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 By Rabbi Lawrence A. Hoffman, PhD
By the eighteenth century, it was becoming increasingly common for women, not just men, to have prayer books. The prayer books for wealthy Italian women included not just the standard prayers but prayers specific to women: a prayer for baking challah, for instance, such as the following:
May it be Your will that our dough be blessed through the work of our hands, just as blessings attended the handiwork of our mothers Sarah, Rebecca, Rachel, and Leah. May the words of Torah be true for us, as it is written: “The finest of your baking will you give to the priest, so that your houses may be blessed” (Ezekiel 44:30). Amen. So may it be Your will.
When contemplating sexual intercourse, a woman who hoped to become pregnant would pray:
May it be Your will, my God and God of my forebears … that You be gracious to me so that on this night, which is now descending upon us in peace, my husband and I might conceive a child. Let the child ... be wise and truly God-fearing, unconditionally observant of Your laws, Your commandments, and Your judgments. Ruler of the Universe, please accept my plea and place in my womb a pure, unblemished soul.
The uncertainty of a woman traveling alone comes through in another prayer to be recited before her departure from home on business or ordinary errands.
Guard me like the apple of your eye.
Hide me in the shadow of your wings (Psalm 17:8).
Hide me from a band of evil men, from a crowd of evil doers
(Psalm 64:3).
He saved me from my fierce enemy, from foes too strong for
me (Psalm 18:18).
Women’s prayer books became common especially in eastern Europe. To this day, I remember my grandmother, who lived with us briefly, standing endlessly, it seemed, looking east through the living-room window, with a prayer book in hand, specially prepared with Yiddish translation and a commentary directed to the life of Jewish women.
Even these relatively simple prayers convert ordinary acts into sacred behavior. Just saying them allowed women to think differently about their world. Baking bread is not mere mundane cookery, it adds blessing to one’s family. Bringing children into the world populates a universe with pious and moral human beings. Even when we are alone and relatively defenseless in a threatening environment, we may invoke the comforting presence of God.
The above excerpt, “Women in Prayer—Some History,” by Rabbi Lawrence A. Hoffman, PhD, is from The Way Into Jewish Prayer © 2000 by Lawrence Hoffman. Permission granted by Jewish Lights Publishing, P.O. Box 237, Woodstock, VT 05091; www.jewishlights.com.
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Rabbi Lawrence A. Hoffman, PhD has written and edited many books, including Who by Fire, Who by Water—Un’taneh Tokef, All These Vows—Kol Nidre, and We Have Sinned—Confession in Judaism—Ashamnu and Al Chet, the first three volumes in the Prayers of Awe Series; My People’s Prayer Book: Traditional Prayers, Modern Commentaries, winner of the National Jewish Book Award; The Art of Public Prayer, 2nd Edition: Not for Clergy Only; Israel—A Spiritual Travel Guide, 2nd Edition: A Companion for the Modern Jewish Pilgrim; Praying at Hard Times: The Soul’s Imaginings; Rethinking Synagogues: A New Vocabulary for Congregational Life; The Way Into Jewish Prayer, and co-editor of My People’s Passover Haggadah: Traditional Texts, Modern Commentaries, a finalist for the National Jewish Book Award. He is coauthor of What You Will See inside a Synagogue.
He has served for more than three decades as professor of liturgy at Hebrew Union College—Jewish Institute of Religion in New York. He is a world-renowned liturgist and holder of the Stephen and Barbara Friedman Chair in Liturgy, Worship and Ritual. His work combines research in Jewish ritual, worship and spirituality with a passion for the spiritual renewal of contemporary Judaism.
Rabbi Hoffman is a developer of Synagogue 3000, a transdenominational project designed to envision and implement the ideal synagogue of the spirit for the twenty-first century.
Rabbi Lawrence A. Hoffman, PhD, is available to speak on the following topics:
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A Day of Wine and Moses: The Passover Haggadah and the Seder You Have Always Wanted
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Preparing for the High Holy Days: How to Appreciate the Liturgy of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur
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The Essence of Jewish Prayer: The Prayer Book in Context and Worship in Our Time
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Beyond Ethnicity: The Coming Project for North American Jewish Identity
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Synagogue Change: Transforming Synagogues as Spiritual and Moral Centers for the Twenty-First Century
Click here to contact the author.
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