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Exploring Mishkan T’filah-A Reform Siddur: April 2008

Our new prayer books, Mishkan T’filah, have arrived and we are already using them on Friday nights at 6:15 and Saturday mornings at 10:30. Each month we will print a different passage in The Window to help you explore the power of the prayers and poetry of this wonderful prayer book of our Reform Movement.

Note: Each time we read a prayer we encounter it at a different place in our lives, from a fresh perspective, in a unique moment in history. This passage, on page 45, by Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel, brings a fresh perspective on a moment in Jewish history, the Exodus from Egypt, suggesting that redemption in our lives and the possibility of freedom in our world, exists at all times. As we prepare to celebrate Pesach, our festival of freedom, this passage which we read on Shabbat challenges us anew.

WE ARE A PEOPLE in whom the past endures,
in whom the present is inconceivable
without moments gone by.
The Exodus lasted a moment,
a moment enduring forever.
What happened once upon a time
happens all the time.

Download a pdf of this study >>