good morning and welcome to mosaic. i'm rabbi eric honored to be your host. we're joined by two guests this morning. a journal of jewish thought and culture is published nationally out of san francisco. we're going to start a conversation about the publication of a new prayer book that the congregation recently produced. it's coming up to its first birthday of being out there in

the world but took many years to produce. let's start with some basics and what is the congregation and what kind of a congregation is it? what's its history? set the stage for how it was able to produce such a phenomenal new prayer book. >> the congregation began in the '70s. it was started bey three gay men from various jewish backgrounds who realized in the midst of the rights movement that they could claim their place in the jewish community and the jewish religious community and not to have compromise their sexuality or really any part of themselves. so it was a good time for a great idea, and 35 years, something like that, later, we're thriving. it was at the very beginning of the congregation's history when these folks needed words to pray that they went to the

tradition and found that their stories, some of the expressions of our humanity were missing, and so from the early stage, it became a place for new liturgy. >> what attracted you and your husband and your family to become members of the congregation? >> we were working for a congregation that would welcome us, even though my husband is not jewish, that wouldn't ask me why he wasn't converting, a place where i felt very comfortable with the different sexual identities that were present, and the very progressive nature of the congregation and the very participatory nature of the congregation. i felt like, as a jew, i wanted tore very engaged in the life of jewish spiritual life, and i

never found more participation with the life of the congregation in a really rich way and that really attracted me. i thought this is an environment where i want my child to grow up knowing that as a jew she can take full ownership of her jewish identity. >> that's fantastic. >> that's why i came, too. and it's amazing now the congregation started out as gay, then it was lesbian and gay, which as i recall was kind of a big issue for awhile, and now it's lesbian, gay, bisexual, clear, straight welcoming. we are a place that includes people of all genders and sexuality. we are a place welcoming of people who want to be totally at home with who they are. >> i think as we build this stoart's important to say that though the congregation belongs to the reform movement of jewish life and the reform

movement like every movement of any denomination has its own published prayer book, that synagogues throughout the country purchase and pray from and use that congregation, is a movement of the reform movement, but has from the beginning claimed its own liturgical experience. >> i would add to that, that the sidora from cover to cover is filled with the words that we've retained from the traditions. so though they appear in a reform, in an orthodox version, some come from both the reform

and the orthodox. plus, there's our own interpretation, and maybe i shouldn't go so far into this yet, but i can't wait to open it. >> i was the project manager for the prayer back, and in the permissions process, we had to reach out, book to all the different movements and ask for permission to use their prayers, because this book is a compilation of prayers that came from the reform movement, a few from the reconstructionist movement, a few from the conserve tie movement, and a whole -- the majority of prayers that were created by members of our community and poets and writers through the ages that we wanted to incorporate to make a arriver experience for our experience. >> we're going to take a quick break and come back and talk about the process of this and hear from both of them about some of the parts that are particularly tender and appealing. please join us in just a moment back here on "mosaic."

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good morning and welcome back to mosaic. i'm rabbi eric weiss. you see on the screen the cover of the congregation's new prayer book, siddur. we're joined by the rabbi and a member of the congregation, also editor of a national magazine, a journal of jewish thoughts and culture. ellen, you were the project manager. we're going to show the inside cover which has a ring on it. talk us through this. at the same time let us know how this project got started and how you went about doing it. >> love to. i feel that this image really conveys a lot of what the process was. this is a prayer book that

combines a traditional jewish prayer with the most contemporary jewish prayers, especially with the voices of our members. what this ring is, the wedding syringe a traditional jewish illustration, found in the medieval period, but on top of the illustration we've put the image of our actual building on there and previous buildings that we've had. behind it you see the transamerica pear mid, and you can also see the buildings of jerusalem. sought takes us from the past to the present and hopefully the future. we started with prayer books that our congregation had been working on already for 25, 30 years ever since founding, as the rabbi said in the last segment, we have been creating new prayers. and what we did is we asked people to participate in this new project by writing more

prayers. and andrew rammer who will be honored in the next segment, supervised that process. we got 12 different members to be editors and edited each section, adding -- looking at what we already had, then adding a mix of new pieces to the. we had an art committee that brought in new artwork. and what we did at every stage is we asked congregation members to contribute in whatever way they could. so-so many people became writers who never thought they do be writers. so many people became artists who never thought they could be artists. people proof-read. people came at town hall meetings and looked at that time design. people gave feedback on the content. so in the end we engaged over 200 members of the congregation in this project, bringing them all together, stepping through from their rough drafts and their initial ideas, through an editorial process that had five

