Podcast Summary

Podcast: New Books Network – Jewish Studies Channel

Episode: Interview with Rabbi Jeffrey K. Salkin, author of Inviting God In: A Guide to Jewish Prayer (CCAR Press, 2025)
Host: Rabbi Mark Katz
Guest: Rabbi Jeffrey K. Salkin
Date: November 24, 2025

Brief Overview

This episode features an in-depth conversation between host Rabbi Mark Katz and Rabbi Jeffrey K. Salkin about Salkin’s newest book, Inviting God In: A Guide to Jewish Prayer. The discussion centers on the complexities, structure, and spiritual opportunities of Jewish prayer, with a focus on making the prayerbook (siddur) accessible and meaningful to people across levels of knowledge and belief. The conversation combines personal anecdotes, historical insights, and a reform-minded approach to liturgy.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Origins and Purpose of the Book

• Rabbi Salkin’s Background and Motivations
  • Rabbi Salkin reflects on his 45-year rabbinic career writing for both laypeople and colleagues, aiming to "extend my pulpit" beyond his immediate community.
  • The book is positioned as a follow-up to his earlier works, especially those aimed at making Jewish rituals and prayers more understandable and spiritually relevant (03:16).
  • He addresses the "cluelessness" that many feel during services:

    “...they sit in the sanctuary almost as if they are... sitting in the waiting room of a dentist's office. And I wanted to open their eyes, wanted to open their souls and their minds to what I think the beauty and the poetry of Jewish prayer can really be.” (03:56)

2. Nature and Evolution of the Prayerbook

• Structure as “Lasagna” and “Loose Leaf Notebook”
  • Salkin describes the siddur as layered—"a well, lasagna"—reflecting how various Jewish communities have contributed over time (05:03).
  • Emphasizes its ongoing evolution, in contrast to the fixed nature of Torah or Talmud:

    “...the Sidur, the prayer book is something that's constantly evolving. So I prefer to think of it as a loose leaf notebook rather than a bound text.” (05:38)

3. What Makes This a "Reform" Commentary

• Distinctively Reform Approach
  • Focus on Shabbat evening and morning prayers from Mishkan Tefillah, the current Reform siddur (06:32).
  • The book is both "scholarly and yet popular," employing history, critical thinking, and an openness to questioning over "piety":

    “...it dares to ask questions about the theology that is found in the prayer book. It relies on stories and legends, but also brings a great deal of history and critical thinking into it.” (07:16)

4. The Book’s Title and Its Implications

• "Inviting God In" as an Act of Spiritual Openness
  • Title evolved from “From Your Mouth to God’s Ear,” shifting to a more accessible and evocative invitation for readers to make personal space for the divine (08:27).
  • Salkin addresses the challenge of engaging an increasingly secular Jewish community:

    “I wanted to restore the poetry, the power, the purpose to the potential for Jewish prayer.” (09:20)

5. Individual Prayers as “Fractals”

• Meaning within Each Prayer
  • Each prayer is seen as a small model (fractal) for the entire Jewish experience. The example of Lechadodi encapsulates redemption, history, and mystical longing (09:57).
  • Salkin’s Warsaw experience—a metaphor for rebuilding on past ruins—illustrates Judaism’s resilience and the personal resonance of prayer (11:28).

6. The “Arc” of Prayer: Fivefold Structure

• Salkin’s creative paradigm structures Jewish prayer into five components (12:37):
  • Preliminary Material: The "warm-up" or preparatory phase (13:44).
    • Compared to a theater prelude or exercise warm-up; helps transition into the spiritual space.
  • What We Believe: Lays out foundational Jewish beliefs (18:57).
    • Themes include creation, God’s love (through Torah), redemption, and hope.
    • Emphasis on ending every liturgical “act” with hope:

      “You cannot end a part of the service on a downer. It always has to be... a note of Nehemtah, of... hope, of comfort.” (20:54)

  • What We Need: The Amida prayer and requests (25:48).
    • Focus is on communal, not just personal, needs; Shabbat serves as a counterpoint fostering contentment over want:

      “On Shabbat, that entire section of requests... is radically truncated because Shabbat really is a time when we are happy with what we have...” (27:10)

  • What We Learn: The Torah (and Haftarah) reading phase (29:01).
    • Salkin reframes this as a "human drama" centered on communal covenant renewal rather than a dramatic replication of Sinai (29:43).
    • Emphasizes global Jewish unity in shared readings.
    • Cites studies of prophets as “cantankerous people who spoke truth to power” (32:47).
  • What We Hope: Closing prayers—Aleinu and Mourner’s Kaddish (32:47).
    • Kaddish as a prayer for the dead and an expression of long-term hope—for spiritual redemption and the establishment of an ethical world.

