Yesterday I went to a bat mitzvah. I had two of those ah-ha moments as I was following along with the transliterated Hebrew. One was that I really enjoy the translated, transliterated, and annotated prayer books and I wish that Neo-Pagans had some (this is usually in conjunction with wishing Neo-Pagan chants were more musically complex than "Three Blind Mice").
The only bits I recognized were from Dion Fortune's "The Mystical Qabalah," and -- I guess some of this comes from reading an excerpted chapter from Cynthia Eller's "Living in the Lap of the Goddess," -- I was really struck by how the vocabulary of the occult system underpinning a lot of Western European Neo-Paganism is appropriated from Hebrew prayer. Hearing the worshipers in the synagogue reminded me that "Chokmah" isn't just a little symbolic circle on a symbolic pillar -- it's also the divine gift of wisdom granted by God.
Looks like I have some housekeeping to do...
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