9 years ago I published: "God’s Favorite Prayers" - it has been a delicious improvement on all previous theologies of Jewish prayers

"God’s Favorite Prayers" (ISBN 0615509495) is a new published book that unlocks the personalities behind the prayers. Author Tzvee Zahavy introduces readers to the archetypes within Jewish liturgy in this engaging new volume.

"God’s Favorite Prayers" invites the reader into the heart of Jewish spirituality, to learn about its idiom and imagery, its emotions and its great sweeping dramas. The author invites the reader to meet six ideal personalities of Jewish prayer and to get to know some of God's favorite prayers.

According to Zahavy, Jews recite and sing and meditate prayers that derive from six distinct archetypes. He labels those six personalities: the performer, the mystic, the scribe, the priest, the meditator and the celebrity.

Zahavy wrote this book to remedy the status quo in Jewish thought, where mainly dry theological approaches have been applied to the readings of the liturgy. He points out that as a result, in many synagogues, it is common to hear that worshippers are bored with the services or alienated from them. In his new book he criticizes previous approaches to the prayer book because they offer no solution to this state of affairs.

“Liturgy is not dry theology,” Zahavy explains. Instead, he shows how the traditional Jewish services are filled with “colorful pictures, evoking sentiments and passions and full of exhilaration.”

This book provokes thinking that will make readers stop to find their own personal threads of liturgical meanings and discover the energy and excitement of the prayers.

The book is directed to lay people, educators and academics, Jews and non-Jews. Zahavy uses a fresh and original set of “contemporary metaphors and anecdotal narratives” which he wraps around his presentations and discussions of the main prayers of Jewish worship.

The author is an experienced researcher, a published scholar, and a lively lecturer on various topics related to Jewish prayer. Intended to engage and inform, Zahavy says that this book was written to shift the paradigm of study in the field of liturgical research in all religions.

"God’s Favorite Prayers" is available in print form for sale online at Amazon.com and through other channels. It is also sold in digital formats, as a Kindle book at Amazon.com, and as a NOOK book at barnesandnoble.com.

About the Author

Tzvee Zahavy earned a bachelor's degree, a master’s degree and ordination from Yeshiva University and a PhD in religious studies from Brown University. He has held professorial positions at the University of Minnesota where he won a distinguished teaching award, and at the Jewish Theological Seminary, where he has taught Jewish liturgy. He regularly engages in research in Jewish studies and has written extensively on the subject in books and journals.

Contact: Tzvee Zahavy, E-mail: Zahavy@gmail.com Phone: (201) 362-5867
Web: www.godsfavoriteprayers.com www.talmudicbooks.com
Review Copies and Interviews Available