the Open Siddur Project ✍︎ פְּרוֹיֶקְט הַסִּדּוּר הַפָּתוּחַ
a community-grown, libre Open Access archive of Jewish prayer and liturgical resources
for those crafting their own prayerbooks and sharing the content of their practice
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Song After the Revolution, an adaptation of Psalms 92 for Friday Evening by Rabbi Brant Rosen (Tzedek Chicago) Contributor(s):A paraliturgical adaptation of Psalms 92. . . . Prayer of the Guest Chaplain of the U.S. House of Representatives: Rabbi Arnold Resnicoff on 10 September 2021 Contributor(s):The Opening Prayer given in the U.S. House of Representatives on 10 September 2021. . . . Contributor(s):Invocation for a Memorial Day ceremony at the Washington DC Vietnam War Veterans Memorial. . . . תפלה להסרת מסכה | A Prayer for Removing the Mask, by Rabbi Dr. Dalia Marx and Rabbi Inbar Bluzer Shalem (2021) Contributor(s):“A Prayer for Removing the Mask,” was composed by Rabbi Dr. Dalia Marx and Rabbi Inbar Bluzer Shalem in June 2021. The English translation was made by Alex Cicelsky. . . . שמחת בת (זבד הבת) | Simḥat Bat: Zeved HaBat (The Gift of a Daughter), a Ceremony Guide to the Naming of a Jewish Girl by Dovi Seldowitz (2021) Contributor(s):This Simḥat Bat ceremony guide includes an order of blessings and ceremony with attention to various traditional customs regarding the use of blessings and prayers. The guide also includes words of Torah and rabbinic teachings which relate to the themes in the guide. . . . Contributor(s):Liturgy for a motsei shabbat havdallah ritual centering the experience of those with long-COVID. . . . Contributor(s):A prayer for America on the day upon which right-wing militias carried out an insurrection upon the representative democratic institution of the United States. . . . 💬 Purim 2021: From Darkness to Light, by Rabbi Rachel Barenblat & Rabbi David Evan Markus (Bayit, 2021) Contributor(s):Tropified texts for Purim 2021 juxtaposing the text of Queen Esther with the words of Vice President Kamalla Harris and poet laureate Amanda Gorman. . . . Contributor(s):This prayer for a parent (or primary caregiver) on the vaccination of their children by Cantor Hinda Labovitz was first shared via their Facebook page on 5 November 2021, . . . Contributor(s):A prayer upon receiving a vaccination for COVID. . . . Inauguration Day Prayer for the Government of the United States, by Rabbi David Seidenberg (neohasid.org 2021) Contributor(s):A prayer for the government of the United States of America on the day of the 59th Presidential Inauguration. . . . Contributor(s):A prayer on being present in the moment of the inauguration of the 59th president of the United States. . . . לִשְׁמֹר הַשָּׁנָה שֶׁל שְׁמִטָּה | Candlelighting for Rosh haShanah, Shabbat, and Yom Tov during the Shmitah Year, by Rabbi Arthur Waskow Contributor(s):Four blessings to recite upon commencing the Shmitah year in candlelighting for Rosh haShanah, and to add to subsequent shabbat and festival candlelightings. . . . עד דלא ידע | Sources and Meditation Instructions for Not-knowing on Purim, by Rabbi Daniel Raphael Silverstein (Applied Jewish Spirituality 2021) Contributor(s):Sources and meditation instructions excerpted from a larger source sheet on Not-knowing, Joy and Purim, from the Applied Jewish Spirituality “Kabbalah Through the Calendar” course. . . . Contributor(s):A prayer for the government on a day of violent insurrection in the heart of American democracy. . . . Contributor(s):A prayer of gratitude upon receiving a COVID vaccination. . . . Contributor(s):A prayer-poem by Rabbi Arthur Waskow in 2021 reflecting on our difficulty breathing, as a society, as humanity, and as a interconnected, interbreathing biosphere. . . . הַכָּרָת רִבּוֹנוּת הָאָרֶץ | Indigenous Land Acknowledgment for Cincinnati, Ohio, by Aharon Varady (Havayah community, 2021) Contributor(s):An indigenous land acknowledgement for Jewish communities in Cincinnati, Ohio. . . . הושענא לימי הקרונה | Hoshana in the days of Corona for Sukkot 5782, by Rabbi Gustavo Surazski (2021) Contributor(s):A hoshana prayer in the times of the COVID pandemic. . . . Contributor(s):A pre-Shavuot prayer in the shadow of the 2021 Israel–Palestine crisis. . . . 📖 זמירות המזרח: מחזור ליום כפור (מנהג הספרדים) | Zemirot haMizraḥ: Maḥzor for Yom Kippur, by Daniel Cayre (Kanisse 2021) Contributor(s):A bilingual Hebrew-English Sepharadi Jewish prayerbook (maḥzor) for Yom Kippur, with gender inclusive language, compiled and translated by Daniel Cayre for Kanisse: a Modern Sephardic + Mizrahi Community. . . . כַּפָּרוֹת | Kaparōt (using money dedicated for charity), the ritual for the expiation of offenses before Yom Kippur Contributor(s):The ritual of kaparot using a bundle of money dedicated for tsedaqah. . . . Trōpifying English and other Latin Script Language Readings with Masoretic Hebrew cantillation marks (t’amim, trōp) Contributor(s):A digital font integrating Masoretic Hebrew cantillation marks in languages presented in Latin scripts. . . . Contributor(s):This version of Eyshet Ḥayil replaces valor with value, and while it speaks of man in terms of family, community, and the natural world, it is not heteronormative. . . . Contributor(s):A kavvanah for clarifying and elevating the activity of tax preparation. . . . Contributor(s):A prayer for the observance of Memorial Day in the United States. . . . Contributor(s):If you are doing a Rosh Hashanah seder of simanim (signs, augurs, portents) using food puns, here are some topical additions including for beginning the Shmitah year. . . . בַּעָל חוֹבֵנוּ | Ba’al Ḥoveinu, a piyut for Seliḥot on the advent of the Shmitah year by Rabbi David Seidenberg (neohasid.org) Contributor(s):This short piyut touches on these four themes related to Shmitah: release of debts, the rights of the land, the rights of wild animals (who share our food during Shmitah), and the freeing of slaves. The piyut would fit as part of Seliḥot before Rosh haShanah and during Yom Kippur. . . . כוונה לקראת ישיבת הבורד | Kavvanah before the Meeting of the Board of a Philanthropic Organization, by Limor Rubin Contributor(s):A prayer of intention before the meeting of the board of a philanthropic organization determining the recipients of the largess in their trust. . . . Contributor(s):“Tilt: A Prayer for the Winter Solstice” was first published by the author on her website (17 December 2015). . . . Contributor(s):“How Much Light? A Ḥanukkah Meditation” by Rabbi Menachem Creditor was first shared on the second night of Ḥanukkah 5782 (2021) via the Open Siddur Project discussion group on Facebook. . . . 💬 קְרִיאוֹת לִימֵי ט״וּ בִּשְׁבָט | Torah and Haftarah Readings for the New Year’s Day for Trees, selected by Isaac Gantwerk Mayer Contributor(s):Torah and Haftarah readings for Tu biShvat selected by Isaac Gantwerk Mayer. . . . אֶפְתַּח פִּי לְךָ אָדוֹן | Eftaḥ Pi L’kha Adōn, a seliḥah for Kristallnacht by Isaac Gantwerk Mayer Contributor(s):There’s a lot of controversy over Yom haShoah as a date. One of the key issues is this: traditionally, the ways Jews mourn communal tragedies is through establishing a fast day. It’s forbidden to fast during the month of Nisan. It’s hard to pick any specific date to commemorate a tragedy as enormous as the Shoah, but one which seems appropriate to me would be 16 Marḥeshvan, the anniversary of Kristallnacht, the November Pogrom. This piyyut is a seliḥah for Kristallnacht, to be recited on 16 Marḥeshvan (or 15 Marḥeshvan on years like 5782 where the sixteenth falls on a Thursday). . . . כַּוָּנָה וּבְרָכָה עַל רְאִיַּת נְחִיל רֶמֶשׂ גָּדוֹל עַד־מְאוֹד | Kavvanah and Blessing for Observing a Massive Swarm of Creeping Things, by Isaac Gantwerk Mayer Contributor(s):There are blessings for beautiful vistas, and there are blessings for powerful weather. But is there a blessing for giant swarms of bugs? Certainly! There just wasn’t a kavvanah for it… yet. Inspired by the appearance of Brood X in May 2021, this is a meditation and blessing for the unique experience of seeing an enormous number of non-dangerous insects. Cicadas are NOT a plague — they don’t eat crops or spread disease, but they do help revitalize the soil and keep forest ecosystems healthy. As a natural part of the universal order, we should work to see the divinity and goodness