This Ritual Life Archive
Welcome to This Ritual Life.
Here you will find out about ways to enhance your holiday experience, to celebrate or mark a meaningful life cycle event, and to deepen your experience of the everyday. Our authors are especially interested in hearing your responses to what they have written. So after reading, visit the Ritual Life discussion forum where you can join in conversation with CLAL faculty and other readers.
To join the conversation at Ritual Life Talk, click here.
To access the Ritual Life Archive, click here.
TRAVELING
This story is told: The JCC Maccabi Games send young Jewish athletes to compete in a whole assortment of sports for a week at various sites. As the mom of a Maccabi athlete and wife of a Maccabi coach, I was most curious to see what was "Jewish" about these games, other than a chance to meet other Jewish young people and Jewish host families and a chance to experience good sportsmanship as a Jewish value (granted-dayenu--this was already enough in my book.) When I dropped off my daughter and husband at our local JCC where they would board the bus taking them to the Maccabi, I was moved to discover three moving aspects of the Games, each one deeply Jewish. I learned that first, every Maccabi athlete was asked to donate a new T-shirt to tzedaka; second, part of the closing ceremony would be an obligatory 2-hour community service project; and third, all Maccabi athletes and coaches who were traveling by car, bus and plane to the Games were given a wallet-sized tfillat haderekh card, an eloquent prayer and meditation for travelers going from a familiar setting to a community they did not know. As I waved goodbye and good luck to our team, I felt they were being accompanied by a watchful eye. This is the meditation and prayer they held in their hands:
MEDITATION
Why a prayer for traveling?
We find security in familiar settings, among the people and in the places we know well. Therefore, traveling outside our community can make us feel a little uneasy. We ask God to "lead us forward in peace," because life itself is an endless journey in which we never really reach our destination. As Jews, we are always journeying towards peace, for ourselves, for our people, and for all of humankind.
RITUAL
As you prepare to depart on your journey, take a moment to reflect on the wonder of being able to move from one place to another, of being able to anticipate familiar and new experiences along the way. Now this ritual is simple, but it must be done always:
Buckle up!
BLESSING
(After you have buckled up and are preparing the depart) Yehi Ratzon milfanekha:
Blessed are You, Lord our God, who hears prayer.
TEACHING
If I take wing with the dawn and come to rest on the ocean's farthest shore, even there Your hand will be guiding me, Your strong hand will hold me. (Psalms 139:9-10)
What should one say on entering a city in the course of a journey? "May it be your will, O Lord my God, to bring me into this city in peace." When about to leave, one should say, "May it be your will, O Lord my God, to bring me out of this city in peace." When one is outside the city, one should say, "I give thanks to You, Lord my God, as you have brought me out of this city in peace, and as You brought me out in peace, so may you guide me in peace, support me in peace, and safeguard me from any danger along the way. (Babylonian Talmud: Brakhot 54a, 60a)
When one is on a journey and has no company, one should occupy oneself with Torah. (Babylonian Talmud, Eruvin 54a)
Shomer tzaytekha u'vo'ekha, may'atah v'ad olam You keep a constant eye on our comings and goings
(CLAL faculty)
CLAL's National Jewish Resource Center develops and publishes rituals that help to bridge the gap between our contemporary lives and the ancient wisdom of the Jewish tradition.
To join the conversation at Ritual Life Talk, click here.
To access the Ritual Life Archive, click here.
