The Prayer Project

Prayer as Practice from the Institute for Jewish Spirituality

The Prayer Project is designed to help Jews explore prayer as spiritual practice: something we engage in with specific aims, forms, and techniques to cultivate our conscious connection with God. 

Many Jews think about other practices such as meditation, yoga and Tikkun Middot, as spiritual disciplines. But prayer is more often regarded either as something that happens spontaneously without forethought, or as something encoded in “services” which one simply and passively “attends.”

Most Jewish teaching about prayer is precisely that: teaching about prayer! One may learn the history of how the Jewish prayer book was compiled or specifics about the meaning of certain prayers themselves. One may also learn prayerbook Hebrew to be able to say the words of the prayers, along with synagogue etiquette (when to stand, sit, cover the eyes, etc.), all of which is certainly important and may help one engage in external acts of prayer.

But what of the inner dimensions? What about learning how to train the mind and heart to engage in the inner experience of prayer itself and to allow it to deepen moment by moment as it unfolds in the mind, heart, body and spirit? For such training, one needs an expert teacher, clear instructions, dedication to regular practice, and a community of fellow practitioners for support, inspiration, and insight.

Toward this end we have developed month-long intensives featuring video instruction and on-line discussion (with an optional, live, small-group, weekly processing call with the instructor). Each intensive focuses on one particular prayer modality, such as: chant; traditional, prayer book-based Jewish prayer; contemplative prayer; and, engagement with psalms.

The Prayer Project: Overview

 

The Prayer Project consists of eight 30-day prayer intensive modules:

  1. Contemplative Jewish Prayer: Presence, Intention, and Surrender
  2. Sacred Hebrew Chant: Healing the Spirit, Transforming the Mind, Deepening Love
  3. Hitbodedut: Cultivating Spontaneous Conversations with God
  4. Jewish Liturgical Prayer: Finding our Authentic Service
  5. Receiving and Extending Love: Jewish Prayer through Meditation
  6. Liberating the Voice: Niggun as Authentic Prayer
  7. From My Flesh, I See God: Embodying the Amidah

These 30-day prayer intensives are designed to help you focus on cultivating a specific modality of prayer practice. Each Sunday, you will receive an email with a half-hour video teaching, recorded by one of our master teachers. These video teachings accompany a written lesson, which may include links to Jewish texts, secular writings, poems, music, videos, and other references to supplement your learning. You can choose the best time in your schedule to watch the half-hour video teaching and read the written lesson, as well as to log onto the community forums to post your questions and reflections. Throughout the week, you will receive daily emails, which will encourage you to keep up with your own internal work with twenty to thirty minutes of daily practice.

As an optional supplement to the course, you may also choose to participate in a weekly processing group with your instructor. These groups are available on a first-come, first-serve basis for an additional fee of $75. They offer the opportunity to engage with your teacher and other participants in a “live” environment, using Zoom video conferencing technology.

Cost: 
Month-Long Prayer Intensive Module: $100
Month-Long Prayer Intensive Module Plus Weekly Live Processing Group: $175