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The Way Into
The Way Into Jewish Prayer
An accessible introduction to the reasons for and the ways of Jewish prayer. The Way Into Jewish Prayer helps us to explore the reasons for and the ways of Jewish prayer. It opens the door to 3,000 years of Jewish prayer, making available all you need to feel at home in the Jewish way of communicating with God.
208 pages, Paperback
First published June 30, 2000
33 people are currently reading
83 people want to read
About the author
Lawrence A. Hoffman
71 books17 followersDr. Lawrence A. Hoffman was ordained as a rabbi in 1969, received his Ph.D. in 1973, and has taught since then at the Hebrew Union College - Jewish Institute of Religion, in New York. From 1984 to 1987, he directed its School of Sacred Music as well. In 2003, he was named the first Barbara and Stephen Friedman Professor of Liturgy, Worship and Ritual. He teaches classes in liturgy, ritual, spirituality, theology and synagogue leadership. For almost forty years, he has combined research, teaching, and a passion for the spiritual renewal of North American Judaism.
Rabbi Hoffman has written or edited over forty books, including My People's Prayer Book (Jewish Lights Publishing), a ten-volume edition of the Siddur with modern commentaries, which was named a National Jewish Book Award winner for 2007. His Rethinking Synagogues: A New Vocabulary for Congregational Life (Jewish Lights Publishing) and his Art of Public Prayer (Skylight Paths) are widely used by churches and synagogues as guides to organizational visioning and liturgical renewal. In 2011, he received a second National Jewish Book Award for co-authoring Sacred Strategies: Transforming Synagogues from Functional to Visionary (Alban Institute).
His articles, both popular and scholarly, have appeared in eight languages and four continents, and include contributions to such encyclopedias as The Macmillan Encyclopedia of Religion, The Oxford Dictionary of Religion, The Encyclopedia of Judaism and The Encyclopedia of Religion in America. He syndicates a regular column which appears, among other places, in The Jewish Week and The Jewish Times; and writes a blog entitled "Life and a Little Liturgy."
For many years, Rabbi Hoffman served as visiting professor of the University of Notre Dame, and has lectured at such places as the Jewish Theological Seminary of America, the University of Southern California, and the Yale Divinity School.
In 1990, Dr. Hoffman was selected by the United States Navy as a member of a three-person design team, charged with developing a continuing education course on worship for chaplains. He is a past-president of the North American Academy of Liturgy, the professional and academic organization for liturgists, and in January 2004, received that organization's annual Berakhah Award, for outstanding lifetime contributions to his field.
In 1994, he co-founded "Synagogue 2000," a trans-denominational project to envision the ideal synagogue "as moral and spiritual center" for the 21st century. As Synagogue 3000, it has launched Next Dor, a national initiative to engage the next generation through a relational approach featuring strong communities with transformed synagogues at their center.
He founded and is Academic Coordinator of the Tisch Fellowship Program.
Rabbi Hoffman has written or edited over forty books, including My People's Prayer Book (Jewish Lights Publishing), a ten-volume edition of the Siddur with modern commentaries, which was named a National Jewish Book Award winner for 2007. His Rethinking Synagogues: A New Vocabulary for Congregational Life (Jewish Lights Publishing) and his Art of Public Prayer (Skylight Paths) are widely used by churches and synagogues as guides to organizational visioning and liturgical renewal. In 2011, he received a second National Jewish Book Award for co-authoring Sacred Strategies: Transforming Synagogues from Functional to Visionary (Alban Institute).
His articles, both popular and scholarly, have appeared in eight languages and four continents, and include contributions to such encyclopedias as The Macmillan Encyclopedia of Religion, The Oxford Dictionary of Religion, The Encyclopedia of Judaism and The Encyclopedia of Religion in America. He syndicates a regular column which appears, among other places, in The Jewish Week and The Jewish Times; and writes a blog entitled "Life and a Little Liturgy."
For many years, Rabbi Hoffman served as visiting professor of the University of Notre Dame, and has lectured at such places as the Jewish Theological Seminary of America, the University of Southern California, and the Yale Divinity School.
In 1990, Dr. Hoffman was selected by the United States Navy as a member of a three-person design team, charged with developing a continuing education course on worship for chaplains. He is a past-president of the North American Academy of Liturgy, the professional and academic organization for liturgists, and in January 2004, received that organization's annual Berakhah Award, for outstanding lifetime contributions to his field.
In 1994, he co-founded "Synagogue 2000," a trans-denominational project to envision the ideal synagogue "as moral and spiritual center" for the 21st century. As Synagogue 3000, it has launched Next Dor, a national initiative to engage the next generation through a relational approach featuring strong communities with transformed synagogues at their center.
He founded and is Academic Coordinator of the Tisch Fellowship Program.
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
April 30, 2021
I’ve read some reviews here that complained that the book didn’t do what they wanted it to do, or that this was for people who were looking for a non-Orthodox perspective, but for me, a novice midway through my conversion process, this was exactly what I needed. First there was historical explanation of Jewish life following the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 CE and the need for prayer to become accessible (and portable), lacking a centralized place of worship. The Rabbis recorded their views on prayer in the compendium called the Mishnah by 200 CE, followed by the Palestinian Talmud and Babylonian Talmud a few centuries later.
