Jewish Liturgy: A Guide for Everyone

We tend to think of the synagogue service as an ancient rite that we inherited with few changes from Talmudic times, until the Reform movement sparked a modern period of change. In fact, although some basic structures have been handed down to us from late antiquity, Jewish liturgy has been continually evolving. Where does Jewish liturgy come from? And how did prayer services begin? This book explores these and other questions. In synagogues around the world, Jews open prayer books based on a traditional liturgy, often without knowing the deep origins of most of what they find inside. 

Hazzan Abbe Lyons, one of the most knowledgeable and talented Cantors and liturgists in our midst, opens up the structure, themes, and historical origins of that Siddur (prayer book) to all with this great introduction. I look forward to sharing her book with congregants and friends! —Rabbi Julie Hilton Danan, Ph.D. Religious Leader of Seaside Jewish Community, Rehoboth Beach, Delaware, and founder of wellspringsofwisdom.com

This is a beautifully crafted resource and guide for your studies in Jewish prayer, by the gifted Hazzan and liturgist Abbe Lyons. —Hazzan Jack Kessler Director, ALEPH Cantorial Program 

As a gifted cantor, poet, and liturgist, Hazzan Abbe Lyons offers us this succinct and useful guide to Jewish prayer. Her epigraph from my own liturgy teacher, Dr. Rabbi Dr. Lawrence Hoffman, provides a fitting rationale for this work: “To know the prayer book is to know our history from within. It is to be in touch with the soul of the Jewish people…” Lyons give us liturgical history. She explains the structure, purpose, and choreography of the prayers and the prayerbook itself. In so doing, she gives us the soul of the Jewish people. —Rabbi Pamela Wax Poet/author of Walking the Labyrinth and Starter Mothers