At the heart of Jewish renewal and of many newer approaches to tikkun olam is an understanding of Jewish history as a series of encounters with God, once again renewed in our generation after the crisis of the Holocaust and the seeming triumph of Modernity in both its creative and destructive aspects. For that reason, there have been serious efforts to rethink the nature and content of prayer so as to infuse it with tikkun olam as understood in our generation.

Paradigm Shift


Zalman Schachter-Shalomi
Jason Aronson, 1991

A collection of crucial essays on crossing the river into a new form of Judaism for the 21st century and far beyond. The essays explore the nature of Jewish community and history, an experiential "davvenology" and the possibilities of a new outlook on Jewish law (the "psycho-halakhic process").

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Meta-Siddur

David Wolfe-Blank
Eitz Or Congregation, 0

Available from Eitz Or Congregation in Seattle -- send email inquiries to eitzor@juno.com.

Applications of neo-Hassidic/ Jewish-renewal mind to the prayerbook. Filled with deep insights and extraordinary teachings, best accessed with two or more people learning together.

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Meta-Parshiot

David Wolfe-Blank
Eitz Or Congreagation, 0

Available from Eitz Or Congregation in Seattle -- send email inquiries to eitzor@juno.com.
Applications of neo-Hassidic/ Jewish-renewal mind to the Torah. Filled with deep insights and extraordinary teachings, best accessed with two or more people learning together.

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Worlds of Jewish Prayer: A Festschrift in Honor of Rabbi Zalman M. Schachter-Shalomi

Jonathan Omer-Man and Shohama Wiener, eds.
Jason Aronson, 1994



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The Fifty-Eighth Century: A Jewish Renewal Sourcebook

Shohama Wiener, ed.
Jason Aronson, 1996

A collection of essays by students of Reb Zalman Schachter-Shalomi, pointing new directions in the "new paradigm" of Judaism, especially in regard to prayer.

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Seek My Face, Speak My Name

Arthur Green
Jason Aronson, 1992

An exploration of many new metaphors for God and their implications for practice of Judaism.


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Or Chadash: A Guide to Shabbat Celebration

P'nai Or Religious Fellowship
ALEPH: Alliance for Jewish Renewal, 1987

A major effort to reconceive the prayerbook to address God in
non-hierarchical terms. Not available through bookstores; email ALEPH
at Alephajr@aol.com for more information.


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The Book of Blessings

Marcia Falk
HarperSanFrancisco, 1996


Presents a profoundly alternative version of the prayerbook.


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Ivdu et-Yah B'Simcha

David Zaslow
n/a, 0
Or Chadash also showed how to use dance, meditation, dialogue, and other non-verbal or interpersonal techniques as part of prayer. Some of its approach has been embodied in David Zaslow's prayerbook, Ivdu et-Yah B'Simcha.


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The Path of Blessing


Marcia Prager
Bell Tower, 1998


Explores the depths of meaning in just six words -- the first words of all traditional Jewish prayers.


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Voices of the Matriarchs


Chava Weissler
Beacon, 1998
Resurfaces and translates from Yiddish the tkhinnes -- prayers-of-the-heart that Eastern European Jewish women spoke and wrote. She then brings the tkhinne process into our own generation, including some contemporary women's prayers, and ends with a briiliantly self-reflective look at the role of a scholar who is herself a feminist in researching the past and creating new futures in the process.

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Seasons of Our Joy: A Modern Guide to the Jewish Holidays


Arthur Waskow
Beacon Press, 1990


A guide to walking the festivals as a spiritual path that evokes both nature and history, intertwined with an explanation of millennial change in the festivals as an index to the spiritual growth of the Jewish people as a whole.

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Lifecycles: Jewish Women on Life Passages and Personal Milestones


Debra Orenstein
Jewish Lights, 1994

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A Heart of Wisdom: Making the Jewish Journey from Midlife through the Elder Years

Susan Berrin
Jewish Lights, 1997

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Stepping Stones to Jewish Spiritual Living

James L. Mirel and Karen Bonnie Wirth
Jewish Lights, 1998


Walks through a weekday with the same celebratory care that has usually been devoted only to Shabbat.


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Mourning and Mitzvah

Anne Brener
Jewish Lights, 1993

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Jewish Views of the Afterlife

Simcha Paull Raphael
Jason Aronson, 1994



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A Woman's Book of Grieving

Nessa Rapoport
Wm. Morrow, 1994

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Mixed Blessings: Overcoming the Stumbling Blocks in an Interfaith Marriage

Paul Cowan with Rachel Cowan
Doubleday, 1987


Renewal Jews live in the most cross-communal atmosphere in about two thousand years. As a result, the question of inter-religious households has been of great interest, and was explored from a renewal standpoint by Paul Cowan and Rachel Cowan, in their book Mixed Blessings.

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Stranger in the Midst

Nan Fink
Basic Books, 1997

Conversion to Judaism is explored from the convert's standpoint.

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