[We thank Rabbi Simcha Prombaum of Congregation Sons of
 Abraham in La Crosse, Wisconsin for his invaluable help
 in producing this transcript.]

In this course, I invite you to accompany me on a journey through the Jewish Siddur. This journey has four major stations:

The first station is the opening blessings and prayers in the Siddur: these include the psychological and theological introduction to the liturgy called Mah Tovu and Adon Olam, the morning blessings on the body and the soul which give us a sense of ourselves, and concludes with Ashre, the most important psalm in the liturgy.

The second volume focuses upon the Sh’ma liturgy, with its central act of acclaiming God as sovereign. There we talk about opening blessings which precede the Sh’ma, the closing blessings which come after the Sh’ma, and how the whole Sh’ma works together as a compositional unit.
More on Introducing The Hidden Poetry of the Jewish Prayerbook (Part I)