Rabbi Marcia Prager is a vibrant Jewish Renewal rabbi, teacher, storyteller, artist and therapist living and working in the Mt. Airy community of Philadelphia. A graduate of the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College, she also holds the personal smicha (rabbinic ordination) of Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi, the visionary rebbe of the Jewish Renewal Movement, with whom she has continued to work closely.
She serves as rabbi of the Philadelphia P'nai Or Jewish Renewal Community, the innovative Jewish congregation founded by Rabbi Schachter-Shalomi in 1973, and is the founding rabbi of a sister congregation, P'nai Or of Princeton, New Jersey.
She works passionately for ALEPH: Alliance for Jewish Renewal, a national organization which advances vital Judaism as an ethical and spiritual path, and serves ALEPH as Director and Dean the ALEPH Ordination Programs, designing programs of study leading to rabbinic, cantorial and rabbinic pastor ordination.
Her work as a teacher of Jewish spiritual practice includes developing and co-directing DLTI, the Davvenen Leadership Training Institute, offered through Elat Chayyim Jewish Spiritual Retreat Center, and teaching widely in Jewish and interfaith settings.
Her popular book, The Path of Blessing (Bell Tower, '98; Jewish Lights, '03) is an exploration of the profound spiritual wisdom that lies in the Jewish practice of blessing, and a primer of Jewish mystical literacy. Her newest projects involve creating innovative tools for exploring Jewish prayer and spiritual practice. Her "Weekday Amidah in Guided Imagery" is a deck of 20 exquisitely illustrated cards which use guided meditation to lead you through the transformative blessings of this ancient prayer practice. She is the author/editor of the beautiful new P'nai Or Siddurim for Shabbat, and collaboratively recorded the accompanying cd's with her husband Hazzan Jack Kessler.
Rabbi Prager is a graduate of the Penn Council For Relationship's four-year training program in marriage and family therapy. She also holds a BA in cultural anthropology, and an MFA from Pratt Institute, New York, in photography and drawing and taught for five years as a member of the faculty of The International Center of Photography in New York City.
She and her husband, Hazzan Jack Kessler, a traditionally trained cantor and director of two Jewish music ensembles, ATZILUT: Concerts For Peace and Klingon Klezmer, often lead shabbatons. retreats and workshops together.
Jewish Renewal is a movement of people engaged in creating contemporary models of Jewish expression that speak to both intellect and heart, in forms which embrace the full inclusion of women and the divine feminine, and which facilitate the deep healing of our relationships with each other and the earth.