This book helped explain to my why things are they way they are, and why certain prayers became so important, like the T’Fillah/Amidah/Sh’moneh Esrei, described here as the prayer par excellence, to be said while standing. There is description of how the prayer was said in the 3rd century CE and the language that it uses which relates to prayer heard by Nehemiah in the 5th Century BCE. Graphs of prayer structure and pronunciation spelled out two different ways were a great help.
There is also writing throughout regarding the changing view of God, how to approach and praise God, and the philosophers who advanced views that still hold today. Throughout, the author shows how Jewish prayer emphasizes the majesty of God, the faith required of the Jewish people throughout their history, and the importance of tending to one’s soul through atonement and the attempt to make the world better. Prayer is an art, fashioning awe into something purposeful.
I don’t know a whole lot about other religious practices, so it was helpful whenever the author would compare Jewish prayer with other religions’ – for example, the discipline shared with Catholic/Episcopal/Lutheran worship which is also liturgical (prayer books, a fixed liturgy, rule about who prays when and where), versus freer worship based around a sermon or confessionals. It’s amazing to think that Jewish prayer is so fixed that “traditional liturgy contains no new blessings dated later than the tenth century.” Great explanation of how the Kaddish and Alenu were added to the end of the liturgy, and that the torah would be read on Mondays and Thursdays because that’s when people were in town for the marketplace.
The origins of the synagogue are unknown, occurring sometime after Biblical times and common by the first century CE. They may have developed as multipurpose buildings for various forms of gathering during the period of Hellenized city states. Chavurah was the beginning of meeting for prayer rather than sacrifice, and usually in rabbinic homes where there was study and the meal was sacred. The author explains how the Rabbis came to an agreement on how prayer was to be conducted in private, and how synagogues eventually (but not initially) came to face Jerusalem.
There’s a very interesting section on stained glass windows, how they were seen as too much like Christianity, how they were not needed to illustrate stories because the average Jew was far more likely to be literate than the average Christian in the Middle Ages, and how in 19th Century Reform Judaism they became more popular in new synagogues as there was an attempt to feel more relatable to the dominant Christian culture (as well as stained glass being much cheaper at that time). Since then, stained glass windows have started to wane.
I love that the author goes into detail on the edifice around worship, because prayer, while an act that can be holy and solitary, is also supposed to take place in a certain context and setting. There is also an explanation of how the ark of today’s synagogues descends from how the ark was described in the Bible and in records of the First Temple, and how during Roman times the ark was constructed according to the Bible’s description of the tabernacle. What we have today is based on how medieval scholars interpreted biblical and historical descriptions (we may now interpret this data differently or have more data to interpret). The author also includes floor plans of traditional Ashkenazi, Sefardi and recent Reform synagogues. Expanding on the layout of a synagogue (the ark, bimah, etc) may be boring for the long-initiated, but as a newcomer I find repetition from a variety of sources helpful, not redundant. Likewise the explanation of the symbolic Temple class system of kohen, levi and yisra’el. I also appreciated the synopsis of denominations, patterns of immigration to the U.S., and how this affected habits of prayer and worship. Again, this is a story I knew but was happy to see it through the lens of prayer and tradition specifically.
If you’re a newbie to Judaism like me, or are good with historical/cultural parts of Judaism but struggle with the religious/ritual part, I heartily recommend this book.
This book helped explain to my why things are they way they are, and why certain prayers became so important, like the T’Fillah/Amidah/Sh’moneh Esrei, described here as the prayer par excellence, to be said while standing. There is description of how the prayer was said in the 3rd century CE and the language that it uses which relates to prayer heard by Nehemiah in the 5th Century BCE. Graphs of prayer structure and pronunciation spelled out two different ways were a great help.
There is also writing throughout regarding the changing view of God, how to approach and praise God, and the philosophers who advanced views that still hold today. Throughout, the author shows how Jewish prayer emphasizes the majesty of God, the faith required of the Jewish people throughout their history, and the importance of tending to one’s soul through atonement and the attempt to make the world better. Prayer is an art, fashioning awe into something purposeful.
I don’t know a whole lot about other religious practices, so it was helpful whenever the author would compare Jewish prayer with other religions’ – for example, the discipline shared with Catholic/Episcopal/Lutheran worship which is also liturgical (prayer books, a fixed liturgy, rule about who prays when and where), versus freer worship based around a sermon or confessionals. It’s amazing to think that Jewish prayer is so fixed that “traditional liturgy contains no new blessings dated later than the tenth century.” Great explanation of how the Kaddish and Alenu were added to the end of the liturgy, and that the torah would be read on Mondays and Thursdays because that’s when people were in town for the marketplace.
