The Book of Blessings: New Jewish Prayers for Daily Life, the Sabbath, and the New Moon Festival

The Book of Blessings is an extraordinary and deeply poetic re-creation of Jewish prayer that offers new blessings, poems, and meditations for Sabbath, holiday, and everyday observance. Steeped in dialogue with rabbinic tradition, it is for those who seek a more contemporary, egalitarian approach to traditional liturgy.

"[Falk] manages to create extraordinarily beautiful prayers—in Hebrew and English—that are both radically new and deeply resonant with Jewish tradition."


—Judith Plaskow, The Women's Review of Books
"Marcia Falk's work in Hebrew blessings is as beautiful as it is innovative; and it is innovative in the sweetest, most nourishing sense, sat urated in love for the language itself (its overtones and melodies as well as its deep structure), its history, its people. Even those who do not hear the traditional liturgies as exclusionary will respond to the meticulously flowering poet's passion of Marcia Falk's wholly original contribution."


—Cynthia Ozick
"A truly magisterial and exciting collection of brakhot . . . that invites us to re-encounter not only the blessing, but the Source of blessing. . . . Falk rekindles the flame of Jewish ardor and devotion."


—Hadassah
"[Falk's] prayers are re-creations of traditional prayers, her versions striking in the beauty and power of their language, in English and Hebrew: this is a poet's siddur, full of profound meaning."


—Sandee Brawarsky, Jewish Week