A prayer upon the inauguration of President Obama in January 2009. . . .

We come here ready to fulfill the Creator’s commandment to give blessing for the Sun’s creation and in this year we recognize that the abundance of blessing which Earth receives from the Sun depends on the health of the Skies, which is in human hands for the first time in any generation in all the years of blessing the Sun, from the beginning of the world. . . .

An al-hanissim prayer for Yom ha-Atsma’ut. . . .

We are grateful to Rabbi Joshua Boettinger and Rabbis for Human Rights–North America (RHR-NA) for sharing the following petitionary prayer, A Misheberakh for Victims of Slavery. Originally published by RHR-NA on their website in 2009, the prayer attends to the desperate need to eradicate all forms of slavery that persist today, especially in advance of the holiday celebrating our Z’man Cheruteinu, the season of our freedom, every Spring, every Pesaḥ. . . .

In Israel, the Reform movement, which is called the Israeli Movement for Progressive Judaism (IMPJ), dates back to the 1950s, but a serious concern for women’s role in liturgy is a relatively recent development, namely since the last decade of the 20st century. This paper examines the modes of liturgical change with regard to the role and presentation of women in Jewish ritual and worship within Israel: what they do to regain their voice[s] through worship and how they are depicted in contemporary liturgies. Today, gender-related issues are among the most heated issues faced by contemporary liberal, non-Orthodox Jews; discussions on the subject dominate the religious and academic spheres as well as the socio-cultural arena. This paper is based upon the assumption that the Israeli case is a distinct one compared to the North American treatment of gender in the liturgy, because Hebrew is not only the liturgical language, but also the vernacular for Israeli Jews. This makes it much harder to change liturgy, as it is perceived as holy matter. Another unique aspect of the Israeli liberal liturgy is the fact that it operates in a rather conservative religious environment: both Orthodox and secular Jews in Israel are less prone to experimental approaches toward liturgy and ritual. . . .

A prayer composed by Rabbi Isser Yehuda Unterman, chief rabbi of Tel Aviv, for the city’s 50th anniversary (Jubilee) celebration, amended by Rabbi Esteban Gottfried of Beit Tefillah Yisraeli. . . .

Culture hacking either respects copyright or ignores it. One of the pillars of the Open Siddur is its respect of copyright and its attempt to make available a digitized repository of Siddur content that is available for editing, mashups, and remixing, i.e., “derivative works” that may be redistributed without restriction. For example, we want you to have the freedom to take the nusaḥ Ashkenaz, borrow kavanot from the nusaḥ sfard, and piyyutim (liturgical poetry) from the nusaḥ Romaniote; add and edit existing translations of familiar psalms and contribute and share your own translation of obscure piyyutim; share the pdf you build at Open Siddur and give it to an artist to apply an even more beautiful layout than the one we provide; and even redistribute the siddur commercially. . . .

Giving an individual a choice of how verses that are tripping them up are translated, or even how the ineffable name, YHVH, and other divine names in Hebrew are represented in a siddur, can make a difference in their experience of t’fillah (prayer) for someone engaging in individual or communal prayer. Giving someone a place to share their personally authored t’fillot, meditation or commentary, or else collaborate on a translation of a medieval piyut (liturgical poem) can connect Jews to each other in a meaningful way where before they were isolated in their passion and earnest devotion. Providing historical data revealing the siddur as an aggregate of thousands of years of creatively inspired texts can help a Jew understand that their creativity and contribution is also important in this enduring conversation. . . .

The Open Siddur is an online tool for individuals and groups to craft the siddur they’ve always wanted. The Open Siddur will provide content (translations, transliterations, art, tfillot, piyutim, and other source texts) from an archive of current and historic nusḥaot (both well-known and obscure) and enable users to adapt, contribute new content, and share the siddurim they’ve generated. Partnerships with on-demand printers enable users to print beautiful copies of their personally customized siddurim and machzorim. The Open Siddur benefits independent minyanim and trans-denominational communities, pluralistic institutions, teachers of Jewish liturgy, and Jews of all ages evolving their personal use of t’fillah in their own daily practice, both alone and within groups. . . .

One of the enduring challenges of the Open Siddur has been acquiring digitized siddur content that is in the public domain (or which is at least distributed with a, Open Content copyleft license such as CC BY-SA). Our greatest advance so far been attaining a digitized Public Domain text of the Leningrad Codex of the TaNaKh (in XML). . . .

The logo of the Open Siddur Project, as derived from the “color wheel” of the Bauhaus artist Johannes Itten (1961). . . .

