Women
When the heart is full of gratitude, there is prayer.
When the soul is full of pain, there is prayer.
When it seems there is no one to talk to or nothing to say, there is prayer.
Jewish prayer gives wings to our emotions and words to our yearnings. It has the power to uplift, articulate, and clarify. Formal prayer is crucial. In addition, praying informally, personally, and often, can be a deeply rewarding exercise in spirituality and in our relationship with Hashem.
In this meaningful, touching, and deep book, Ruchi Koval has explained and added personal connection to some of the most fundamental Jewish prayers, as well as created and adapted some new ones for contemporary Jewish women - all written for all Jewish women, whether observant , just Jewish , or just beginning to daven.
A brief introduction precedes each prayer explaining when it is said and it's purpose. Each prayer includes the original Hebrew text, as well as transliteration, and a translation that brings out it's essence. Following the prayer is a "takeaway" which makes the prayer personal and help internalize it's message.
Tefillah is referred to as service of the heart. With this unique book, we can open our hearts to G-d, our families, and ourselves.
"Despite my knowing all the words to the poem, I thought that the Eishes Chayil was demure and gentle, a woman with a perpetual smile, a starched apron, a warm cake in one hand, and a Tehillim in the other. I thought that the Eishes Chayil would spend most of her time engaged in house work, child care or meditative practice. I assumed that the family of the Eishes Chayil would look nothing like mine and would be remarkably sensitive, calm and learned. In a few words, the Eishes Chayil, while praiseworthy and awe-inspiring, was someone I would never want to spend time with.
But I was wrong. The Eishes Chayil described in the verses - and our sources - looks nothing like the image I had painted in my head. As we will discover as we explore the verses of the poem line by line, the Eishes Chayil is no pushover. She is humble, strong, decisive, nurturing and lives with faith. She is someone we would all enjoy spending time with - as well as someone who we could strive to become."
Adapted from the Introduction
The Eishes Chayil has many professional and personal accomplishments, all rooted in her deep faith in G-d and desire to do His will. Whoever she is, her daily life reflects her top priorities - she stays focused on what she knows is truly important. She is able juggle multiple roles and balance her priorities at each stage of life with intelligence and sensitivity. In this fascinating work, readers will:
- Study the simple meaning of the text to understand how a married woman creates and nourishes herself, her family and her society.
- Examine the lives of the great Jewish women to which the Medrash on Eishes Chayil refers.
- Use the questions listed (for our own self-growth, in our roles as wives and mothers, and to speak about with our daughters) to help each woman to know herself better and find her own individual spiritual path to greatness.
- Learn how to apply these lessons to life.
In this powerful work, readers will be inspired - and grow.
In this empowering work, women will discover themselves and learn how the Torah helps each woman chart her own course.
Approbations:
"… fluent, interesting and informative...I am truly impressed with … this magnificent tapestry…. I highly recommend this work as a true Torah perspective on the essence of the true Eishes Chayil…"
Rabbi Zev Leff
"… strong in its Torah analysis… thoroughly grounded in the realities of life"
Rabbi Ahron Shraga Lopiansky
About the Author:
Shira Hochheimer has been educating woman and girls of all ages for over 15 years. She is passionate about empowering women to find more fulfillment in their lives by learning Torah. She has been a Rebbetzin in Rochester, NY and is now in a leadership role for girl's Jewish education in Baltimore, Md. Her proudest accomplishment is her role as a wife and mother of five.
The Hilkhot Nashim series presents an in-depth review of laws relating to women in Jewish ritual life. Tracing the development of responses on a given topic - from Talmudic to Geonic to medieval to modern - each chapter reproduces all relevant halakhic sources in both Hebrew and English. The writers then contextualize and clarify the sources, closely parse their language, and explain their effects on subsequent posekim. This guided exploration of the halakhic process exposes readers to the rich tapestry of Jewish legal literature, its concerns and considerations, and the full complexity of the issues it braves. This second volume is devoted to questions of women and rituals connected to Shabbat, in which women are taking active participatory roles - reciting kiddush and hamotsi, reciting havdalah, and touching the Torah. Four topics: Kiddush by Rahel Berkowits Hamotzi by Rahel Berkowits Havdala by Rahel Berkowits Sefer Torah by Devorah Zlochower
The Hilkhot Nashim series presents an in-depth review of laws relating to women in Jewish ritual life. Tracing the development of responses on a given topic – from Talmudic to Geonic to medieval to modern – each chapter reproduces all relevant halakhic sources in both Hebrew and English. The writers then contextualize and clarify the sources, closely parse their language, and explain their effects on subsequent posekim. This guided exploration of the halakhic process exposes readers to the rich tapestry of Jewish legal literature, its concerns and considerations, and the full complexity of the issues it braves.
