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This Grateful Heart
Psalms and Prayers for a New Day
by Alden Solovy
Foreword by Rabbi Menachem Creditor
160 Pages5.50 × 8.50 × 0.50 in
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This Grateful Heart offers an anthology of modern day psalms and prayers to lift us up, inspire our days, and mark our milestones. Written by Jewish poet and liturgist Alden Solovy, the collection provides nearly 100 readings, spanning topics from the simple delights of daily living to the complexities of grief; from the celebration of major turning points like bar and bat mitzvah to the more solemn commemoration of lost lives and ended relationships; and from the awe-filled moments of the High Holy Days to the observance of secular holidays. For clergy, this collection offers supplementary material for use in services and life cycle rituals; for the individual, this collection can serve as a way to give voice to the joys and sorrows of everyday life.
Foreword
Introduction and Acknowledgments
Days
Prayer on Waking
Meditation for Today
Modeh/Modah Ani
Prayer of Joy
Praise the New Day
Morning Blessings
Meditation at Noon
Your Name: Meditation at Dusk
Evening Blessings
Meditation at Night
Prayer before Sleep
Birdsong at Midnight
An Amazing Life
Seasons
For Spring
For Summer
For Autumn
For Winter
For Rain
Come, Rain
Harvest Prayer
Shabbat
For the Arrival of Shabbat
Come, Beloved
Sowing Light
Shabbat Settles on Jerusalem
Sephardi Quarter Note
About Shabbat
Shabbat Blessing for Children Who Have Left Home
Blessing for a Spouse/Partner
A Shabbat Blessing for Myself
Shabbat Is the Place
Farewell, Beloved: A Havdalah Meditation
Jewish Holy Days
Rosh HaShanah
For Creation
Sweet Cake
The Path of Righteousness
God’s Plan: An Introspection
The Season of Healing
Yom Kippur
Cry No More
Who, Still Broken
Repentance Inside
Forgiveness Inside
The Season of Return
Sukkot
Beauty Dances
Rejoice!
The Season of Building
Meditation before Taking Down a Sukkah
Simchat Torah
For the Gift of Torah Scholarship
For the Joy of Learning
Chanukah
Lamps Within
The Season of Dedication
Passover
Egypt Inside
The Season of Freedom
The Season of Counting
Shavuot
God’s Voice
God on Tiptoes
Other Special Days
New Year’s Eve/Day
For the New Year
Another Year: An Introspection
Martin Luther King Day
Let Truth
The Preacher Said
Labor Day
Against Worker Exploitation
Gratitude for Work
Thanksgiving
This Bounty
Meditation at the Thanksgiving Table
Giving Thanks
Veterans Day
Veterans Day Prayer
To the Soldier, To the Veteran
Memorial Day
The Last Soldier
Yizkor for a Soldier
Turning Points
On Handing Down a Jewish Heirloom
On Handing Down an Heirloom Tallit at a Bar/Bat Mitzvah
Meditation for a Child’s First Torah Reading
My Child Leaves Home (A Parent’s Prayer)
Bind Our Hearts—A Wedding Prayer
Affirmation of Faith
For Pregnancy
For Fertility Treatment (Women)
For Fertility Treatment (Men)
In Praise of Adoption
This Ring: An Ending
End of Life
End-of-Life Vidui
Tender End-of-Life Vidui 110
Travel to an Unexpected Family Emergency
Travel after an Unexpected Death
Angel of Rest
Grief
In Sorrow
Season of Sorrow
Sorrow at a Time of Joy
Upon Experiencing the Loss of a Pregnancy
Loss of a Pregnancy, for a Partner
After His/Her Infidelity
Hard Mournings
For Those Who Die Young
Birthday, No More
After Shivah
Passing of a Beloved Pet
Memorial Prayers
After an Accidental Death: A Yizkor Prayer
Memorial Prayer for a Child
Yizkor after My Child’s Suicide
On Lighting a Yizkor or Yahrzeit Candle
First Yahrzeit
Second Yahrzeit
Alden Solovy is a liturgist, poet, author, journalist, and educator. Alden offers a fresh Jewish voice, challenging the boundaries between poetry, meditation, personal growth, and prayer. His writing was transformed by multiple tragedies, marked in 2009 by the sudden death of his wife from a catastrophic brain injury. Solovy’s teaching spans from Hebrew Union College–Jewish Institute of Religion in Jerusalem to Limmud and Leo Baeck College in the U.K., and synagogues throughout North America. He is the author of five volumes from CCAR Press: Enter These Gates: Meditations for the Days of Awe (2024), These Words: Poetic Midrash on the Language of Torah (2023), This Grateful Heart: Psalms and Prayers for a New Day (2017), This Joyous Soul: A New Voice for Ancient Yearnings(2019), and This Precious Life: Encountering the Divine with Poetry and Prayer (2021). The Jerusalem Post called his writing “soulful, meticulously crafted.” The Huffington Post said, “…the prayers reflect age-old yearnings in modern-day situations.” Solovy made aliyah to Israel in 2012, where he hikes, writes, teaches, and learns. His work has appeared in more than twenty-five collections, including Mishkan R'fuah: Where Healing Resides(CCAR Press, 2012), L'chol Z'man v'Eit: For Sacred Moments - The CCAR Life-Cycle Guide (CCAR Press, 2015), Mishkan HaNefesh: Machzor for the Days of Awe (CCAR Press, 2015), Gates of Shabbat, Revised Edition (CCAR Press, 2016), and Prophetic Voices: Renewing and Reimagining Haftarah (CCAR Press, 2023). He is a three-time winner of the Peter Lisagor Award for Exemplary Journalism. His writing appears on ritualwell.org, reformjudaism.org, ravblog.ccarnet.org, timesofisrael.com, and tobendlight.com.
The prayers in this magical collection reflect our deepest hopes. Read the words aloud, whisper them to yourself, shout them to the heavens. Pray! Pray with others, pray in the quiet solitude of your night. We all yearn to be heard, to be present, to be visible. The prayers of This Grateful Heart can help.
- Rabbi Karyn D. Kedar, Congregation BJBE, Deerfield Illinois
Alden Solovy's original and beautiful prayers have the power to connect every individual to the richness of the Jewish liturgical tradition, as well as to the very root of one's own soul. These prayers will cause your mind to think, your heart to open, and your mouth to sing. They are a blessing to behold.
- Rabba Yaffa Epstein, Pardes Institute of Jewish Studies, Jerusalem
This Grateful Heart is a rich resource for individual and communal prayer. Alden Solovy's psalms and prayers exhibit a deep spiritual sensitivity and express profound human emotions. The language is both personal and authentically Jewish. His work is a gift both to those for whom prayer is easy and natural, and for those who struggle to find their own words. While it is clearly a Jewish book, non-Jews will also find much that resonates with their spirituality.
- Rabbi Peter S. Knobel, Rabbi Emeritus, Beth Emet The Free Synagogue
Solovy knows that expressing gratitude contributes to the happiness of your life. You are united with your grateful and joyous heart in reading both these collections of prayers. And if praying sustains you, if your heart's desire is to become that "prayer with wings gliding on the currents of your faith," then Solovy's This Joyous Soul and This Grateful Heart will be your inspirational companions.
- The Jewish Post & Opinion
Watch the book trailer for This Grateful Heart, “Moments of Gratitude,” below:
