The Open Siddur is pleased to announce the first contribution of a contemporary translation of the siddur. Reb Zalman Schachter-Shalomi contributed his Weekday Siddur and Sabbath Supplement: Siddur Tehillat HaShem Yidaber Pi. The siddur presents Reb Zalman’s creative translation in English of Psalms, blessings, the Amidah, liturgical poetry, meditations, and other prayers read daily and on Friday evening. Reb Zalman contributed his siddur soon after being contacted by the Open Siddur Project having grokked the potential of free culture and shared resources to renew Jewish culture and spirituality. Thank you Reb Zalman!
ODT | PDF Siddur Tehillat HaShem Yidaber Pi — Weekdays
ODT | PDF Siddur Tehillat HaShem Yidaber Pi — Sabbath Evening Supplement
TXT | Siddur Tehillat HaShem Y’daber Pi — Weekdays and Sabbath Supplement
TXT | Reb Zalman’s translation of select Tehillim (Psalms: 6, 15, 24, 25, 30, 48, 67, 81-82, 93-94, 100, 104, 139, 145-150)
From his introduction:
If you are not used to reading Hebrew with comprehension and with the ability to dilate the Hebrew from the literal meaning, or if you cannot read Hebrew and need a resource for daily davvenen, I offer you this set of texts, which I, too, use frequently for myself.
I translated the Psalms and the liturgy in the way in which I experience them in my feeling consciousness. This does not offer the ‘pshat’, the literal meaning of the words, but the devotional interpretation that can make it a prayer of the heart.
I suggest that you davven it first all the way through, reading it out loud enough to hear it yourself with feeling. You will like some sections better than others.
However, as you will note, there are 5 sections to this heart siddur. They describe the raising your awareness from the realm of sensation, the prayer of Assiyah, to the realm of feelings, the prayer of Yetzirah, from there to the realm of reason and the intellect, the world of B’riyah and to the summit, the world of the intuition, Atzilut.
When you are done with this ascent, coming back to the grounded world of sensation and action, you will need to reflect on the stirrings you felt on the way up and ask yourself these questions:
- How am I to apply this in my consensus reality and with my family and other contacts?
- How am I to act in a manner that will lead to the healing of our planet and society?
This part is called the bringing down of the Divine influx, yeridat hashefa’.
You may need to pick some paragraphs from each plane of prayer if all of it is too much for you. Some days you may wish to vary some parts and say others. This ‘siddur’ is meant to help you stay in daily touch with God, to gain blessed assistance from God, to lighten your burdens, not to add to them. Then recite some of the sentences of blessings and proceed with your daily tasks.
May you experience
your praying
as a blessed meeting
with your God.
“Siddur Tehillat Hashem Yidaber Pi” is shared by Zalman Schachter-Shalomi with a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported license.
Thnak you for helping people to achive and meet Hashem.
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