Making Prayer Real: Leading Jewish Spiritual Voices on Why Prayer Is Difficult and What to Do About It [Paperback]

Mike Comins (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 1, 2010

Fresh, Useful Perspectives on the Spiritual Dynamics of Prayer
"Better music, better sermons and better prayer books can only go so far. Many innovations have been tried around the world, and no doubt, synagogue leadership will continue to think creatively about improving services. But deep and lasting change will only come when each of us takes ownership and responsibility for what only we can really guide--our inner lives." --from the Preface
Join over fifty Jewish spiritual leaders from all denominations in a candid conversation about the why and how of prayer: how prayer changes us and how to discern a response from God. In this fascinating forum, they share the challenges of prayer, what it means to pray, how to develop your own personal prayer voice, and how to rediscover meaning and God's presence in the traditional Jewish prayer book.
CONTRIBUTORS:
Rabbi Bradley Shavit Artson
Rabbi Aryeh Ben David
Rabbi Anne Brener, LCSW
Rabbi Sharon Brous
Maggid Yitzhak Buxbaum
Rabbi Mike Comins
Rabbi Elliot J. Cosgrove, PhD
Rabbi Lavey Derby
Cantor Ellen Dreskin
Rabbi Diane Elliot
Reb Mimi Feigelson
Rabbi Tirzah Firestone
Rabbi Nancy Flam
Rabbi Karen Fox, DD
Dr. Tamar Frankiel
Rabbi Ethan Franzel
Rabbi Elyse Frishman
Rabbi Laura Geller
Rabbi Neil Gillman, PhD
Rabbi Shefa Gold
Rabbi Elyse Goldstein
Joel Lurie Grishaver
Rabbi Nadya Gross
Rabbi Jill Hammer, PhD
Melila Hellner-Eshed, PhD
Rabbi Lawrence A. Hoffman, PhD
Rabbi David Ingber
Rabbi Zoë Klein
Rabbi Myriam Klotz
Rabbi Jamie Korngold
Rabbi Lawrence Kushner
Rabbi Naomi Levy
Rabbi Richard N. Levy, DD
Rabbi Sheryl Lewart
Jay Michaelson
Rabbi Linda Motzkin
Rabbi Debra Orenstein
Rabbi Nehemia Polen, PhD
Rabbi Marcia Prager
Rabbi Jeff Roth
Rabbi Zalman M. Schachter-Shalomi
Rabbi Rami Shapiro
Rabbi Jonathan P. Slater
Rabbi Elie Kaplan Spitz
Rabbi Ira Stone
Rabbi Michael Strassfeld
Dr. Linda Thal
Rabbi Abraham Twerski, MD
Rabbi Sheila Peltz Weinberg
Rabbi Zari M. Weiss
Rabbi David J. Wolpe
Rabbi Shawn Zevit

Editorial Reviews

From the Inside Flap

Put your heart's desires into words--no one else can truly pray for you.
Have you lost faith in prayer? Do you wonder just who you are praying to and if it is worth the effort? Does your search for religious meaning take you anywhere but to synagogue and the traditional Jewish prayer book? If so, you're not alone.
This is a no-holds-barred look at why so many of us find synagogue services and prayer at best difficult, and at worst, meaningless and boring--and how to make it more satisfying. Rabbi Mike Comins draws from over fifty interviews with Jewish spiritual leaders from all denominations, as well as from their "best prayer practices." He offers a new and different response to the challenges of prayer to entice and inspire you to become a "prayer person," a person who engages in prayer to play the heart strings of the soul.
He then guides you in overcoming the obstacles to achieving a satisfying prayer life through twenty-four innovative and traditional practices, relating prayer to the needs of conscious living:
* Nurturing joy
* Increasing mindfulness
* Facilitating self-change
* Dealing with tragedy
* Responding to loss

About the Author

Rabbi Mike Comins, the founder of TorahTrek Spiritual Wilderness Adventures and the Institute for Jewish Wilderness Spirituality, is the author of A Wild Faith: Jewish Ways into Wilderness, Wilderness Ways into Judaism (Jewish Lights). He studied classical Jewish texts at the Pardes Institute, earned his MA in Jewish education from Hebrew University, and was ordained in the Israeli rabbinical program of Hebrew Union College. He was a founding member and the first director of education at Kehilat Kol Haneshama in Jerusalem. He lives, teaches, and writes in Los Angeles, and serves as a scholar-in-residence for schools and synagogues around the world.

