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 ...

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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 ...

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 ...

The Shema, declaring the Jewish faith in one God, is an important part of worship in the synagogue. The Amidah prayer consists of a series of blessings: The first three blessings praise God and ask ...