I began by explaining that in the experience of religion there is a contradiction between the individual’s desire for authentic experience and their need for relevant tools to engage individual growth vis-à-vis the project of Judaism. This contradiction is actually a design challenge for useful tools in Judaism’s toolkit of educational and spiritual resources for its participants. The imperfect present is expressed in many current expressions of the Siddur. Although a siddur’s nusaḥ is an authentic expression of a tradition, its utility as a static tool for engaging the creative improvisation required for sinciere spiritual expression (as well as its ability to serve as the traditional tool for educating Jews in sourcetext) is certainly questionable. Our solution is a siddur that is a Siddur that users can build for themselves. Ingredients from all available siddur texts (i.e., copyright permitting) will be available for building siddurim ranging from unchanged nusaḥ Ashkenaz, to mashups of different nusḥaot with additional prayers and art added by the user, with user edited translations they contribute to, and with commentary they share with other users. In this way, a siddur user becomes a sophisticated master of t’fillah, seriously engaged in the prayer authored and offered by Jewish tradition with the freedom to enrich the tradition from their own experience privately or publicly. . . .

The inaugural first post here at the Open Siddur Project website. . . .

The Opening Prayer given in the U.S. Senate on 25 September 2008. . . .

The Opening Prayer given in the U.S. House of Representatives on 30 July 2008. . . .

The Opening Prayer given in the U.S. House of Representatives on 17 July 2008. . . .

The Opening Prayer given in the U.S. House of Representatives on 30 June 2008. . . .

The Opening Prayer given in the U.S. Senate on 22 May 2008. . . .

The Opening Prayer given in the U.S. House of Representatives on 23 April 2008. . . .

The Opening Prayer given in the U.S. Senate on 7 February 2008. . . .

A supplement to the Al Ḥet of the Yom Kippur vidui. . . .

A personal declaration to become a shomer/et shalom on Yom Kippur. . . .

A contemporary Jewish prayer for healng, used at congregation Tzedek Chicago. . . .

A prayer offered at the Broadview Detention Center for an interfaith vigil in support of the detainees and for change in US immigration policy. . . .

The full text of Rabbi David Saperstein’s invocation offered on the fourth day of the Democratic National Convention, August 8th, 2008. . . .

This prayer was first published in an op-ed, “A Jew’s Prayer for the Children of Gaza,” in the newspaper, Ha’aretz, on 7 January 2009. . . .

“Orah hee” was composed by Rabbi Jill Hammer in 2008 and first published at Tel Shemesh in romanized Hebrew and English translation. . . .

The prayer for the State of Israel, composed May 2008/lyyar 5768 on the 60th Anniversary of the State of Israel, was first shared on the web on May 7th, 2008 here and published on paper and PDF on May 8th, 2008 in an event organized by Rabbis for Human Rights-North America, “Embracing Justice: An Alternative Celebration and Learning for Yom Ha’Atzma’ut/Israel’s 60th Independence Day.” . . .

The Opening Prayer given in the U.S. House of Representatives on 7 November 2007. . . .

A prayer for the great aspirations of the country of the United States of America. . . .

With gratitude to the One True God, and to the original creators, this is a derivation of the “Battlestar Seder Haggadah” prepared by David “Razor” Lieberman, Alison “Fat Six” Ogden, and Mary “Actual” Bruch, for “A Seder on Battlestar Galactica,” an event held on Saturday, 26 April 2008, on Earth. The seder was first posted to galacticahaggadah.com and later to battlestarseder.org under a GNU Free Document License. Both of these domains having gone to ruin, the Haggadah was thankfully preserved on the Wayback Machine thanks to the Internet Archives. I resurrected the Haggadah, adding the following: 1) alternate blessings for crypto-Cylons, 2) संस्कृतम् sourcetext in Sanskrit script along with annotation indicating the source of the prayer/mantra included, 3) a short prayer that Priestess Elosha recites at the very beginning of the funeral scene near the end of the miniseries. –Aharon Varady . . .

The Opening Prayer given in the U.S. House of Representatives on 12 July 2007. . . .

The Opening Prayer given in the U.S. House of Representatives on 18 September 2007. . . .

The Opening Prayer given in the U.S. House of Representatives on 28 March 2007. . . .

The Opening Prayer given in the U.S. Senate on 22 March 2007. . . .

The Opening Prayer given in the U.S. House of Representatives on 15 March 2007. . . .

