A Guide to Daily Devotion
1.) This is an event poem, which means I am not teaching about devotion, I am offering an act, an event of devotion. Behind bars you have time to be devoted to daily prayer and meditation. The rabbinic habit of study now opens to you. Those on the outside are also invited to this devotion.
2.) Make your self into a Master Teacher and acquire a study partner! These are the first two steps of our principle teachings.
3.) Step one involves a commitment to study and worship and study as worship; and step two commitments to communion and Torah that is mastered via discussion.
(The Oral Tradition).
Both require discipline and devotion.
4.) Truth be told, devotion and discipline seem just beyond our grasp. Every year we vow to get healthy, take of extra pounds, and pause long enough to wonder what life is really all about.
5.) Tradition teaches fixed times of prayer and study. This is a path to devotion that often involves community.
6.) Kabballahists require ten for prayer to manifest Ten Wor(L)ds. (The Devar/Logos)
7.) The Ten:
Live God Love Truth Give Praise Witness Peace Share Honor.
All Ten are necessary to complete your sentence. The topic is finding meaning in a wilderness of words.
8.) Tradition teaches that the Creation of the world continues to this very moment. This, in our prayers, is attributed to the goodness of God.
How do we make this our goodness also?
9.) Time to discuss a unique take on being born again. For those inside and out.
10.) Is it possible to be so devoted to attunement to reality that we are reborn daily?
11.) How do we find the discipline to remind ourselves that every day as the sun rises and sets we have a model for a devotional perspective to creativity?
12.) This explains the insistence in the Greatest Commandment to proclaim that we hear the message of the essential unity of All of creation in our evening and morning devotions.
(“When you lay down and arise.”)
Let this be your narrative, your Seder, your story, your prayer. Tap into the Genesis
of creativity. (Ma ah say Braysheet)
13.) I personally find the Shema at bedtime a life transforming daily devotion.
The following is a small gift for you. The gift of Torah is a given.
It is up to you to be a Receiver.
Kabballah!
Give Praise!
14.) Remember, we offer devotions as a praylude to praising one another. Love God. Love one another. Love Yourself.
15.) K.I.S.S. The first time we encounter Elijah the prophet in the Talmud he tells Rabbi Yossi to abbreviate his prayers.
Elijah tells the Rabbi that God responds to prayer (not according to length or loudness) by “Cooing like a dove” for his children who are exiled from her home and table. Keep It Simple Solomen!
Chapter Five: The Seder of Shema at Bedtime
1.) Designer of all Worlds
I now forgive All
Who have harmed me or done me wrong
Against my body or spirit
With intent or by accident
In word or deed
In this life or any incarnation
I forgive all who have trespassed against me.
May it be your will
that I experience you as my God
as well as The God of my ancestors
That I turn from transgression
that I not repeat my persistent failures
And that my actions awaken your mercy
And that I do good, as you command.
Forgive my trespasses;
Show me a face of compassion as atonement, not sickness or suffering.
2.) May The Words of my mouth
Guide;
The meditations of my heart
The actions of my hands
and direction of my feet.
May this be acceptable to You,
O Lord, my Rock and Redeemer.
3.) Shma Yisra-ale adonigh Elohaynew adonigh Echad
Listen, struggle to hear, O Israel, The Lord is our God, The Lord Alone.
The Coming of Your Kingdom Proclaimed to Eternity when we:
Love The Lord your God with all your heart, and soul, and might.
Take this instruction to heart,
the Teachings are given today.
Let your children cut their teeth on them.
Debate them today and every day in your home, and even when you journey.
Do all of this every evening and morning.
Bind them to your hands and they will guide your minds eye.
Write them on the doorposts of your homes and on your gates.
4.) May I lie down in Peace
May I awaken in Peace
Let my sleep be tranquil
May I awaken renewed.
In the name of the Lord God of Israel
May Michael the Angel be at my right,
Gabriel at my left,
Urial in front of me
and Raphael behind.
May the Shechina hover over me.
5.) I am in Awe.
I am about to recite my confession
And vow never again
To live a life of transgression:
6.) Before going to sleep follow the kabballahistic tradition of confessing in the plural, from A to Z.
Who knows if they will awaken?
(This confession is a “we we we” and “iii.”)
We: (or I )
Abuse, betray, (are) cruel, destroy, embitter, falsify, gossip, hate, insult, jeer, kill, lie, mock, neglect, oppress, pervert, quarrel, rebel, steal transgress. We are unkind , violent, wicked, xenophobic, yielding to evil, zealots to the end.
Sit or lay down:
Into your hand I commit my spirit
When I sleep and when I wake,
I have no fear, atonement near
In body and soul
I shall be whole.
Good night!
Chapter 6: Morning Prayers and Reflections
1.) The moment you awaken:
Modah ani lefanecha melech chai v kiyam sh hachazarta B nismatea bechemla raba emunatecha.
I awaken in your presence, living and sustaining God. You have mercifully restored my soul. Great is your faith in me.
2.) Psalm 23
The Lord is my Shepard; I shall not want
Tucking us into green bedded pastures
Leading us to the still waters; restoring our souls
For on this day we walk down streets and avenues of darkness
Overshadowed by death; and we are afraid.
Only when you are with us, Lord our God Do we feel no harm
Only your rule and your staff comfort.
Our Tables remain spread
In full view of our foes
We offer to share our bounty
The cup that runneth over.
We anoint our heads with the oil
Of the branch in the mouth of the dove
(a Devar Jonah)
Surely saved in this goodness mercy and love.
We pray we dwell in your house forever
A house of prayer for all who seek your name of Peace.
3.) Morning Shema
Live God
Love Truth
God is our true leader, God is truth.
The Lord is a True God,
God trusts we will be true.
In God we trust.
Our God is a true God.
Listen, struggle to hear, O Israel, The Lord is our God, The Lord Alone.
The Coming of Your Kingdom Proclaimed to Eternity when:
We love you
with heart and soul and our very being.
Your wor(l)ds heard and created anew every day
I place upon my heart.
Raise up sharp students
speaking loves wisdom in the home
and on vacation, every evening and morning.
Give hands to your heart by focusing your minds eye.
Write all this on the mezzuzoat of your dwellings, your gates, the gates of your cities and the gates of your nations.
This is the Lord our Gods order of holiness. True.
4.) Daily Prayer
(This may be said at anytime during the day)
May these words awaken my heart to your Presence.
I am not worthy to stand before you in prayer
So hear me in the names of my righteous ancestors.
I am in search of your true path to order my life to your word.
I am yours.
Ani ladodi
Be mine, beloved
V Dodi lee
O, I Am
Take my name
And give me yours
One.
Help me to know that which is righteous
To master the mystery,
to order my chaos; Imitating creation,
in this, my new beginning.
Forgive my transgressions
As I forgive those who have trespassed against me.
5.) Return and dwell in your Zion of Peace.
Fill our hearts and homes and sanctuaries;
With the blessings of your Mountain home;
A House of Prayer of All Nations.
Amen. Sealah.
