INTRODUCTION

We come together as a community on the High Holidays, on Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, to celebrate the New Year, to confront ourselves, to pray and to reflect. Whether you engage in this practice regularly or occasionally, we hope you will find this machzor meaningful. At Havurat Shalom, where we have dedicated ourselves to creating a truly egalitarian liturgy for Shabbat, we feel we need this balanced and accessible liturgy as much or moreso at this time of the year.

For many years, Havurah members have been adapting the liturgy for the High Holidays and adding it to binders we called “anthologies”. Building on the efforts of those members, we proudly and humbly present the fruits of our efforts: the complete Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur machzor in one volume. The Hebrew of our machzor incorporates all the adaptations of the traditional High Holiday liturgy that were made previously by Havurat Shalom and placed in our Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur Anthology. The Hebrew that was not previously addressed has been adapted in a similar manner.

The English translation and transliterations prepared previously have been incorporated. Additional translations have been written with the intention of providing a fairly literal key to the meaning of the Hebrew, but also to be texts that worshippers can pray from. It is possible that these translations will be revised and refined in future editions. An attempt has been made to align the Hebrew, English, and transliterations in order to enable readers to move among them easily.

The Hebrew and translations have been crafted to conform to the principles of the original Havurat Shalom prayer book, Siddur Birkat Shalom. This includes use of egalitarian language, greater variety of appellations and images for God, greater depth and openness in the portrayal of non-Jews, focus on the evil in the world as opposed to “evil people” and increased emphasis on our being a part of the vast web of life, and the divinity within us and in all of creation. In addition to adapting the traditional machzor, we have added an original meditation to remind us of our potential goodness as we face our wrongdoings, in order to help us in our teshuvah.

Although much has changed in our lives and in the world since our original work began on the first Havurat Shalom siddur thirty years ago, we hope this newest volume will continue our long tradition of revising and opening the liturgy in order to help us all to open our hearts in prayer.

Havurat Shalom Machzor Committee

NOTES ON SECOND EDITION

The first edition of Machzor Birkat Shalom was produced more than seven years ago during the course of a spring and summer. There were some prayers where we wished to do further editing but were constrained by deadlines. After the Machzor’s printing, we also discovered typographical and other errors in both the English and the Hebrew. In addition, since 2014, Havurat Shalom has been able to incorporate non-gendered Hebrew for prayers which previously had different options for male and female davenners. We are excited to present the second edition where the errors have (hopefully) all been corrected, where some of the issues we were wrestling with have been further developed and where the non-gendered language adopted in our Shabbat prayerbook is reflected in our Machzor. We have retained the same pagination as the original printing to faciliatate davenners being able to follow the service no matter which edition they are using.

SOURCES

This machzor is the fruit of many people’s labors.The committee responsible for working over the material in this machzor consisted of:

Aliza Arzt
Cindy Blank-Edelman
Emily Aviva Kapor
Reena Kling
Meredith Jay Arzt Porter
Lawrence Rosenwald

Much of this work, particularly the Shaḥarit service, is taken from Siddur Birkat Shalom, the work of the Havurat Shalom Siddur Project, sometimes very slightly adapted or corrected. We have tried as best as we can to follow in the evolving spirit of that work.

All credit for original Havurat Shalom liturgy goes to its respective authors.The following additional people have worked on the Havurat Shalom Siddur Project since its inception in February 1984:

Janet Berkenfield ז״ל
Miriam Bronstein
Joan Friedman
Benjamin Greenberg
Tamar Kamionkowski
Felicia Mednick
Nina Katz
Elyse Landesberg
Denni Liebowitz
Stephanie Loo
Joshua Schreiber Shalem

Some specific credits for liturgical material that is new to this machzor follow:

The art on the cover is by Ilana Brandes-Krug.

The Hash’kiveinu prayer in the Ma’ariv service was adapted by Reena Kling ז״ל.

The meditation before the Vidui confessional prayers in the Yom Kippur service was composed by Reena Kling ז״ל, and translated into Hebrew by Emily Aviva Kapor, with editing by Aliza Arzt.

The English translation of the threefold priestly benediction on pages 66, 269, and 407 was written by Felicia Mednick.

The meditation before the Shema on page 111 is by Janet Berkenfield ז״ל. The calligraphy is by Emily Aviva Kapor.

The blessings after the Haftarah were adapted in Hebrew by Reena Kling ז״ל.

The paragraph Areshet sefateinu in the Musaf service for Rosh Hashanah is not recited on Shabbat in many congregations. We have followed some older machzorim in inserting the word zich’ron (“recollection”) for when Rosh Hashanah falls on Shabbat.

We have replaced the traditional Mal’chuyot (“Kingship”) section of the Rosh Hashanah Musaf service with a new Mekorot (“Sources”) service. This service acclaims God as the Source of all, and also celebrates the unique ways in which Havurat Shalom has adapted the traditional liturgy to serve our community’s needs. The Mekorot service was composed by Emily Aviva Kapor.

The art on page 55 is by Simcha Miller.

The poem on page 56 is by Cindy Blank-Edelman.

Psalm 8 was adapted and translated by Reena Kling ז״ל

Psalms 23 and 24 were adapted and translated by Reena Kling ז״ל and Emily Aviva Kapor.

Psalms 27, 32, and 34 were adapted and translated by Reena Kling ז״ל and Miriam Bronstein.

The piyyut beginning the Seliḥot section at Yom Kippur Minchah is by the famous Kabbalist Rabbi Eleazar Azikri, who lived in sixteenth-century Safed. It was adapted by Emily Aviva Kapor.

The art on page 375 is by Tamar Brandes-Krug.

Much of Yom Kippur Ne’ilah, including Hebrew adaptations and English translations used throughout the machzor, was composed and adapted by Reena Kling ז״ל.

The second verse (“Mir’yam ha-nevi’ah”) in the song Eliyahu ha-navi, traditionally sung after Havdalah, was written by Rabbi Leila Gal Berner.

The various Torah and Haftarah readings were edited and translated by Emily Aviva Kapor.

The manuscript was produced and typeset by Emily Aviva Kapor. Aliza Arzt proofread the Hebrew. In addition, we are grateful to Morris Keesan ז״ל for correcting and proofreading the transliterations.