This second volume is devoted to questions of women and rituals connected to Shabbat, in which women are taking active participatory roles – reciting kiddush and hamotsi, reciting havdalah, and touching the Torah.
Four topics:
Kiddush by Rahel Berkowits
Hamotzi by Rahel Berkowits
Havdala by Rahel Berkowits
Sefer Torah by Devorah Zlochower
In If We Could Hear Them Now, heroines from different eras of Jewish history come to life. The author conducts "interviews" with different greats of the past, allowing each woman to tell her story from a personal point of view. Written in a contemporary and riveting fashion, this book illustrates the qualities that set heroes apart and the lessons that can be learned and incorporated from these remarkable lives.
What is a holy woman, or a holy man for that matter? According to the Jewish mystics, a holy person is someone who has not lost the holiness that every baby is born with. A holy person is someone who fulfills it. Stories about Jewish holy women have rarely been collected in such an engaging and entertaining form. The tales display a specifically female Jewish spirituality, giving us a peek into a world of devotional beauty that focuses on kindness. These stories of laughter and tears, humility and bravery, striving and trance, have an appeal spanning the denominational spectrum: they are spiritual nourishment for the soul. The rabbis say there are both male and female angels and angels are on earth as well as in heaven. These tales enhance our appreciation of the female angels on earth.
Winner of:
2013 National Jewish Book Award
For centuries, Jews have turned to the Mourner's Kaddish prayer upon experiencing a loss. This groundbreaking book explores what the recitation of Kaddish has meant specifically to women. Did they find the consolation, closure, and community they were seeking? How did saying Kaddish affect their relationships with God, with prayer, with the deceased, and with the living? With courage and generosity, 52 authors from around the world reflect upon their experiences of mourning. They share their relationships with the family members they lost and what it meant to move on; how they struggled to balance the competing demands of child rearing, work, and grief; what they learned about tradition and themselves; and the disappointments and particular challenges they confronted as women. The collection shares viewpoints from diverse perspectives and backgrounds and examines what it means to heal from loss and to honor memory in family relationships, both loving and fraught with pain. It is a precious record of women searching for their place within Jewish tradition and exploring the connections that make human life worthwhile.
To better understand and fully appreciate the unique role of a Jewish woman, one must consider not only the big picture but the biggest picture of all: nothing less than the purpose of creation.
The profundity and essential meaning of Jewish womanhood lies at the heart of Nefesh Chaya: The Unique Avodas HaShem of the Jewish Woman.
The author employs his dynamic approach to Torah Judaism to shed light on such fundamental concepts as: a woman s essential power, the deeper meanings of modesty, the importance of prayer, a woman s role in education, the image of a Jewish mother, creating a sanctuary in the home, and more.
The book is fittingly named after the author s wife, Rebbetzin Chaya Pincus, and concludes with an eloquent tribute to both her and their daughter Miriam Pincus. All three Rabbi Pincus, his wife, and their daughter perished in a tragic auto accident, in April, 2001.
Combining wit, wisdom, an informal, personal style, along with fascinating and inspiring Talmudic insights, this innovative work reveals the precious heart and soul of what it means to be a Jewish woman.
Rav Shimshon Dovid Pincus was a world-renowned speaker and educator who inspired and influenced Jewish audiences around the world in the decades he spent traveling, gracing seminars, classrooms, lecture halls, week-end retreats and special events.
His profound teachings appear in print under the series heading: Nefesh Shimshon.
In his innovative and magisterial lead essay, Rabbi Yehuda Henkin analyzes the pervasive yet little-understood area of women's modesty. In Understanding Tzniut, Rabbi Henkin also examines the issues of handshaking, aliyot to the Torah, and dancing with a sefer Torah, as well as general topics such as questions of rabbinical misjudgment during the Holocaust and the relationship to Israel's government in the wake of the expulsion from Gush Katif. To all topics, Rabbi Henkin brings halachic stature, scholarship and erudition.
