Kindle Books for Rosh Hashanah

Shana Tova to all of our Jewish readers! Like many, I will be travelling to in-laws tonight to celebrate the Jewish New Year. But uniquely for me, I will be celebrating minus the synagogue trip this time. I had a bad experience at my mother’s synagogue which made me reluctant to return, and when I learned that the rabbi passed away last week (a week before the holidays!) I scrambled to make other plans. And I realized that a day spent reading, meditating and in true spiritual reflection might actually have the potential to be a deeper and more profound experience than a few hours biding my time through a tedious, stilted synagogue service geared to people of my parent’s generation.

But read what, exactly? Well, I had already begun my high holiday research on my own when I found this little write-up from Publishers Weekly. I was thrilled to find one of my purchases already mentioned on their list! So, what are MY high holiday reading plans?

1) A Morning Walk

I’ll start the morning by rising with my Beloved, making his lunch (since HE will be working!) and doing my morning workout. I love the DVDs of Leslie Sansone and have one called The Faith Walk which has a gentle spiritual bent. I’ll do that, then shower and go buy my apple treat on my way downtown.

2) DIY Tashlich and Prayers

Why am I going downtown, you might ask? Well, I have decided to spend the day at Harbourfront. I know many people who so prioritize the synagogue experience that they forget to enjoy the pre-synagogue ritual of Tashlich, where you travel to a body of water, say a few prayers, and toss in some breadcrumbs to represent your ‘sins’ of the year. I plan to go inside after the Tashlich part to read and relax; there is a beautiful food court there that overlooks the water. Here are some Kindle books I have added to my reading list for the morning:

– The Book of Jewish Prayers in English This appears to be a public-domain translation of the first siddur to canonize the order of prayers for most major services. I saw several bargain basement Kindle versions; this one appears to be the best-formatted of the bunch, with a proper table of contents and italizations of the instructional bits. It includes both regular services and holy day ones, and also the Yizkor memorial service. In English only, alas, but still, a good find.

– [easyazon-link asin=”1611686059″ locale=”us”]The Days Between[/easyazon-link] by Marcia Falk. This is the one PW mentioned. I have seen Falk’s other work and enjoyed it. This one has both original prayer services for the day of, which are poetry-based and include Hebrew options, and also a daily reading for each of the ten ‘days of awe’ which come between the new year and Yom Kippur, the day of atonement.

– [easyazon-link asin=”1580230229″ locale=”us”]The Gentle Weapon[/easyazon-link].  I got this book awhile ago and it really spoke to me; it has short little prayers for all occasions, based on the teachings of Rev Nachman of Breslov, a classic Hassidic teacher. I have bookmarked many of these short little snippets and refer to them when so inspired.

3) Lunchtime and Journal Writing

I’ll finish with my apple-themed lunch at the food court, then I’ll walk to the nearest coffee shop for some writing time. I have signed up for a web service called 10Q which has a clever premise: they will give me a prompt for every day of the holy days, I can respond on their web server and save my work, and then next year at this time, they will email me all of this year’s answers so I can reflect on my year.

It should be an uplifting and spiritual morning. I love that, thanks to my eBook reader, there are options for the non-synagoguel folks like me!