Amidah Offering: Service / Avodah
The Hebrew word avodah implies service, work, and prayer. Is service the same as serving or servitude? What do we serve? Who or Whom do we serve? How do we serve? Ancient temple sacrifice was known as avodah; so now is the holy work we call avodah she-ba-lev, the “service of the heart.” Is service the same as prayer? Is all work a form of service? How do we (want to) serve today? These questions, and others, animate our collective offering on the theme of avodah. We hope that our offering serves to open up your deep questions, too.
Previous offerings in this series:
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0 – Open / Adonai S’fatai
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1 – Ancestors / Avot v’Imahot
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2 – All This Power / Gevurot
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3 – Holy / Kedusha
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4 – This Day / Kedushat HaYom
Download the PDF:
Bayit – Amidah – Avodah [pdf]
Preview the google slides:
The slides are also here on google drive:
Bayit – Amidah – Avodah
(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.)
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.
This collection features work by Trisha Arlin, R. Rachel Barenblat, Joanne Fink, R. Sonja Keren Pilz, and R. David Zaslow. Find our bios on the Builder Biographies page.
