animated our collaborative work on this offering of liturgy, poetry, and art.
How to use this offering: Pray these in community or on your own. Add pages from the PDF to photocopied handouts, or add slides from the slide deck to services. Make one of the slides the desktop background on your computer, or use some of the art as wallpaper for your phone. Share the prayer-poems with others. Write your own prayer-poem in response, and pray that. (Or use them in some other way — and tell us what works for you.) In short: we hope you’ll use these in whatever way will best enable these words and images to speak to and for your heart.
Both the downloadable PDF, and the google slide deck, begin with the text of the blessing out of which our creative work arises.
Also in this series:
This Amidah collaboration features work from Trisha Arlin, Mike Cockrill, R. Rachel Barenblat, Joanne Fink, R. Sonja Keren Pilz, Steve Silbert, and R. David Zaslow.
Download the PDF:
Bayit-Amidah-Ancestors [pdf]
Preview the google slides:
The slides are also here on google drive:
Bayit Amidah Ancestors Slides
(The above link will prompt you to make your own copy of the slides, which you can then integrate with other digital offerings as you wish.)
If this speaks to you, you also might find meaning in our book From Narrow Places: Liturgy, Poetry and Art of the Pandemic Era, available now for $18.
This collection features work by Trisha Arlin, Mike Cockrill, R. Rachel Barenblat, Joanne Fink, R. Sonja Keren Pilz, Steve Silbert, and R. David Zaslow. Find our bios on the Builder Biographies page.
