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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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🡄 (Previous year) :: 📅 2024 📅 Resources published in 2025 |
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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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2025 📅 Resources published in 2025 Sorted Chronologically (old to new). Sort most recent first? This abridged adaptation of the birkhot hashaḥr combines two separate works of Rivka Jaussi. The first: a translation of the blessing for distinguishing between day and night. The second: a series of haikus in German for seven out of the dozen or so “berakhot shenitani” (“blessings you [Hashem] gave me”). Categories: Tags: 21st century C.E., 58th century A.M., haiku, interpretive translation, paraliturgical birkhot hashaḥar Contributor(s): This is an invitation to begin a new day with a short Jewish meditation for German speakers. I was inspired by Shefa Gold’s Chants, which takes a phrase from each of the daily Psalms and sets it to a melody. My German translation offers a wording that can also be sung alternately with the Hebrew phrase. (For the melodies, find Shefa Gold’s site here.) It works of course also as a way to pause briefly during the day for a Jewish meditative moment. Categories: Tags: Contributor(s): This prayer by Devorah Brous (fromsoil2soul), “A blessing for the bees (5786)” was first published as text rendered inside a video compiled by the author. This blessing for the consumption of meat (or poultry, or fish) is based on a verse from Vayikra / Leviticus, ch. 17: כִּי נֶפֶשׁ הַבָּשָׂר בַּדָּם הִוא וַאֲנִי נְתַתִּיו לָכֶם עַל־הַמִּזְבֵּחַ לְכַפֵּר עַל־נַפְשֹׁתֵיכֶם כִּי־הַדָּם הוּא בַּנֶּפֶשׁ יְכַפֵּר׃ (“For the life of the flesh is in the blood. And as for me, I have given it to you on the alter to ransom your lives, for it is the blood that ransoms in exchange for life.”) This verse helps us remember (and how can we ever forget?!) that any bloodshed, is a loss of life – human or animal. And, it helps us understand that even when we kill for our own sustanance (or even in a ritual offering), we cause a loss of life. The burden is on us. We are commanded to release the blood-life so we can use the meat. (I wrote more in detail about this blessing here.) Categories: Tags: 21st century C.E., 58th century A.M., animals, ברכות brakhot, eating animals, עולם הזה Olam ha-Zeh, predation, predatory nature Contributor(s): An original Aramaic-language “meturgeman piyyut” for Simḥat Torah and the reading of v-Zot haBerakha. I’m working on creating a seder meturgeman liturgy, akin to those for day 7 of Pesaḥ and for Shavuot, to be recited on Simḥat Torah. Mostly incorporating older Aramaic poems, I’ve also decided to write some originals myself. This is one of them, in praise of Moshe, to be recited after Deut. 34:10. Categories: Tags: Contributor(s): I composed this short blessing when passing by a dead coyote once. Crows and Magpies were congregating around the corpse and I felt this was a moment to notice, sanctify and bless. It was my way of connecting with all of them, dead and alive. Categories: Tags: 21st century C.E., 58th century A.M., animals, ברכות brakhot, corpses, death, עולם הזה Olam ha-Zeh, surprise encounter Contributor(s): This invocation was given at the 78th annual George Washington Letter Reading Event, August 17, 2025 (23 Av, 5785), held by the Touro Synagogue Foundation to celebrate the famous 1790 letter exchange between the Jewish community of Newport, Rhode Island (represented by warden Moses Seixas) and first president of the United States, George Washington. Washington’s response to Seixas’s letter, in which he quotes some of his most iconic phrasings, is one of the first official statements by the US government on the value of religious freedom. This Letter Reading Event was held in the Old Colony House (where the Jewish community’s letter was probably presented to President Washington), rather than in the Touro Synagogue, due to Congregation Shearith Israel in New York’s barring of the Touro Synagogue Foundation from access to the building. An ofan — a liturgical prayer to be inserted into the Shaḥarit qedusha d-yotzer — for the first of Elul, the new year for animals. Not as of yet part of a cycle but who knows, maybe a few other parts will be written in days to come! A prayer written for the people of Washington DC during the Trump administration’s authoritarian push, August 2025. A liturgy for counting the fifty days of consolation or comfort between Tishah b’Av and Rosh haShanah (non-inclusive), in the style of the liturgy for the omer. Categories: Tags: Contributor(s): A Mi SheBerakh for the 70th anniversary of the bar mitzvah ceremony, referred to by some as a “Ḥanukat Bar Mitzvah” or “second bar mitsvah.” Written for the ḥanukat bar mitzvah of the author’s grandfather, 30 August 2015. Categories: Tags: Contributor(s): A qinah for 7 October and the hostages, to be recited as part of the Tishah b’Av liturgy. Categories: Tags: 2023-2025 Israel–Hamas war, 21st century C.E., 58th century A.M., Alphabetic Acrostic, פיוטים piyyuṭim, קינות Ḳinōt Contributor(s): The seder sheva brakhot for a rabbinic Jewish wedding together with a Yiddish translation. Categories: Tags: Contributor(s): “A Prayer for New York City After a Mass Shooting” was offered by Rabbi Menachem Creditor and shared through the Open Siddur Project discussion group on Facebook, 29 July 2025 after the 2025 Midtown Manhattan shooting the previous day. A paraliturgical Aleinu on the theme of appreciating the overwhelming abundance of possibility in our lives in this world. Categories: Tags: 21st century C.E., 58th century A.M., German vernacular prayer, paraliturgical aleinu, Prayers as poems Contributor(s): A paraliturgical Ashrei on the theme of finding gratitude in divine silence and uniqueness. Categories: Tags: 21st century C.E., 58th century A.M., German vernacular prayer, paraliturgical Ashrei, תחינות teḥinot Contributor(s): A Torah reading ceremony proposed for Rosh Hashanah using the traditional texts read but organized in a novel way to juxtapose the stories of Yitsḥaq and Yishmael. Categories: Tags: Contributor(s): A prayer offered immediately following the Omer count for those who find it difficult or problematic to simply ask for a return to the days of animal sacrifice in the Beit HaMiqdash, and who long for reconciliation, sensitivity and peaceful coexistence between and among all Jews and the other Peoples of the Earth (as well as all living creatures!), as envisioned by the Prophets. Categories: Tags: 21st century C.E., 58th century A.M., grain offering, HaRaḥaman, post-Temple animal slaughter, Temple restoration Contributor(s): This prayer for the return of the hostages taken captive by HAMA”S amidst their depraved devastation on 7 October 2023 was offered by Rabbi Menachem Creditor, published to his Facebook page, and shared through the Open Siddur Project’s Facebook discussion group on erev Shavuot 5785 (1 June 2025). Categories: Tags: Contributor(s): A Passover seder haggadah containing the traditional form of the text as well as other lesser known forms from across Jewish history and the Jewish world. Categories: Tags: Contributor(s): | ||
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