How Does Your Body Pray?

Inspired by being asked to bow our heads in prayer, put our hands together in prayer, and by the ”prayer” emoticon.

PART I

How does your body pray?

My Jewish body prays in silence,

in word, in song, in study, 

rocking,

wrapped in a tallit,

standing, sitting.

Prostrating on the ground.

Hands up to God, pounding the chest gently.

Holding a prayerbook.

Wearing a kippa or head covering.

Let us ask each other, how does your body pray?

And mean it.

Bring curiosity-what language sings the prayer of your soul?

What gestures bring you into exhale?

When I dance,

this Jewish body is transported to synagogue, rocking, hands outstretched, reaching to the Oneness.

Let us ask each other, how does your body pray?

This Jewish body prays in communities, large, and small.

Offers prayers to bless our children and to heal our families and neighbors.

Sings to celebrate weddings, and is silent to mourn our losses.

This Jewish body offers words of thanks and intention when studying and eating.

Blows the shofar, wailing, crying, alarming at the beach and in shul.

Recites, sings, and studies liturgy of 2021 and 200 BCE-from the prophets, the rabbis, the mothers, that land in the middle of our lives, impossible to ignore.

How does your body pray?  I mean it. I want to know.

PART II

Centuries of our people exiled, erased, and expelled

Violent forced conversions.

Cellular wounds explode, memories rise

We don’t pray with palms together, fingers pointing to the sky, with head bowed,

Except when we know our lives have depended on it.