The Jewish High Holidays—the ten days beginning with the New Year Festival of Rosh Hashanah and culminating with Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement—constitute the most sacred period of the Jewish year. During this season, religious as well as nonaffiliated Jews attend synagogue services in unparalleled numbers. Yet much of what they find there can be unwelcoming in its patriarchal imagery, leaving many worshipers unsatisfied. For those seeking to connect more deeply with their Judaism, and for all readers in search of a contemplative approach to the themes of the fall season, poet and scholar Marcia Falk re-creates the holidays’ key prayers and rituals from an inclusive perspective. Among the offerings in The Days Between are Hebrew and English blessings for festive meals, prayers for synagogue services, and poems and meditations for quiet reflection. Emphasizing introspection as well as relationship to others, Falk evokes her vision of the High Holidays as “ten days of striving to keep the heart open to change.” Accessible and welcoming to modern readers, The Days Between is steeped in traditional sources and grounded in liturgical and biblical scholarship. It will serve as a meaningful alternative or supplement to the traditional liturgy for individuals, families, synagogues, and communities small and large—that is, for all who seek fresh meaning in the High Holidays.
Thorough, heartfelt and impressive.
Rabbis and lay leaders surely will find a treasure trove of beautiful readings to add to their services. This touching book can be used as either an alternative or a supplement to traditional liturgy, creating real meaning and adding a special vision of the High Holy Days as we open our hearts to forgiveness and yeshivah.
Contemplative and profound, her poetry helps to set the stage for quiet reflection and introspection, opening the heart to the possibility of fresh beginnings and renewed relationships in the year ahead.
“The Days Between: Blessings, Poems and Directions of the Heart for the Jewish High Holiday Season” ... will be your inseparable guide to an insightful life, one more engaged and present in mind and heart.
Marcia Falk is a vital voice for our times. Her brilliant work is bound to touch your heart, open your mind and bring a new sense of the ancient power of the High Holidays. She seamlessly weaves a poet’s gift of words that open inner vistas, a liturgist’s capacity to speak to the universal, a scholar’s insight into Jewish traditions and texts, and a contemporary feminist’s fresh eyes for her task. This book is a wonderful companion for the Ten Days of t’shuvah.
Marcia Falk has captured the essence of our 10 holiest days — a journey from reflection to renewal to resolve. Her exquisite poetry and prayer will speak to the contemporary seeker looking for language that opens the heart and soul. Not just American Jews but the many Israelis who are estranged from traditional Hebrew prayer will be drawn into this inviting, wonderfully usable guide and precious companion for the very days that cry for a new rite of passage.
“The Days Between” is Marcia Falk’s long-awaited sequel to her pathbreaking “Book of Blessings.” Since that book appeared, Falk has lost nothing of her precious poetic gifts — she remains an outstanding lyrical interpreter of Jewish liturgy. These translations and interpretations for the High Holiday season show deep empathy for the human condition, lofty aspirations for what that condition can accomplish and intense regard for Jewish tradition — not just reiterated, but revised and reassembled for today.
Marcia Falk, a Brandeis University alumna, is the author of three books of poems and several highly acclaimed translations of biblical and modern poetry, including The Song of Songs: Love Lyrics from the Bible. The Days Between is the long-awaited sequel to her groundbreaking liturgical work, The Book of Blessings: New Jewish Prayers for Daily Life, the Sabbath, and the New Moon Festival.
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