Siman L’vanim (“a sign to the children“) is a birkon/bentsher (blessing-book) prepared in celebration of the wedding of Honi Sanders and Simona Dalin on July 7th, 2019. The birkon contains versions of the birkat hamazon common to both Sefaradi and Ashkenazi communities. The translation and transliteration of the Sefaradi nusaḥ follows that of Hazzan Isaac Azose. The translation and transliteration of the Ashkenazi nusaḥ was prepared by Aharon Varady of Dimus Parrhessia Press who also designed the bentsher.
The birkon also contains translations of zemirot by Reb Zalman Schachter-Shalomi, z”l, from his Tehillat Hashem Yedaber Pi sabbath supplement, new translations by Honi and Akiva Sanders, and translations adapted by Aharon Varady from his Siddur Livnat haSapir (Dimus Parrhesia Press 2017). Copies of this birkon are available from Dimus Parrhesia Press.
Founding director of the Open Siddur Project, Aharon Varady is a community planner (M.C.P.) and Jewish educator (M.A. J.Ed.) working to improve stewardship of the Public Domain, be it the physical and natural commons of urban park systems or the creative and cultural commons of Torah study. His work on the adoption of Open Source strategies in the Jewish community has been written about in the Yiddish Forverts, the Atlantic Magazine, Tablet, and Haaretz. Aharon Varady studied environmental planning and planning history at DAAP/University of Cincinnati, and the intersection of theurgy, experiential education, and ecology at the Davidson School of Education/JTSA. Here at opensiddur.org, he serves as a hierophant, welcoming new users, editing new posts, keeping the site up-to-date, and occasionally contributing his own original work. If you find any mistakes in his translations or transcriptions, please let him know. Shgiyot mi yavin, Ministarot Nakeniשְׁגִיאוֹת מִי־יָבִין; מִנִּסְתָּרוֹת נַקֵּנִי "Who can know all one's flaws? From hidden errors, correct me" (Psalms 19:13). If you find his work helpful to your own or you'd simply like to support him, please consider donating via his Patreon account.
Akiva Sanders is a Neubauer Graduate Fellow specializing in Mesopotamian Art and Archaeology. He is interested in mobility during the rise and fall of one of the world’s first urban networks in northern Mesopotamia. Specifically, his research is concerned with mutually transformative interactions on the edges of this network with highland societies of the Kura Araxes Cultural Tradition. Previously, Akiva has worked on genetic diversity in present-day highland Georgia and other regions, and he has published an article on the application of a new methodology for analyzing the sex of ceramic producers to episodes of state-formation at Tell Leilan, Syria. Akiva has excavated in Israel, Jordan, Turkey, and Georgia.
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