The translation of the prayers bookending the biblical text is adapted from that of Paltiel Birnbaum from his HaSiddur haShalem (1969). The Masoretic text presented here is from Rabbi Dr. Seth (Avi) Kadish’s Miqra al pi ha-Mesorah. For the translation of the Aqeidah in English, I have adapted the translation of Everett Fox in the Schocken Bible (Everett Fox 1995), mostly to re-Hebraize divine names, place names, and personal names, but I have made other changes. In place of “slaughter-site,” I have offered “place-for-slaughter.” Aside from this, I have made minor punctuation changes. (To buy a print copy of the complete translation of The Schocken Bible vol. 1: The Five Books of Moses, visit Penguin/Random House.)

“עֲקֵדַת יִצְחָק (מנהג הספרדים) | The invocation of Aqédat Yitsḥaq (the Binding of Isaac, Genesis 22:1-19) in the morning (minhag haSefaradim)” is shared through the Open Siddur Project with a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International copyleft license.

Aharon N. Varady (transcription)

Aharon Varady (M.A.J.Ed./JTSA Davidson) is a volunteer transcriber for the Open Siddur Project. If you find any mistakes in his transcriptions, please let him know. Shgiyot mi yavin; Ministarot naqeni שְׁגִיאוֹת מִי־יָבִין; מִנִּסְתָּרוֹת נַקֵּנִי "Who can know all one's flaws? From hidden errors, correct me" (Psalms 19:13). If you'd like to directly support his work, please consider donating via his Patreon account. (Varady also translates prayers and contributes his own original work besides serving as the primary shammes of the Open Siddur Project and its website, opensiddur.org.)

Aharon N. Varady (translation)

Aharon Varady (M.A.J.Ed./JTSA Davidson) is a volunteer translator for the Open Siddur Project. If you find any mistakes in his translations, please let him know. Shgiyot mi yavin; Ministarot Naqeni שְׁגִיאוֹת מִי־יָבִין; מִנִּסְתָּרוֹת נַקֵּנִי "Who can know all one's flaws? From hidden errors, correct me" (Psalms 19:13). If you'd like to directly support his work, please consider donating via his Patreon account. (Varady also transcribes prayers and contributes his own original work besides serving as the primary shammes for the Open Siddur Project and its website, opensiddur.org.)

Unknown Author(s)

Sometimes the best we can do in attributing a historical work is to indicate the period and place it was written, the first prayer book it may have been printed in, or the archival collection in which the manuscript was found. We invite the public to help to attribute all works to their original composers. If you know something not mentioned in the commentary offered, please leave a comment or contact us.

the Masoretic Text

The Masoretic Text is the authoritative Hebrew and Aramaic text of the Tanakh for Karaite and Rabbinic Judaism. It was primarily copied, edited and distributed by a group of Jews known as the Masoretes between the 7th and 10th centuries CE. The Masoretic Text defines the Jewish canon and its precise letter-text, with its vocalization and accentuation known as the Masorah.

Masoretic layer 'J'

Composed in the late eighth or early seventh century BCE in the southern Kingdom of Judah, 'J' is one of the primary sources of the Masoretic text of the the Hebrew Bible, The J source was responsible for the first major metamorphosis of the oldest recognized kernel of the Biblical narrative (known as the E source). By combining the book of E, the Book of the Covenant (a law code found in Exodus 21–24), and the northern book of Judges (predecessor to the canonical book of Judges), and supplementing them with J's own text, J composed a cohesive historical work which chronicles the events from the creation of the world to the crowning of King David in nine story cycles, focusing on the Israelite line. J’s editorial style is highly invasive. In adding their own voice to that of their predecessor E, J often overwhelms the reader with their point of view to the extent that E’s original narrative threads are no longer apparent.

Masoretic kernel 'E'

The textual source called 'E' is the earliest of all literary sources in the Torah, the kernel from which all other narratives expanded upon. E was composed in the mid- to late eighth century BCE, toward the end of the heyday of the northern Ephraimite Kingdom, one of the two kingdoms that occupied Biblical Israel. The Kingdom of Ephraim was the larger and more urban of the two, and had its capital in Samaria, the city after which the Samaritans are named. To its south lay the smaller, but better-known Kingdom of Judah, whose capital city was Jerusalem. It seems likely that E was composed during this period because it marked the first literary flowering in ancient Israel. We know this based on the books of Amos and Hosea, composed at about that time, and from a wealth of inscriptions that we can confidently date to that period. The book of E, so called because it uses Elohim as its exclusive name for the deity of the Pentateuch, is composed of five story cycles focusing on five early Israelite heroes: Avraham, Yaakov, Yosef, Moshe, and Bilaam. The stories of Avraham and Bilaam are placed at the beginning and end of the Elohistic document, respectively, so that the two men can serve as models for how one should fear the remote and awesome God of the Elohistic source. The Yaakov, Yosef, and Moshe cycles, which comprise the bulk of the E narrative, chronicle Israel’s metamorphisis from a family into a people.

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Additional Notes:   

• The views expressed in this work represent the views of their creator(s) and do not necessarily represent the views of the Open Siddur Project's developers, its diverse community of volunteer contributors, or its institutional partners.
• We strongly advise against printing sacred texts and art containing divine names as these copies must be regarded with reverence, complicating their casual treatment and disposal.
• If you must dispose of a printed sacred text (one containing Divine Names), please locate the closest genizah (often established by a synagogue) and contact its custodians for further instructions. We also recommend using Morah Yehudis Fishman's Prayer for Adding a Work to the Genizah.

Support this work:    The Open Siddur Project is a volunteer-driven, non-profit, non-commercial, non-denominational, non-prescriptive, gratis & libre Open Access archive of contemplative praxes, liturgical readings, and Jewish prayer literature (historic and contemporary, familiar and obscure) composed in every era, region, and language Jews have ever prayed. Our goal is to provide a platform for sharing open-source resources, tools, and content for individuals and communities crafting their own prayerbook (siddur). Through this we hope to empower personal autonomy, preserve customs, and foster creativity in religious culture.

ויהי נעם אדני אלהינו עלינו ומעשה ידינו כוננה עלינו ומעשה ידינו כוננהו "May the pleasantness of אדֹני our elo’ah be upon us; may our handiwork be established for us — our handiwork, may it be established." –Psalms 90:17