The evening service for entering Shabbat and Yom Tov as is the custom of Kehillat Kol Haneshama in south Jerusalem, Israel. . . .

It’s always a real struggle for the Left to successfully tackle oppression within its own ranks. But when we do it, our movements gain, every time, from the deeper understandings that emerge. To start the process this time, we need some basic information about what anti-Jewish oppression is and how to counter it. But it has to come from a perspective of justice for all people, not from opportunistic attempts to slander or censor social justice efforts that are gaining strength. . . .

Eternal God, You created earth and heavens with mercy, and blew the breath of life into animals and human beings. We were created amidst a world of wholeness, a world called “very good,” pure and beautiful, but now your many works are being erased by us from the book of life. . . .

The Opening Prayer given in the U.S. House of Representatives on 14 September 2006. . . .

The Opening Prayer given in the U.S. Senate on 6 April 2006. . . .

“Mi she-Berakh Prayer for Agunot and Women who are Denied a Writ of Divorce (mesorvot get)” was written by Dr. Yael Levine in the summer of 2006 and first published in the journal De’ot in advance of Purim 2007. The Hebrew version of the prayer was subsequently reprinted in the monumental Sefer ha-Shabbat, edited by Yonadav Kaploun and issued by Yediot Aharonot in 2011 (p. 260). The English translation was first published in The Jerusalem Post 16 March 2016 (Comment & Features), p. 13. The Hebrew annotation of the sources appeared already in the initial article in De’ot, and was subsequently published, inter alia, in an article published on kipa.co.il on 13 March 2019. . . .

In Jewish tradition, on this very day of disaster Mashiaḥ (Messiah) was born, but hidden away till a generation would come that is ready to make peace and eco-social justice in the world. So this year, we offer this story of hope and redemption to be read by Jews and Muslims together on the fast day or for the evening break-fast when it ends. . . .

Judy Gumbo co-authored this Al Ḥeit with her partner Stew Albert, ז״ל, before his passing in 2006. This Al Ḥeit was most recently used as part of Yom Kippur Kol Nidre services across the country in solidarity with Occupy Wall Street 5772. . . .

The Opening Prayer given in the U.S. House of Representatives on 12 July 2005. . . .

A public reading offered by Rabbi Arthur Waskow for the Fast of Esther in response to recent events in the State of Israel by the right-wing government of Bibi Netanyahu admitting Jewish fascists into their administration. . . .

Miqra `al pi ha-Mesorah is a new experimental edition of the Tanakh in digital online format, now available as a carefully corrected draft of the entire Tanakh. Two features make this edition of the Tanakh unique: Full editorial documentation and a free content license. Full editorial documentation: Various editions of the Torah or Tanakh in Hebrew may seem identical to the untrained eye, but the truth is that each and every edition—from Koren to Breuer and from Artscroll to JPS—makes numerous important editorial decisions. In most editions these decisions are not transparent, and the student of Torah therefore relies upon the good judgment of the editor. But in Miqra `al pi ha-Mesorah the entire editorial process and the reasoning behind it are fully described in all of their details: Every stylistic alteration and every textual decision made regarding every letter, niqqud, and ta`am in the entire Tanakh is documented. . . .

Lauren Deutsch designed a High Holy Days greeting card that is a yad (pointer) for all readers to use in their siddurim during services. It also functions as a place holder when one wishes to take a rest from following along. . . .

The time we are in now is a time to ask: are we so determined to undo God’s rainbow covenant? Will we truly burn the sea, chemically and literally, with the oil we unleash from inside the Earth? Will we flood the sea with death as the land was flooded according to the Noah story of so long ago? As the cleanup continues and the effects will continue for decades, what new floods will we unleash in the coming years? . . .

When works are printed bearing shemot, any one of the ten divine names sacred to Judaism, they are cared for with love. If a page or bound work bearing shemot falls to the ground it’s a Jewish custom to draw up the page or book and kiss it. Just as loved ones are cared for after they’ve fallen and passed away, when the binding fails and leaves fall from siddurim and other seforim they are collected in boxes and bins and brought for burial, where their holy words can decompose back into the earth from which their constituent elements once grew, and were once harvested to become paper and books, and ink, string, glue. While teaching at the Teva Learning Center last Fall 2010, I collected all our shemot that we had intentionally or unintentionally made on our copy machine, or which we had collected from the itinerant teachers who pass through the Isabella Freedman Retreat Center on so many beautiful weekend shabbatonim. While leafing through the pages, I found one and kept it from the darkness of the genizah. . . .