For many Jews, the Days of Awe are the one time of year to experience prayer services. An essential part of those services is the weekday Amidah, a prayer said standing, punctuated by silence and ...

Answer: The Mishna Berura (Orach Chayyim 123 s.k. 2) notes that we read in the Beit Yosef (Rabbi Yosef Caro’s commentary to the Tur) (ad loc.) numerous reasons for taking three steps backward at the ...

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“May the words of my mouth and the meditations of my heart be acceptable before You, O Lord - my Rock and my Redeemer.” (Psalms 19:15) We add this verse to the end of the Amidah, the central prayer ...

One of my favorite High Holidays prayers is the U-v’khein, several paragraphs added to the Amidah, especially for Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. The Amidah, said while standing (Amidah means standing ...

Unlike the weekday Amidah, which contains nineteen blessings, the Amidah for Shabbat contains only seven. Why seven? The Talmud (Berachot 29a) explains that these seven blessings correspond to the ...

There is a short version of the weekday Amidah, which can be said when one is very pushed for time. The practice stems from a disagreement in Mishnah Berachot: “Rabban Gamliel says, a person should ...

Please note that the posts on The Blogs are contributed by third parties. The opinions, facts and any media content in them are presented solely by the authors, and neither The Times of Israel nor its ...

Before the Amidah, the custom is take three steps back and then three steps forward. The idea is to step into a place of prayer, a different headspace that is more than a few inches distant from where ...