in them, even if we might normally think of them as gross. . . . Contributor(s):Some communities have a practice of singing a song about Miriam alongside the well-known Havdalah song about Elijah the Prophet. But Miriam isn’t really a parallel to Elijah — she’s a parallel to Moshe and Aaron. When we’re talking about distaff counterparts to Elijah the clearest example is Seraḥ bat Asher. Seraḥ, the daughter of Asher, is mentioned only a handful of times in the Tanakh, but is given great significance in the midrash. Like Elijah, she is said to have never died but entered Paradise alive, and comes around to the rabbis to give advice or teachings. This song, which includes several references to midrashim about Seraḥ, is meant to be sung to any traditional tune of “Eliyahu haNavi.” It is dedicated to Ḥazzan Joanna Selznick Dulkin (shlit”a), who introduced me to the legends of Seraḥ bat Asher. . . . קְלִפּוֹת לֶפֶת | Items for the Second Seder Plate: Turnip peels, after the Holocaust remembrance of Pearl Benisch Contributor(s):Pearl Benisch… remembers Passover in the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp in Germany in the spring of 1945, just days before her liberation. . . . Contributor(s):Why is this coffee different from all other coffees? Because Maxwell House coffee is a deeply spiritual representation of the Diaspora experience. . . . Contributor(s):An old Persian tradition involves hitting each other with leeks during the recitation of Dayenu. Nowadays this is replaced with a gentle tap with a scallion for safety reasons. . . . Contributor(s):Rabbi Yosi son of Rabbi Yehuda says: “Three good sustainers arose for Israel. These are they: Moses and Aaron and Miriam. And three good gifts were given because of them, and these are they: well, and cloud, and manna. The well was given in merit of Miriam… Miriam died and the well ceased, as it is written (Numbers 20:1-2) “And Miriam died there,” and it says right afterwards “and there was no water for the community.” . . . Contributor(s):This mi sheberakh for the ill, and the two additional prayers, all appear on page 15-16 of Hayyim Obadya’s Seder Akhilat haSimanim for 5781. . . . Contributor(s):A blessing for us and the year ahead from the last month of the Jewish calendar year. . . . Contributor(s):The Mourner’s Ḳaddish, in Hebrew with English translation by Everett Fox after Franz Rosenzweig. . . . Contributor(s):This is a poetic Birkat haMazon, similar to those found in the Cairo Geniza, intended for this specific break-fast meal. The editor has included the text in Hebrew, English, and an attempted Liturgical Ge’ez translation. . . . קדיש דרבנן | Ḳaddish d’Rabanan (of Our Teachers), a translation by Everett Fox after Franz Rosenzweig Contributor(s):The Ḳaddish d’Rabanan, in Hebrew with English translation by Everett Fox after Franz Rosenzweig. . . . תְּפִלָה לְאִשָׁה לְאָמְרָהּ לִפְנֵי שֶׁמְגַלַּחַת אֶת שַׁעֲרוֹת רֹאשָׁהּ | Prayer for a woman to say before her hair is shorn Contributor(s):A supplication of a woman cutting her hair as an act of tsanua, per a contemporary custom in many Ḥaredi communities. . . . Contributor(s):A covenantal document for an egalitarian wedding/partnership rooted in R’ Rachel Adler’s brit ahuvim legal structure, not based on kiddushin. Written for a woman and man marrying each other (see genders in Hebrew). . . . Prayer for Reparation and Restoration, an alternative to the Prayer for Welfare of the Government by Rabbi Brant Rosen (Tzedek Chicago 2020) Contributor(s):A prayer for collective and communal well-being with an emphasis on dismantling systems of oppression and repairing their harms. . . . Contributor(s):A global and inclusive prayer for the well-being of the diverse congregation of the people of Yisrael. . . . Contributor(s):A prayer for those administering vaccinations. . . . How Desolate Lie Our Borders, a prayer adaptated from Eikhah for a Tishah b’Av vigil at an immigrant detention center by Rabbi Brant Rosen (2019) Contributor(s):A prayer for the correction of the United States immigration policy in support of immigrants and open borders. . . . |
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