Praying Naked: You and the Holy One with No Book Between
Mitchell Chefitz
The most profound, complete text concerning Jewish spirituality, Jewish mysticism, or the Kabbalah is . . . the siddur. The prayerbook. Within the siddur, the morning prayer service is the most complete. It contains both the reading of the Sh’ma and the Amidah. In it you will find a profound series of spiritual exercises to take you through the Four Worlds of Jewish spirituality.
But what happens when we put the prayer book down? Without the substance of the book to block our line of sight, we see the Holy One who is always visible. Much as the early rabbis built the prayer service upon the order of sacrificial offerings, we’ll review the order of prayer in the morning service and build . . . as deeply as we dare.
Mitch is the author of The Seventh Telling: The Kabbalah of Moshe Katan and its sequel, The Thirty-third Hour. His story collection, The Curse of Blessings, has been translated into German, Korean, and Mandarin. His most recent publication is a digitally formatted novella, White Fire. For twenty-two years beginning in 1980 he was the rabbi of the Havurah of South Florida. Mitch has served as chairperson of the National Havurah Committee, editor of a nationally syndicated weekly Torah column, and is a frequent teacher at Havurah institutes on topics related to Jewish spirituality, alternative religious community, and Jewish family education, and especially topics that challenge the boundaries of reason.
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