different stages including an editorial review board of our own members, and then a rabinical review board so we could go through the voices of real people through clergy and rabinical authority and come out with a prayer back that we feel speaks to everyone. and in fact contains the voices of the congregation themselves. >> absolutely. there are hundreds of writings in this prayer book that transmit the prayers written by our members that convey their real experiences, their experiences of being single, when everybody says get married. their experience of being transgender when people say you have to be male or female. their experience of wanting to share a passionate kiss when they are two women. their experience of having to

bury a loved one when their loved one doesn't want to be buried in a jewish ceremony, or having to bury a loved one who they were angry with, who maybe, what if your parents disowned you, then how do you bury that parent? how do you express the love and the hatred that you have for that person at the same time? these are real experiences of real people that have been missing from our tradition that we were able to put back in because we used the voices of real people. we brought real people into the process and had them speak direct toll god. >> listening to you speak, it makes me really sort of understand more clearly that really part of what was happening is that there was also a spiritual yes or noing to take these very real human experiences and to in some ways put them within a jewish context, put them within a soak cred context, and in some ways put them in a context that involves a relationship to god

and the brought err community. >> absolutely. don't you agree, rabbi? >> uh-huh. >> before we finish this segment shall we read something from the siddur, from the prayer book, that gives aus taste of that real human experience? >> sure. i was wondering, if you might read the piece, for one who did not want ritual mourning. >> absolutely. this is a piece about connecting to the siddur because i felt like in many ways i was doing this as an intellectual project. i had a lot of logistics, then i read this, then i realized that my husband, who is not jewish, might not want a jewish burial and that we might not be buried in the same place. it really made the experience live for me. how day mark a loss that leaves no ritual trace? you imagine for yourself no mourners crowded together over the earth becoming your body,

no weeping against the rising murmur of grief that holds everyone, no rending of cloth, no resisting and difficult ascent to god's perfect judgment. my body struggles to keep from standing up into your memory. my tongue to keep from blessing your name in those strange sill syllables. inno moment and in every moment the rising and weeping and struggling move nonetheless through my veins. fever dreams, my spirit cannot forget. >> thank you so much. please join when you say we return to "mosaic" in just a moment. ,,,,

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welcome back to "mosaic." good morning, i'm rabbi eric weiss and honored to be your host. we're in the middle of a conversation about a new prayer book and we welcome a rabbi and member of the congregation. a contributor to the siddur and also the author of a book called "clearing the text, medieval and modern jewish stories." andrew, what was it like for you as a writer to contribute to this new prayer book? >> it's an amazing experience, because the prayer book now is an incredible extraordinary object. it has section division, hat an extraordinary ribbon to help you keep or find your place, and it allowed our community of

in some ways traditional outsiders to enter into the mainstream of jewish culture, jewish american culture and global jewish culture through an extraordinarily beautiful and rich volume of words. not just my words but the words of hundreds of us managed to find this he' way into this text. >> you yourself are a writer so i imagine you have your own evolution of what that means for you internally and then see your work in published form and all the different ways in which your own artistic process bears fruit. what was it like for you as a writer to work with people writing for this particular project? >> for me that was the most thrilling part of the journey, because i've been published. it's a very yurkz mmy experience, but to nurture someone what had never written before, written a letter or an

e-mail, but never thought that they could write a prayer, and yet appeared, and to watch someone go deep within themselves into, their own spiritual core and say, could i write, i might write, i will write, i am now writing, and then eventually to look at someone's face when the back came out, and someone who had never been published before can turn to the back of the book where we have listed every con grow congregant is an extraordinary experience, because if you grow up in the jewish world, we're so used to hearing the voices of ancient prophets. but when you're sitting shoulder to shoulder in prayer next to someone who wrote something, or next to someone whose parents or teacher wrote something, then your spiritual life isn't out of the sanctuary, isn't in the past, it's in the moment, and that's one of the gifts of this

