A hoshana prayer in the times of the COVID pandemic. . . .

“A New Birkat haMazon/Blessing After the Meal” was first published by Rabbi Brant Rosen via his liturgy blog, Yedid Nefesh (8 March 2021). He writes, “In composing this new Birkat Hamazon/Blessing After the Meal, I maintained the essential structure of the traditional prayer, which consists of four basic spiritual themes or categories. As with the other new liturgies that I’ve written, I seek here to compose Jewish prayers that express a Diasporist ethic; that is to say, liturgy that views the entire world as our “homeland” and resists the influence of modern political Zionism, which has become so thoroughly enmeshed in contemporary Jewish liturgy.” . . .

A pre-Shavuot prayer in the shadow of the 2021 Israel–Palestine crisis. . . .

A bilingual Hebrew-English Sepharadi Jewish prayerbook (maḥzor) for Yom Kippur, with gender inclusive language, compiled and translated by Daniel Cayre for Kanisse: a Modern Sephardic + Mizrahi Community. . . .

The ritual of kaparot using a bundle of money dedicated for tsedaqah. . . .

A digital font integrating Masoretic Hebrew cantillation marks in languages presented in Latin scripts. . . .

This version of Eyshet Ḥayil replaces valor with value, and while it speaks of man in terms of family, community, and the natural world, it is not heteronormative. . . .

A kavvanah for clarifying and elevating the activity of tax preparation. . . .

A prayer for the observance of Memorial Day in the United States. . . .

סִדּוּר בִּרְכַּת שָׁלוֹם Siddur Birkat Shalom (second edition, 2021) is the shabbat morning prayerbook of Havurat Shalom in Sommerville, Massachusetts. As explained in the Introduction to the first edition (1991), work on the egalitarian siddur began in 1984 by eight members of the ḥavurah. The first edition was dedicated to the memory of Rabbi Simcha Dov Kling (1922-1991). The second edition of Siddur Birkat Shalom is dedicated to the memory of Reena Kling (1954-2017). . . .

If you are doing a Rosh Hashanah seder of simanim (signs, augurs, portents) using food puns, here are some topical additions including for beginning the Shmitah year. . . .

A prayer of intention before the meeting of the board of a philanthropic organization determining the recipients of the largess in their trust. . . .

This short piyut touches on these four themes related to Shmitah: release of debts, the rights of the land, the rights of wild animals (who share our food during Shmitah), and the freeing of slaves. The piyut would fit as part of Seliḥot before Rosh haShanah and during Yom Kippur. . . .

“Tilt: A Prayer for the Winter Solstice” was first published by the author on her website (17 December 2015). . . .

Torah and Haftarah readings for Tu biShvat selected by Isaac Gantwerk Mayer. . . .

“How Much Light? A Ḥanukkah Meditation” by Rabbi Menachem Creditor was first shared on the second night of Ḥanukkah 5782 (2021) via the Open Siddur Project discussion group on Facebook. . . .

There’s a lot of controversy over Yom haShoah as a date. One of the key issues is this: traditionally, the ways Jews mourn communal tragedies is through establishing a fast day. It’s forbidden to fast during the month of Nisan. It’s hard to pick any specific date to commemorate a tragedy as enormous as the Shoah, but one which seems appropriate to me would be 16 Marḥeshvan, the anniversary of Kristallnacht, the November Pogrom. This piyyut is a seliḥah for Kristallnacht, to be recited on 16 Marḥeshvan (or 15 Marḥeshvan on years like 5782 where the sixteenth falls on a Thursday). . . .

There are blessings for beautiful vistas, and there are blessings for powerful weather. But is there a blessing for giant swarms of bugs? Certainly! There just wasn’t a kavvanah for it… yet. Inspired by the appearance of Brood X in May 2021, this is a meditation and blessing for the unique experience of seeing an enormous number of non-dangerous insects. Cicadas are NOT a plague — they don’t eat crops or spread disease, but they do help revitalize the soil and keep forest ecosystems healthy. As a natural part of the universal order, we should work to see the divinity and goodness in them, even if we might normally think of them as gross. . . .

Pearl Benisch… remembers Passover in the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp in Germany in the spring of 1945, just days before her liberation. . . .

Some communities have a practice of singing a song about Miriam alongside the well-known Havdalah song about Elijah the Prophet. But Miriam isn’t really a parallel to Elijah — she’s a parallel to Moshe and Aaron. When we’re talking about distaff counterparts to Elijah the clearest example is Seraḥ bat Asher. Seraḥ, the daughter of Asher, is mentioned only a handful of times in the Tanakh, but is given great significance in the midrash. Like Elijah, she is said to have never died but entered Paradise alive, and comes around to the rabbis to give advice or teachings. This song, which includes several references to midrashim about Seraḥ, is meant to be sung to any traditional tune of “Eliyahu haNavi.” It is dedicated to Ḥazzan Joanna Selznick Dulkin (shlit”a), who introduced me to the legends of Seraḥ bat Asher. . . .

