Meditating with the Siddur

Prayer is a means to connect meaningfully to the infinite loving center of the universe. Yet praying from words written by other people in very different contexts from our own can be challenging. If we slow down our encounter with each prayer, we can appreciate that they are each a carefully composed work of spiritual technology. They are roadmaps of inner discovery, full of questions that can invite us to open to new experiences of self-awareness, gratitude, empathy, love, resilience, connection, and wholeness. In this immersion, we will explore prayers from Shacharit (the Morning Service) as invitations to meditative practices and exercises, including embodied movement, writing exercises, guided visualizations, chanting, and so on. Together, we will deepen our experiential connection to prayers such as the Shema and the Amidah, in ways that we can later draw upon whenever we desire. With each prayer, we will search for how it resonates within us, and how it can support us in our ongoing journey of becoming our best possible selves. There will also be space for intentional sharing, so we will be enriched by both our own inner experiences and that of our fellow community members.

Daniel Raphael Silverstein is a rabbi, educator, meditation teacher and MC/poet. He lives in Israel with his family, where he directs Applied Jewish Spirituality, an online portal which makes the transformative spiritual wisdom of our tradition accessible to all who seek it. Daniel is an accredited teacher of Jewish Mindfulness Meditation and regularly teaches classes and retreats. Daniel was born and raised in London, and he received a BA from the University of Cambridge and an MA from Warwick University. After receiving semikha from Yeshivat Chovevei Torah Rabbinical School, he served as Director of Jewish Life and Learning for Hillel of Stanford University in Palo Alto, CA. Daniel has performed and facilitated all over the world as a spoken word artist, MC, and creative educator, and the Jewish Week selected him as one of their “36 Under 36” young innovators reshaping the Jewish community. Daniel is a cofounder of Lines of Faith, a Muslim-Jewish hip hop and poetry collective that uses performances and workshops to challenge prejudice and build meaningful bonds between communities.

All sessions will be recorded and sent to participants. We encourage live attendance for you to get the most out of the experience.