CCAR

By Marcia Falk

We are delighted to bring Marcia Falk's groundbreaking book of creative liturgy back into print. With new essays by scholars Rabbi Sue Levi Elwell, Rabbi Naamah Kelman, Rabbi Dalia Marx, and Rabbi David Ellenson, this volume will inspire a new generation and re-ignite those who encountered the innovative collection when it was first published in 1996.

Offering a complete liturgy in English and Hebrew for weekdays, Shabbat, and Rosh Chodesh, The Book of Blessings is guide and inspiration to all who seek an authentic connection to the divine. With this 20th-anniversary edition, which includes a new preface by the author as well as the original commentaries, Marcia Falk's visionary work is poised, once again, to help communities all over the world to shape the conversation around Jewish prayer in essential and novel ways.

From the afterword by Rabbi David Ellenson: "It is not too much to say that the publication of The Book of Blessings in the last decade of the twentieth century revolutionized and revivified the foundations of Jewish liturgy. The prayers and commentary in this volume provide nothing less than a full liturgy for the redirection of Jewish life, a project that is as impressive in its scope and vision now as it was twenty years ago."

From the afterword by Rabbi Naamah Kelman and Rabbi Dalia Marx: "Because of the poetry [Marcia Falk] offers--in Hebrew, Yiddish, and in English, her own poetry as well as the work of others--her prayers resonate deeply with many Israelis and invite them into a prayer life otherwise closed to them."

From the afterword by Rabbi Sue Levi Elwell: "All who want to sing a new song to God are in Marcia Falk's debt."

A spiritually opulent collection... Falk's Book of Blessings stands out as a liturgical and literary masterpiece that should be bought, studied, prayed from, and assimilated into our communal consciousness. It is a culminating work of a gifted author who celebrates her generation of Jewish feminism, and does so splendidly.
---Rabbi Lawrence A. Hoffman, Prooftexts

Marcia Falk's work on Hebrew blessings is as beautiful as it is innovative; and it is innovative in the sweetest, most nourishing sense, saturated in love for the language itself, its history, its people. Even those who do not hear the traditional liturgies as exclusionary will respond to the meticulously flowering poet's passion of Marcia Falk's wholly original contribution.
---Cynthia Ozick

Falk's rare poetic, spiritual, and intellectual gifts ensure that this long-awaited volume of feminist prayer will remain an enduring treasure... awakening and deepening awareness of the holy in every aspect of life.
----Judith Plaskow, author of The Coming of Lilith

The Book of Blessings opens up many avenues for Jews who may never have found their way to prayer before... What is astounding is that it all sounds so Jewish, so right, so easy to pray... Falk offers us the opportunity for a new kind of spiritual encounter: one that takes the politics of prayer seriously.
---Rabbi Rebecca Alpert, "Can Prayer Be Revolutionary?," Tikkun

Marcia Falk's magnum opus brilliantly demonstrates personal integrity, a poet's sensitivity, and a scholar's depth of knowledge, which together give her liturgy great resonance.
---Rabbi David Teutsch, Editor-in-Chief, Kol Haneshamah, the Reconstructionist prayer book series

Table of Contents

Also available

Want to host a Book of Blessings event? We're here for you! Click for details.

Read an interview with Marcia Falk on the release of the 20th-Anniversary Edition of The Book of Blessings from The Reporter Group, September 2017

Read "A Poet's Passionate Reflection in Prayer" in the Jewish Journal, August 9, 2017

Read The Book of Blessings book review by Amos Lassen, June 2017

Read more about Marcia Falk and The Book of Blessings in the J Weekly, June 14, 2017

Read "The Problem is Hierarchy" by Marcia Falk in The Forward, May 19, 2017