siddur. >> can you give us a sense in real life of the congregation how now is this siddur this prayer book, actually used? how is it handed out, opened in the pews, prayed from? >> it's my favorite one book to take with me anywhere these days. i have a trunk full of them, because i want everyone to have them, and my own experience just in the last few days, i've used this siddur with a group of freshmen college students who are trying to understand what it means to be engaged in repairing the world and social justice, and our siddur is the prayer book that is filled with words to inspire us to do the kind of prepare that needs to be done i. i used this siddur last night with a group of jews from around the bay area, trying to get a better

understanding of what it means to be transgender. i used the words written by some of our congregants to give them a little sense of what it means to be a spiritual being on this particular journey that any folks may not have a sense of what it's about. >> can we read something else from it and give a taste? >> sure. there's so many possibilities. how about the blessing for beg single, which is a radical innovation for a jewish prayer book to have a blessing like this. >> oh god and god of all people, as first you created one human being, female and male in your image so do i stand before you now complete and whole. fully engaged with you, i open myself to you as did myriam,

for him torrah names the spouse. i come before you alone like he lie i can't, who has traveled with our people since ancient times, blessing and watching over us. i am blessed and holy, sang tie if i had and beloved. i am a singular witness and reflecting mirror of your eternal oneness. >> please join us in just a moment when we return to mosaic. ,,,, ,,,, today is a special day.

today, we gather as a nation and as an international community to recognize the selfless decision of one of the most influential women of our time. she's been recognized by religious figures, and politicians around the world. to us, she's just rachael, but to the rest of the world she's the woman who, after having one too many drinks, chose not to drive home buzzed. here today to honor rachael is the family whose lives she spared.

welcome back to "mosaic." i'm rabbi eric weiss, honored to be your host this morning. we're in the midst of a conversation about a wonderful new prayer book, a siddur put together by this congregation. what you see on your screen is a picture of what in the siddur, in the prayer book?

>> these are -- this is just -- just to have photography in a siddur is an innovation in and of itself, but this, i think is a beautiful picture by our artist andre who -- do you want to say more about what these redwoods, the light coming through? >> i think it's an extraordinary image. in the traditions we think about the cedars of lebanon, but this is where we live. this is here this is california. this is for so many, an indication of how lots of us find the sacred, not just in synagogue, but in nature, and to bring nature into the prayer book puts so many pieces together. >> we've been talking about the innovation of the prayer back, in particular about the different kinds of prayers and real-life experience, but i think what's important to say is that this is a traditional prayer, and the congregation

has worked very uniquely in that way, i think just the way you've printed the prayer book. there's the blue and the black print. >> the blue is everything that is directly from the scriptures. we wanted to accentuate that, so that in the course of making our way through all the texts, we give a sense to the priority of torah. and we also have expanded the traditional, the historic language, which speaks of the sons of israel celebrating shabad. here we've included all of israel, the communities of israel. we're trying in every way to say you belong here, you're welcome here this sues this is our -- all of our tradition and

inheritance to refresh. it appears in different ways through the siddur. you really -- on the ritual that's for returning the torah to the ark. on this one page, there's so much history and so much innovation. to have the beauty of the talid as a visual this is something people know and can identify w. these sorts of visuals don't exist in other jewish prayer books. it's like we took a chance to say, we all know people respond to different images in different ways, how can we make this as accessible as possible so that people can open just about any page, jews, non-jews, gay, straight, anybody can find themselves in this siddur. that's, i guess, why i carry it

around, because i feel like whatever my encounter is going to i'm going to meet someone who i can help them open the door of this and find a bridge to something jewish. >> and i know, we just have really unbelievably a moment left, but i know that this prayer book has launched itself into the world beyond the pews and the walls of the congregation. you want to just give us a taste of where the siddur is appearing in its continued engagement? >> we've begun teaching in several location. several of us went down to los angeles and we taught several workshops and classes reading from the book and inviting people to take it home for the weekend, then come back and talk about what their experience was, and some of them were lgbt, most of them weren't, and yet all of them found something that resonated with their experience. >> believe it or not we've come to the vend our time together.

it's really just a comma in the ongoing conversation certainly what it means to put together a prayer book, a siddur, and give it to the world. thank you so much for the gift of this siddur. thank you so much for joining is us here on mosaic. have a wonderful day. ,, [ boy's voice ] hi, samantha. [ girl's voice ] hi todd, do you wanna be my boyfriend? [ chuckles ] sure! great -- gimme your melt. myy--melt? [ singsong voice ] yeah. i'm your girlfriend now. ahh, i don't think this is working out.

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