He studied classical Jewish texts at the Pardes Institute, earned his MA in Jewish education from Hebrew University, and was ordained in the Israeli rabbinical program of Hebrew Union College. He was a founding member and the first director of education at Kehilat Kol Haneshama in Jerusalem. He lives, teaches, and writes in Los Angeles, and serves as a scholar-in-residence for schools and synagogues around the world.

Product Details

• Paperback: 200 pages
• Publisher: Jewish Lights Pub; 1 edition (February 1, 2010)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1580234178
• ISBN-13: 978-1580234177
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 6.1 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #360,988 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #39 in Books > Religion & Spirituality > Judaism > Prayerbooks

More About the Author

Rabbi Mike Comins is the founder of TorahTrek Spiritual Wilderness
Adventures (www.TorahTrek.com) and the author of A Wild Faith: Jewish
Ways into Wilderness, Wilderness Ways into Judaism (Jewish Lights;
www.awildfaith.com). A native of Los Angeles and a graduate of UCLA,
Rabbi Comins made aliyah and lived in Israel for fifteen years. He studied
classical Jewish texts at the Pardes Institute, earned his MA in Jewish
education from Hebrew University, and was ordained in the Israeli rabbinical
program of Hebrew Union College. He was a founding member
and the first director of education at Kehilat Kol Haneshama in
Jerusalem. Finding his calling in life, Rabbi Comins became a licensed
Israeli desert guide and led Ruach HaMidbar desert trips in Israel and
the Sinai. He participated in the Mindfulness Leadership Training program
at Elat Chayyim, the Jewish Spiritual Retreat Center, the first rabbinical
cohort of the Institute for Jewish Spirituality, and the Kol Zimra:
Chant Leader's Professional Development program. He founded
TorahTrek while serving the Jewish Community of Jackson Hole,
Wyoming. Currently, Rabbi Comins lives, teaches, and writes in Los
Angeles; he leads TorahTrek programs and serves as a scholar-in-residence
around the country.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

15 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Essential reading if you are exploring Jewish Prayer, March 20, 2010

By 

Dan Liben (Natick, MA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Making Prayer Real: Leading Jewish Spiritual Voices on Why Prayer Is Difficult and What to Do About It (Paperback)

Finally, the book on Jewish prayer that I have been waiting for someone to write. Comins brings to the table a collection of some of today's most interesting Rabbis, Cantors, daveners and meditators, who share their experience with prayer. While the book touches upon theology, its real concern is the phenomenology of prayer: how does it work? How does it transform the pray-er? What various techniques and methods of prayer can I learn from people who are further along their prayer journey than I am?
Though these questions may sound ponderous, Comins has actually written a page- turner. His interviewees are candid and personal, and you really want to hear what they have to say. Comins challenges all of us who have ever been bored by stultifying services to stop blaming the clergy or the prayerbook, and to take responsibility for our own prayer lives. He urges Jews in the pews to stop thinking about the Siddur as a book to be read in the ordinary sense, but rather as a tool to be used, as part of a more fully embodied experience, in order to reach an expanded state of God-consciousness.
The how-to section near the end is phenomenal: practical techniques offered by masters of prayer that can be easily tested out and taken on as your own. This is the book that may finally wake Jews up to the possibility of prayer as a serious spiritual practice.

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent, February 22, 2010

By 

G. Silberberg (Jackson, Wyoming) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Making Prayer Real: Leading Jewish Spiritual Voices on Why Prayer Is Difficult and What to Do About It (Paperback)

Rabbi Comins has written another profound but accessible work on renewing Jewish faith. He has synthesized a number of points of view on the value of prayer. Though a Buddhist influence can be detected, the treatment is authentically Jewish. As with his prior book A Wild Faith: Jewish Ways into Wilderness, Wilderness Ways into Judaism, Rabbi Comins encourages the embracing of meaningful (rather than rote) worship.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Better late then never, August 23, 2010

By 

Nathan Schor "Nathan" (Miami) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Making Prayer Real: Leading Jewish Spiritual Voices on Why Prayer Is Difficult and What to Do About It (Paperback)

The best compliment I can give this book - and it deserves it - is that I wish it was available decades ago since it would have saved me a lot of stumbling around. This is the book synagogue should give out to every Bar/Bat Mitzvahs along with the requisite Tanach and trees planted in their honor in Israel. Indeed, if every rabbi made that gift then it would make a perceptible impact on the second Holocaust Jews face today - assimilation.