This Precious Life: Encountering the Divine with Poetry and Prayer

Alden Solovy

Dec 2020 · CCAR Press

About this ebook

In This Precious Life, liturgist Alden Solovy presents prayers, poetry, and meditations inspired by encounters with God. The first part draws from divine moments in our sacred texts, mostly the Torah but also the Prophets and the Writings. Using a contemporary voice, Solovy imagines these holy moments as experienced by our biblical ancestors so we can reclaim them as our own. The second part focuses on sacred moments in our daily lives, connections with the Divine that occur simply because we are human beings created in God's image. Equally suited to individual reflection and group prayer, the book completes a trilogy with This Grateful Heart and This Joyous Soul.

About the author

Alden Solovy is a liturgist, poet, author, journalist, and educator. Alden offers a fresh Jewish voice, challenging the boundaries between poetry, meditation, personal growth, and prayer. His writing was transformed by multiple tragedies, marked in 2009 by the sudden death of his wife from a catastrophic brain injury. Solovy’s teaching spans from Hebrew Union College–Jewish Institute of Religion in Jerusalem to Limmud and Leo Baeck College in the U.K., and synagogues throughout North America. He is the author of five volumes from CCAR Press: Enter These Gates: Meditations for the Days of Awe (2024), These Words: Poetic Midrash on the Language of Torah (2023), This Grateful Heart: Psalms and Prayers for a New Day (2017), This Joyous Soul: A New Voice for Ancient Yearnings (2019), and This Precious Life: Encountering the Divine with Poetry and Prayer (2021). The Jerusalem Post called his writing “soulful, meticulously crafted.” The Huffington Post said, “...the prayers reflect age-old yearnings in modern-day situations.” Solovy made aliyah to Israel in 2012, where he hikes, writes, teaches, and learns. His work has appeared in more than twenty-five collections, including Mishkan R'fuah: Where Healing Resides (CCAR Press, 2012), L'chol Z'man v'Eit: For Sacred Moments - The CCAR Life-Cycle Guide (CCAR Press, 2015), Mishkan HaNefesh: Machzor for the Days of Awe (CCAR Press, 2015), Gates of Shabbat, Revised Edition (CCAR Press, 2016), and Prophetic Voices: Renewing and Reimagining Haftarah (CCAR Press, 2023). He is a three-time winner of the Peter Lisagor Award for Exemplary Journalism. His writing appears on ritualwell.org, reformjudaism.org, ravblog.ccarnet.org, timesofisrael.com, and tobendlight.com.