Shalom, I am Rabbi Jonathan Ginsburg of the Ezra-Habonim Niles Township of Jewish Congregation. This video is about the Shaharit, morning service in Judaism.
During the weekday, it takes about half an hour to 45 minutes to do the whole thing unless you are very picky about the prayers you do. It begins with what is called Birkhot Ha-Shahar, morning blessings. We usually have a morning prayer that begins with Modah Ani, which is thank you God for restoring my soul or singing Ma Tovu, how good it is for all of us to be together. There are morning blessings that are recited thanking God for many things so we have been in passages stressing the good commandments.
In the Israel preliminary to a section of the service called the P’sukei d’Zimrah verses of Song, mostly consisting of Psalms from the Bible and it is also a warm up section. Over the course of the centuries the mount of Psalms and that section have increased dramatically. And so, some synagogues are doing the whole thing take quite awhile in 10 to 15 minutes to recite all of those Psalms. In our congregation for example we do a couple of the most famous ones and that will leads to the Shaharit service which begins the weekdays with HaShechinah and it goes to the prayer the berkhu.
Then there were two paragraphs, two prayers basically, before the Sh’ma block. Now the Sh’ma and all of the separate YouTube that I missed is the basic prayer of the service that has three paragraphs in it and it is buffeted on both sides by other prayers. The first in the morning is a prayer as it is in the evening also thinking about God is the God of nature. Following that is a prayer Ahavah Raba where we thank God for giving us the Torah and commandments and we have the Sh’ma which has the Sh’ma sentence plus three paragraphs in the Torah. Following that, there is a prayer in the morning called Gaa Yisrael thanking God as redeemer. In the evening, there is another prayer and then after that called Kaddish Aleinu and I have a separate YouTube video on the evening service.
Now this leads then into the second major part of the morning service called the Shemoneh Esray which means the 18 or the Amidah, the standing prayer and even though that is says 18, there are actually 19 prayers. The first three and last three are the same as they are all services everyday including the Sabbath and holidays. It begins with the Avot which are prayer for our memory of our patriarchs and matriarchs then Givarot thanking God for redeeming us in life even after we die. Then the Kedushah, the sanctification. At the end, we have – Modim, which is the acknowledgement prayer and a prayer for peace Sim Shalom. In the middle, our 13 petitions are asking God for various things and they are all phrased in the plural. And then the service ends with the Aleinu and the Mourner’s Kaddish.
Now, in between the various sections there are various forms of the Kaddish prayer which begins Yis'ga'dal v'yis'kadash sh'may ra'bbo. You can tell it a small division if it is the half Kaddish and a really big change in the service if it is a full Kaddish. And also, let us get it out throughout the Mourner’s Kaddish which is actually the full Kaddish minus one middle paragraph called Tit’kabel. And on the morning, traditional Jewish men wear flap who is called Tefilin and some women are – and not Orthodox want to wear that even now. They also wear the prayer Tallits. I have a video on the prayer show and there are many videos on the internet about the felach research to filan so I did not bother doing one.
Now on the Sabbath, that is basically the service and the Sabbath and on Monday and Thursday morning, we also had a Torah service after the Amidah before the Aleinu we add a service for reading the Torah. On Monday and Thursdays and on Saturday afternoon before we read a little bit of the coming weeks portions and on Saturday we read either the whole thing or many conservative synagogues will read the third of the whole thing as they used to do in Israel about 2000 years ago.
I hope that explains the basics of the Saturday morning and regular weekday morning service. Again, Birkhot Ha-Shahar, the preliminary blessings. P’sukei d’Zimrah, the verses of praise then the actual Shaharit service which has the call of prayer to blessings before the Sh’ma, the Sh’ma with its three paragraphs. The blessing after the Sh’ma. The Amidah with the 19 blessings and then your basically closing in arm stretched, the Aleinu and the Mourner’s Kaddish.
Hope that helps clarify the regular morning service.
Transcription by:
Scribe4you Transcription Services