Why is this coffee different from all other coffees? Because Maxwell House coffee is a deeply spiritual representation of the Diaspora experience. . . .

An old Persian tradition involves hitting each other with leeks during the recitation of Dayenu. Nowadays this is replaced with a gentle tap with a scallion for safety reasons. . . .

Rabbi Yosi son of Rabbi Yehuda says: “Three good sustainers arose for Israel. These are they: Moses and Aaron and Miriam. And three good gifts were given because of them, and these are they: well, and cloud, and manna. The well was given in merit of Miriam… Miriam died and the well ceased, as it is written (Numbers 20:1-2) “And Miriam died there,” and it says right afterwards “and there was no water for the community.” . . .

This mi sheberakh for the ill, and the two additional prayers, all appear on page 15-16 of Hayyim Obadya’s Seder Akhilat haSimanim for 5781. . . .

A blessing for us and the year ahead from the last month of the Jewish calendar year. . . .

The Mourner’s Ḳaddish, in Hebrew with English translation by Everett Fox after Franz Rosenzweig. . . .

This is a poetic Birkat haMazon, similar to those found in the Cairo Geniza, intended for this specific break-fast meal. The editor has included the text in Hebrew, English, and an attempted Liturgical Ge’ez translation. . . .

The Ḳaddish d’Rabanan, in Hebrew with English translation by Everett Fox after Franz Rosenzweig. . . .

A covenantal document for an egalitarian wedding/partnership rooted in R’ Rachel Adler’s brit ahuvim legal structure, not based on kiddushin. Written for a woman and man marrying each other (see genders in Hebrew). . . .

The Opening Prayer given in the U.S. House of Representatives on 23 October 2020. . . .

This Veterans Day Prayer was first published by Rabbi Arnold E. Resnicoff, Chaplain, USN (Retired), on his twitter page. He writes, “Because of COVID this is the first Veterans Day in a long time I am not part of a ceremony — and I know that’s the situation for many fellow vets. So I wrote it yesterday to share today as a virtual prayer for Veterans Day 2020.” On 11 November 2022, Rabbi Resnicoff offered the expanded revision of this prayer as offered above at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington DC. . . .

Invocation for a virtual Memorial Day ceremony at the Washington DC Vietnam War Veterans Memorial. . . .

The Opening Prayer given in the U.S. House of Representatives on 5 February 2020. . . .

The Opening Prayer given in the U.S. House of Representatives on 29 January 2020. . . .

The Opening Prayer given in the U.S. House of Representatives on 10 January 2020. . . .

A soliloquy in the voice of Judith. . . .

The blessing recited prior to the Shema, in the wording of Michal Talya. . . .

Four morning blessings inspired from traditional blessing in the Birkhot haShaḥar and Shaḥarit services. . . .

An al hanissim prayer for the State of Israel’s Day of Independence. . . .

This poem was composed at the end of August 2020 / Elul 5780 as part of Rabbi Katy Allen’s Earth Etudes for Elul 5780. . . .

The major themes of the Rosh haShanah musaf liturgy, color coded with the three central blessings of the service presented comparatively in parallel columns. . . .

A prayer for the ingathering of Jews from the Diaspora to Erets Yisrael. . . .

According to Mishnah Pesaḥim 10:4, “One expounds (doresh) from ‘A wandering Aramean was my father’ (Deuteronomy 26:5) until he finishes the whole story.” This supplement to Maggid, the verse Deuteronomy 26:9 and its midrash, fulfills the obligation. The verse and its midrash fit into the Passover Haggadah after the ten plagues and the midrash on them, right before the song Dayyenu. . . .

A paraliturgical translation of “k’Gavna” — a portion of the Zohar on parashat Terumah read before Ma’ariv in the ḥassidic-sefardic nusaḥ. . . .

This prayer is not a comprehensive list of every single sin we sinned, every error we erred, every mark we missed. The original Al Ḥeyt is intended to show us the roots of all failures, to dig beneath how we harm, to see where that hurt came from. We follow these trails together, not absolved from our own repairs, but never alone in struggles to uproot, to propagate new ways of being ourselves, new ways of being ourselves, of being together. . . .

A reading for the New Year’s Day for Animals — Rosh haShanah laBehemot — on Rosh Ḥodesh Elul. . . .

A Torah reading (divided into three aliyot) and a Haftarah reading to be recited for days commemorating genocides such as (but not limited to) the Holocaust. . . .

This formulation of the Birkat Yeladim (Blessing of the Children) maintains a connection with tradition and serves to degender the blessing by calling upon quoted, mixed gender texts which have merit for children of any gender. . . .

This acrostic poetic form of Birkat haMazon was written for the se’udah mafseqet (pre-fast meal) before Yom Kippur, in the manner of the poetic Birkat haMazon variants recorded in the Cairo Geniza. . . .

This is a poetic text for Birkat haMazon, signed with an alphabetical acrostic and the name of the author, to be recited on the first of Elul. It celebrates the variety of God’s creation as exemplified by the natural diversity of species, as well as alluding to the livestock tithes traditionally assigned on the first of Elul. . . .