Prayers of our Heart
By Norman Sandfield
It is amazing, but true: Or Chadash’s popular Shabbat prayerbook, Prayers of Our Heart, Tefilot Ba-leyv, is celebrating its 25th anniversary this July! And for those of us whose name appears on the Preface page, it is an astounding reminder of the quarter century which we and the prayerbook have been a part of Or Chadash.
We will be celebrating with a special Shabbat event:
Rabbi Peter Kessler, whose name is also to be found on the Preface page, will be coming back to his Chicago home from his Congregation in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania on Friday evening, July 13th to participate in our Or Chadash service.
When the prayerbook was published in 1982, it was only a dream that a gay man could become an ordained Rabbi and serve a mainstream congregation. But dreams do come true! And the skills Peter Kessler learned as a leader at Congregation Or Chadash have served him well as a rabbi now leading his own congregation.
We hope you will join us for this special event. Norman Sandfield will be sponsoring a special oneg after services in honor of Rabbi Kessler and the twenty five years which this prayerbook has successfully served Or Chadash.