    • “The hope is... that our loved ones will be redeemed... through our prayers... But the big picture is... we’re hoping for this coming of the divine kingdom...” (33:10)

7. The Function of Questions in Prayer

• Each prayer commentary concludes with prompts for reflection (36:40).
  • Intended as a pedagogical tool for young people, but also for congregational use in the pews.
  • Salkin suggests prayer is tikkun hatzmi (“repairing myself”), not just tikkun olam (“repairing the world”):

    “So what I would want people to do is to ask prayer like questions, questions about what they're praying and asking, how does this prayer speak to my own individual neshama?” (37:53)

8. Head and Heart in Prayer

• Should congregants analyze prayers during services, or allow themselves to “get lost” in the experience? Salkin’s answer: Both (39:17).
  • Presents his "3H" approach: Head (intellectual), Heart (spiritual), and Hand (activist); few excel at all three but each is vital for a meaningful Jewish life.
  • Personal confession:

    “I wrote this book as a partial atonement for the fact that my major H... has been the head, about learning and about teaching. I’ve minored in the second H... the spiritual...” (40:15)

9. Hoped-for Impact

• If successful, Salkin wants readers to:
  • Understand themselves as “located in a history that stretches out in front of them and stretches before them. And as members of the Jewish people at prayer.”
  • Be equipped to answer: “why this prayer is here... what it means... I may not agree with it, but this is my community.” (41:57)

10. Next Project

• Salkin teases a forthcoming book, “Jews on the Edge,” about Jewish heretics, skeptics, and intellectual outliers from biblical times to the present (42:46).
  • Anchored by the idea: “We drew a circle that kept him out but love and I had the wit to win. We drew a circle that drew him in, that we need these people as part of our story.”

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On the Experience of Prayer:
  “People sit in the sanctuary almost as if they are... sitting in the waiting room of a dentist's office.”
  —Rabbi Salkin (03:56)

• Reform Approach:
  “While it is serious, it is not what you and I would call pious, which is to say, it dares to ask questions about the theology that is found in the prayer book.”
  —Rabbi Salkin (07:16)

• On Liturgical Layers:
  “I like to compare the prayer book... to a well, lasagna. It comes in different layers...”
  —Rabbi Salkin (05:03)

• On Fractals & Lechadodi:
  “In each prayer, we can really intuit the entire Jewish experience.”
  —Rabbi Salkin (09:57)

• Hope in Liturgy:
  “You cannot end a part of the service on a downer. It always has to be... a note of Nehemtah, of... hope, of comfort.”
  —Rabbi Salkin (20:54)

• Prayer as Personal Repair:
  “But prayer is Tikkun Hatzmi. It's repairing myself. It attaches me to my people and my past, my history, all Jews everywhere at any time. But it also attaches me to me.”
  —Rabbi Salkin (37:35)

• Balancing Head and Heart:
  “I see this really being as an oscillation between the head and the heart. Sometimes you're there, sometimes you're elsewhere.”
  —Rabbi Salkin (40:07)

• A Summative Wish:
  “If it works, they will be able to say, now I understand why this prayer is here. I understand what it means. I know a couple of stories about it. I may not agree with it, but this is my community and this is the person that I choose to be and show up as, as part of that community.”
  —Rabbi Salkin (41:57)

• Upcoming Book Teaser:
  “We drew a circle that kept him out but love and I had the wit to win. We drew a circle that drew him in, that we need these people as part of our story.”
  —Rabbi Salkin (43:50)

Timestamps for Key Segments

• [03:16] Salkin describes his journey and the need for the book
• [05:03] Prayer book as “lasagna” (layers over time)
• [06:32] What makes this book a Reform commentary
• [08:27] Origin and meaning of the title "Inviting God In"
• [09:57] Prayers as fractals, in-depth look at Lechadodi
• [12:37] Arc of prayer: explanation of the fivefold paradigm
• [18:57] What We Believe: fundamental themes of Jewish liturgy
• [25:48] The Amida: "What We Need" and the communal focus
• [29:01] Torah reading as "What We Learn" and its communal/global significance
• [32:47] Mourner’s Kaddish and Aleinu: "What We Hope"
• [36:40] The role of questions in the book and in prayer study
• [39:17] Head vs. heart engagement during prayer
• [41:57] Salkin’s hoped-for impact of his book
• [42:46] Salkin’s next project: “Jews on the Edge”

Conclusion

This episode offers a rich, accessible entry into Jewish prayer, guided by Rabbi Jeffrey Salkin’s decades of scholarship, teaching, and personal reflection. The conversation weaves together practical, historical, and spiritual threads, making Jewish worship approachable and meaningful for both beginners and experienced practitioners. The book’s structure, with essaylets and reflective questions, is designed to foster both intellectual and emotional engagement—encouraging readers to locate themselves within the ongoing story of the Jewish people at prayer.