Customer Reviews

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

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

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.

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.

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.

I love this book! Making Prayer Real is the best book I have read in years.

It's like eating an Oreo cookie. (Or in my case a Newman's Hint-of-Mint cookie.) Rabbi Comins commentary on its own, would have been fabulous. Dayeinu - enough. (The chocolate cookie.) And the other contributors' voices alone, also would have been enough. (The creamy filling) But put the two together and you have a delicious, well written, inspiring, re-assuring piece of work.

I had no idea I shared the same thoughts about prayer as so many other Jewish people. We also differ, but that's okay too. I am simply inspired and relieved.

This book rocks. You will read it in one sitting. Or maybe two. I had to get up in the middle to get more cookies and refill my milk glass.

-Rabbi Jamie Korngold, The Adventure Rabbi and author of God in the Wilderness: Rediscovering the Spirituality of the Great Outdoors with the Adventure Rabbi

I davan everyday with a minyan (prayer quorum), but until reading this book, I never a read a book that puts into words my ideas about prayer and caused me to rethink how I approach prayer. Based on what I learned from this book I wrote a whole article about prayer published on the Congregation KINS blog [...]

While the Jewish approach to prayer is vastly different than the Christian approach, the concept of conversing with God and one's inner self is the same. This book will change the way you think about prayer and is highly recommended for everyone Jews and non-Jews. It belongs in personal, academic, synagogue, and church libraries.

I bought this one for a class our own Rabbi here in Pasadena, CA is giving, but the book is readable and true to its intention:assisting modern, secular congregants find spiritual meaning and a sense of connection with God, through traditional Jewish liturgy. To be frank, I've only gotten through the beginning of the book, but even this book's posing the questions regarding the problems with traditional Jewish liturgy, contrasted with how modern rabbis and Jews have found meaning and even transcendent experiences through prayer, is inspirational. Dense with both philosophical analysis and major religious issues, this is by no means fictional "page turner," but well worth the effort; the book's structure, featuring short quotes and essay by many leading modern spiritual rabbis makes it easy to take the book in small doses for those, like me, who may need time to digest the "big picture" life questions which may be addressed through prayer. Recommended for anyone struggling with religion/theology and its relationship to modern, everyday life.

----------------------------Neil