Naming God: Avinu Malkeinu—Our Father, Our King
One of the oldest and most beloved prayers--known even to Jews who rarely attend synagogue--is Avinu Malkeinu ("Our Father, Our King"), a liturgical staple for the entire High Holy Day period. "Our Father, Our King" has resonance also for Christians, whose Lord's Prayer begins "Our Father."
Despite its popularity, Avinu Malkeinu causes great debate because of the difficulties in thinking of God as father and king. Americans no longer relate positively to images of royalty; victims of parental abuse note the problem of assuming a benevolent father; and feminists have long objected to masculine language for God.
Through a series of lively introductions and commentaries, almost forty contributors--men and women, scholar and rabbis, artists and thinkers from all Jewish denominations and from around the world--wrestle with this linguistic and spiritual conundrum, asking, "How do we name God altogether, without recourse to imagery that defies belief?"
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Book details
- Edited by
- Rabbi Lawrence A. Hoffman, PhD
- Imprint
- Jewish Lights, an imprint of Turner Publishing Company
- Published
- Pages
- 336
- Formats
- Hardcover, Paperback
- Series
- Prayers of Awe
- Subjects
- Religion › Prayerbooks › Jewish
Religion › Theology
Religion › Judaism › Theology - Topics
- Jewish prayer · High Holy Days · Jewish theology · names of God · liturgy · feminist theology · God as father and king
- ISBN-13
- 9781580238175 (Hardcover)9781683362173 (Paperback)
About the author
Rabbi Lawrence A. Hoffman, PhD , has served for more than three decades as professor of liturgy at Hebrew Union College–Jewish Institute of Religion in New York. He is a world-renowned liturgist and holder of the Stephen and Barbara Friedman Chair in Liturgy, Worship and Ritual. His work combines research in Jewish ritual, worship and spirituality with a passion for the spiritual renewal of contemporary Judaism. His many books, written and edited, include seven volumes in the Prayers of Awe series: Who by Fire, Who by Water— Un'taneh Tokef; All These Vows— Kol Nidre; We Have Sinned: Sin and Confession in Judaism— Ashamnu and Al Chet; May God Remember: Memory and Memorializing in Judaism— Yizkor; All the World: Universalism, Particularism and the High Holy Days ; Naming God: Avinu Malkeinu — Our Father, Our King ; and Encountering God: El Rachum V'chanun— God Merciful and Gracious . Hoffman also edited the ten-volume series My People’s Prayer Book: Traditional Prayers, Modern Commentaries , winner of the National Jewish Book Award; and coedited My People’s Passover Haggadah: Traditional Texts, Modern Commentaries , a finalist for the National Jewish Book Award (all Jewish Lights). Rabbi Hoffman cofounded and developed Synagogue 2/3000, a transdenominational project to envision and implement the ideal synagogue of the spirit for the twenty-first century. In that capacity, he wrote Rethinking Synagogues: A New Vocabulary for Congregational Life (Jewish Lights).