Meditations For Righteous Living – Gratitude

“Feeling grateful to the Creator is indeed our most important task. We build a steadfast connection by way of our gratitude to Him. Therefore, as long as our gratitude to God is deficient, our connection to Him remains weak and incomplete.”Rabbi Shalom Arush, The Garden of Gratitude. Soon after speaking on the subject of gratitude, …

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My God, The King Pt. 5

Ashrei - Praiseworthy Psalm 145 Many of my readers know that I spent 6 + years studying and preparing for Orthodox Jewish Conversion. During that time, this particular psalm became my favorite for many reasons. It is the inspiration of the ‘Blessing before meals’ that I recite in thanking the Creator for His provision of …

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My God, The King Pt. 4

A Psalm of Thanksgiving Psalm 100 The introduction to this psalm in the Artscroll Tanach Series Tehillim/Psalms, gives us interesting history and background information. “This psalm was sung in the Temple during the service of the Thanksgiving offering, an offering that one would bring in thanksgiving after having survived great danger.” It is suggested that …

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My God, The King Pt.2

The section of the Jewish prayer book that this series of blogs will be examining is, Pesukei D’Zimrah. “Pesukei D’Zimrah is translated as ‘Verses of Praise’. However, many commentators relate ‘zimrah’ to the verb ‘tizmor’ - ‘prune’ (Leviticus 25:4). In this view we recite ‘Verses of Pruning’, which are designed ‘to cut away’ the mental …

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