The origins of the synagogue are unknown, occurring sometime after Biblical times and common by the first century CE. They may have developed as multipurpose buildings for various forms of gathering during the period of Hellenized city states. Chavurah was the beginning of meeting for prayer rather than sacrifice, and usually in rabbinic homes where there was study and the meal was sacred. The author explains how the Rabbis came to an agreement on how prayer was to be conducted in private, and how synagogues eventually (but not initially) came to face Jerusalem.
There’s a very interesting section on stained glass windows, how they were seen as too much like Christianity, how they were not needed to illustrate stories because the average Jew was far more likely to be literate than the average Christian in the Middle Ages, and how in 19th Century Reform Judaism they became more popular in new synagogues as there was an attempt to feel more relatable to the dominant Christian culture (as well as stained glass being much cheaper at that time). Since then, stained glass windows have started to wane.
I love that the author goes into detail on the edifice around worship, because prayer, while an act that can be holy and solitary, is also supposed to take place in a certain context and setting. There is also an explanation of how the ark of today’s synagogues descends from how the ark was described in the Bible and in records of the First Temple, and how during Roman times the ark was constructed according to the Bible’s description of the tabernacle. What we have today is based on how medieval scholars interpreted biblical and historical descriptions (we may now interpret this data differently or have more data to interpret). The author also includes floor plans of traditional Ashkenazi, Sefardi and recent Reform synagogues. Expanding on the layout of a synagogue (the ark, bimah, etc) may be boring for the long-initiated, but as a newcomer I find repetition from a variety of sources helpful, not redundant. Likewise the explanation of the symbolic Temple class system of kohen, levi and yisra’el. I also appreciated the synopsis of denominations, patterns of immigration to the U.S., and how this affected habits of prayer and worship. Again, this is a story I knew but was happy to see it through the lens of prayer and tradition specifically.
If you’re a newbie to Judaism like me, or are good with historical/cultural parts of Judaism but struggle with the religious/ritual part, I heartily recommend this book.
February 6, 2013
Lawrence Hoffman's The Way Into Jewish Prayer, the second book in Jewish Lights Publishing's The Way Into ... series, is a decent quick and concise introduction to the traditions and practice of Jewish prayer.
As with other books in The Way Into ... series, this book focuses on a particular aspect of Judaism, in this case, Jewish prayer. And, as with other books in the series, the intended audience is primarily those largely unfamiliar with the subject matter (and, more specifically, who are primarily interested in becoming more familiar from a non-Orthodox perspective). This task is accomplished fairly well, though at times the book does feel a bit scattered and unfocused (the chapter on the cycle of festivals, while interesting, seems rather an addendum to the book than the elucidation of prayer throughout the seasons that one would expect).
Hoffman provides some interesting information on the history of the liturgy and practice of Jewish prayer, providing a bit more of a traditional perspective of Judaism than is found in some of the other books in this series. Still, while Hoffman does close with an appeal to Jews to be more prayerful in their lives, he doesn't really tie this appeal to the traditions of normative Judaism in any meaningful way.
As with other books in The Way Into ... series, this book focuses on a particular aspect of Judaism, in this case, Jewish prayer. And, as with other books in the series, the intended audience is primarily those largely unfamiliar with the subject matter (and, more specifically, who are primarily interested in becoming more familiar from a non-Orthodox perspective). This task is accomplished fairly well, though at times the book does feel a bit scattered and unfocused (the chapter on the cycle of festivals, while interesting, seems rather an addendum to the book than the elucidation of prayer throughout the seasons that one would expect).
Hoffman provides some interesting information on the history of the liturgy and practice of Jewish prayer, providing a bit more of a traditional perspective of Judaism than is found in some of the other books in this series. Still, while Hoffman does close with an appeal to Jews to be more prayerful in their lives, he doesn't really tie this appeal to the traditions of normative Judaism in any meaningful way.
Read
October 24, 2024Accessible introduction to the topic from a leading contemporary Reform Jewish rabbi and theologian (who is careful not to prefer his own Jewish movement over Orthodoxy, Conservatism or Reconstructionism, or any of them over his.)
Some wonderful turns of phrase
Some wonderful turns of phrase
September 29, 2025
3.5 stars
Some really interesting insights, but other times could be a bit cumbersome. However, I'm not honestly sure I'm the targeted demographic for this book.
Unfortunately, it's also possibly beginning to become a bit outdated.
Some really interesting insights, but other times could be a bit cumbersome. However, I'm not honestly sure I'm the targeted demographic for this book.
Unfortunately, it's also possibly beginning to become a bit outdated.
February 27, 2016
This boo definitely didn't contain the information I wanted it too, which wouldn't justify two stars by itself, but I also really didn't like the writing style. I found it basic to the point of condescension, and it spent a lot of time discussing things like the lay out of various types of synagogues, that are only tangentially related to prayer. It also did not discuss any specific prayers, even universal ones such as the Aleynu, in detail, which is what I really wanted out of it. I also didn't like how the prayers and brachot it did give it gave only in English, and not in Hebrew, even transliterated. The book as a whole seemed to suffer for not being focused enough on one denomination to state confident detail, and ended up as a result having very little to say.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews