We are grateful to the Vilna Shul in Boston and their Ḥavurah on the Hill program for preparing “Siddur on the Hill,” (2011) a beautiful siddur for Shabbat Friday night services and sharing it with free-culture compatible, open content licensing. The siddur includes original translations in English from Rabbi Sam Seicol, interpretive writings by Rabbi Rami Shapiro, and illustrations by Georgi Vogel Rosen, as well as contributions from numerous others. Thank you for sharing your siddur, open source! . . .

A Tu biShvat seder supplement recognizing the Israeli-Jewish settler violence and land theft under the State of Israel’s military occupation of the West Bank. . . .

A Jewish Prayer for Graduation and an Interfaith Meditation on Wisdom and Learning, by Rabbi Jonah Rank (2010) . . .

A haggadah for the Pesaḥ seder with an Esperanto translation. . . .

An interview with Jonah Lowenfeld of the Jewish Journal on the values of sharing Torah learning as practiced by the Open Siddur Project. . . .

In January 2010, the Jewish Week published a piece about the Open Siddur Project by Steve Lipman, entitled, “Taking Prayer Into Their Own Hands.” The article is no longer available online at the Jewish Week website or in any online cache. We have archived it here for posterity. . . .

My struggle to realize this project is personal, but I never ever wanted my own dissatisfaction to overshadow what anyone else could bring to this project. We each have a unique creative light, and wow, does it ever grow bright when our light shines together. I knew this project was important because it came as an epiphany — an intersection of multiple passions each calling with their own creative, intellectual, and political genius. I just had to finally listen and take note. In the shadow of the Holocaust, a revitalized Jewish culture must be sought that does not rely entirely on ethnic nationalist movements to advance and preserve Jewish identity. Renaissance in all cultures, including Jewish culture, depends on the freedom of its participants, its cultural constituents, to be creative and expressive individuals, engaging with the meaning that culture broadcasts through its traditions. I said it in the interview but it bears repeating, the lingering dialectic that defines religion as somehow separate from culture relies on a notion that religion is no longer creative — a mere replication of viral memes, in Dawkin’s language. We liberate religion when we return it to culture, as a creative and relevant force for helping to shape our individual and collective consciousness. Religion in this way provides exercises, practices and other social technologies to help us evolve. If its creativity isn’t maintained, its relevance is ceded to other systems to function in its place — or it is ceded to social elements and authorities who might use it to sustain self-serving agendas. . . .

I invite you to think of the Torah as a free and open platform rather than a closed one, and to see your work similarly. The takeaway I have for you today is to adopt an open source strategy for your non-profit work in the manner that Maimonides, Hillel the Elder, or the Sfas Emes would. Express faith in your organizational mission by opening up the development of that which you are innovating to the broader community, maintain a low bar for entry and to cultivate a market for wide adoption, and eschew closed source development and proprietary licensing. When your actions are guided by your business model rather than your mission statement, it’s time to revisit your mission statement and rethink your business model. . . .

This journey really started with my time spent with the myriad of other folk who prepared for and showed up at Jews in the Woods gatherings. It was at one such retreat at the old Eilat Chayyim in upstate New York that I met Dan Sieradski who had worked on his own Open Source Siddur project and who afterward invited me to the advisory board of what was then called Matzat and which might now be called Jew-It-Yourself. I promised him that the siddur we would develop would be an important feature of the larger constellation of resources we were imagining, resources all complementary due to our use of free and open source licensing. . . .

Maps showing the relationship between the nusḥaot are quite helpful to us. The Open Siddur Project is seeking to digitize all the extant nusḥaot witnessed in siddurim and other manuscripts, in order to show the evolution of individual prayers and blessings. This will helpfully represent at least the textual diversity of Jewish spiritual expression in the many geographically dispersed Jewish communities over the past three thousand years. I also hope that representing this diversity in t’fillah will be an inspiration to individuals engaging in davvening as an intellectually engaged and creative discourse speaking across generations. The extent to which we’ll be able to realize this vision will be limited to how many source texts we’ll be able to identify, transcribe, and share with open standards and free culture licenses. Seeing that the design of the map appearing in Hoffman’s book left much to be desired, I redesigned it for clarity while adding some additional nusḥaot. I hope that the following map based on Joseph Heinemann’s work will help inspire fellow researchers to contribute to this project. . . .

Keep the Internet as open as Avraham and Sarah’s tent. Help us oppose ACTA & TPP: — free trade legislation with specific language that will undermine free speech on the Internet. . . .

An important licensing update made to a collection of digital fonts maintained by the open-source Hebrew type foundry, the Culmus Project, . . .

Cultures, including our own, breathe creativity and exhale innovation. We rely on the creative works bequeathed to us by earlier generations to remain rooted in our cultural identity. Synagogue members and kids in day schools, summer camps, youth orgs, and creative Jews working on their own can all benefit from our educational, cultural, and spiritual institutions cooperating with one another in sharing the bounty of our cultural heritage. As Jews, are we not all collaborating on a grand project of Torah learning, spiritual improvement, and tikkun olam? It’s time our cultural licensing choices reflect these profound intentions. . . .

This post continues the series of advocacy posts directed at Jewish content creators and aggregators. Other parts of the series discussed the global communal benefit of free primary data resources and issues of copyright license compatibility and the connection between copyright licensing and remixability. While my previous post briefly mentioned the non-free Creative Commons licenses, this post details why you should choose a free culture license. In particular, it urges you to avoid the licenses with the non-commercial-use only (NC) terms. . . .

In education, technology is a means to an end, not an end in itself. There are some problems technology can solve, and others it can’t. As Joel Grishaver said better than I can, technology is a “plus” not “or” proposition. Learners will have different success rates using technological solutions, such as distance learning, and the use of computers cannot take the place of a real-world social community. On the other hand, technology also has the potential to transform learning and learning environments and to make both learning materials and the teachers to guide their use accessible where they would not have otherwise been. . . .

At the beginning of the talk, the audience expressed some discomfort with the idea of copying from one website to another, even if the original author is attributed. The main concern seemed to be that the author potentially loses control of his/her message if he/she has no idea of the remainder of the content of the website. On the other hand, one audience member who posts reviews on book review sites had an innate sense of the concept of mutual benefit: she posts reviews of the books she reads in part because she reads reviews posted by others. . . .

Advocacy for creative works’ freedom represents a paradigm shift in thought among content creators: In a free culture, a premium is not placed on the material as-such or even the particular rights associated with the material. Instead, it is on the users’ freedom, and it is that freedom that is the prerequisite to large-scale creative engagement with educational material. . . .

Free, open data prevents the necessity of duplication of effort, which, in turn, prevents the community as a whole from unnecessarily wasteful spending. Particularly for organizations with a social mission, its use is a win for everyone. . . .

The free culture community has developed mechanisms to make sharing and collaborative development easier. The principles that define works of free culture are:

1. the freedom to use the work and enjoy the benefits of using it
2. the freedom to study the work and to apply knowledge acquired from it
3. the freedom to make and redistribute copies, in whole or in part, of the information or expression
4. the freedom to make changes and improvements, and to distribute derivative works

Note that these freedoms do not discriminate on the basis of endeavor, and all free culture works allow creation of derivative works and commercial use. . . .

Last Sukkot 5771 (2011), Efraim Feinstein shared the sourcesheet for his late night shiur (lesson) on copyright in Rabbinic Halakhah (Jewish law). Efraim’s research adds a great deal of important perspective to our work here on the Open Siddur Project. It provides relevant historical context for our work advocating the adoption of free culture principles and free-culture licenses to facilitate sharing (tachlis) within the Jewish world. . . .

A series of tests to determine how well some popular and some less well-known web browsers perform in supporting the technology for displaying Hebrew text. In particular, I’m interested to see which browsers are failing to use a web standard called CSS @font-face to properly display Unicode Hebrew fonts that support the full range of Hebrew diacritics and which contain excellent font logic for diacritical positioning. . . .

Beginning late last year, I began a project to translate the Birkat Hamazon using Rabbi Simeon Singer’s English translation and the Nusaḥ ha-Ari as the basis for publishing birkonim (or in Yiddish, benchers). The original work was sponsored by the Teva Learning Center and its executive director, Nili Simhai, to be used in birkhonim specifically designed for use during weekdays during Teva’s Fall season. . . .

This week on the holiday of Simḥat Torah, the Jewish people will begin to read the Torah anew, starting with Parashat Bereshit. The JET is a new English translation of Parashat Bereshit that is meant to be readable (and enjoyable to read), useful to people who want to study the parashah, and faithful to the Hebrew text of the Torah. JET stands for the “Jewish English Torah” (or for the “Jewish English Tanakh” if we want to be very ambitious). I would like to invite others to contribute further Open Content translations for parts of the Torah or Tanakh to the Open Siddur Project, whether by following my method or in any other style. In time, together we could create a rich resource full of translations of all parts of the Tanakh in a variety of useful forms. That would be a wonderful thing to start on Simḥat Torah. . . .

How good are you playing this amazing, venerable role-playing game called Judaism? Playing your whole life? Grand. So is it fun? Is it worthwhile? Would you recommend it to your friends? No. All right… so why not? Oh. Yeah. Oh… true. Ok, yeah, those are all good reasons. But what if I told you there was a way to play it better. Not everyone will catch on at first, but it should satisfy the most conservative players AND the most innovative. The geeks will love it and it will lower the bar for entry to even the most simple of players. Ok, it does sound too good to be true. But hey, what’s the point of playing the game if you’re not willing to suspend the physics of the familiar and try on a new set of rules. Embrace the illusion. Try on a new reality. Help create a new one, together. I just want players to use their imagination, feel appreciated instead of alienated, and just improve the game for everyone. So what is it? I’ll tell you. . . .

A sourcesheet on the halakhic opinions and attitudes towards praying in languages besides Hebrew. . . .

Language is simultaneously a portal and a barrier to prayer. Jews have prayed in Hebrew for millennia, yet our oldest sources also speak of prayer in other languages. Come explore the history of the language of prayer, how our linguistic preferences define what prayer is about, and how we might approach this issue today. . . .

Given that more than 50% of the Siddur is comprised of text from the תנ׳׳ך (TaNaKh) any project that seeks to rigorously attribute its sources depends on a critical, digital edition of the Masoretic text of the Hebrew bible. And such is the case for our Open Siddur Project. The entire history of the transmission of such a profoundly important sourcetext illustrates the degree to which we rely on each others most positive intentions to advance our love of the Torah through sharing — regardless of sect, creed, scholarly or theological inspiration. Moving ahead we are supported by each others gifts and by the preserved legacy of our cultural inheritance. . . .

An appreciation of the life of John Bruno Hare, the founder of Sacred Texts, and an early contributor to the Open Siddur Project. . . .

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For a relationship as intimate as that with one’s own spirit, we might assume that the only spiritual tools provided to individuals have this degree of personalization, but this of course, is not so. Printed siddurim were designed with other goals in mind. As a technology the siddur only became widely adopted by the Jewish public in the mid-19th century. Printers of siddurim have designed their siddurim to appeal to mass markets, each edition of the siddur representing a specific communal custom, and when translated, the specific language of a community. It’s no surprise then that for many Jews their spiritual identity is closely mapped to the liturgical variations represented by their Siddurim. . . .

One question I’ve been asked a number of times about the Open Siddur Project is: why are you developing all that software? It’s a fair question. After all, the siddur is just text. There are other do-it-yourself siddur kits out there. They sell you (or, more accurately, license you) a text. You open the text in a word processor, make a few stylistic changes, and voila, you have your own custom siddur. The “advanced” ones may even hand you one copy of a “nusaḥ Ashkenaz” siddur, one copy of a “nusaḥ Sefard” siddur, and one copy of a “nusaḥ Edot Hamizrah” siddur, giving you some choices. All good, right? So, once again, why does the Open Siddur need so much software? . . .

The Jewish Day School systems are filled with many talented students, and we would like to reach out to those interested in technology and computer science, particularly in high schools. The Open Siddur Project offers an opportunity for these students to participate in a real free software and open source project that is also relevant to the entire Jewish community. We invite them to participate in development discussions, provide original research, learn and write programs in a number of computer languages, edit, proofread, and correct texts, and work with others of many different backgrounds, in a pluralistic Jewish context. . . .

Often we are asked here at the Open Siddur Project why we cannot simply use the digitized texts of the siddur that are available from Davka Corporation. Our instinct was that Davka only granted permission for individuals to use their digitized Hebrew texts under fair use doctrine. To be certain, we sought to find the the text of Davka Corporation’s End User License Agreement (EULA) and failing to locate this information online, friends of the project provided us with the EULA included with the packaging and software installer for a Davka software product: DavkaWriter Dimensions II. From the language of these license agreements, it is clear that the text Davka is providing is not free for end-users to distribute or to create derivative works. Section 4(a) of the EULA reads: “You may not use the texts in the software to publish materials for sale without express written permission from Davka Corporation. Preparation of these texts has entailed considerable effort and expense. They are not shareware, and should be used by no one other than the purchaser.” . . .

Lead developer, Efraim Feinstein, recently contributed this helpful diagram of Open Siddur’s architecture. . . .

The Opening Prayer given in the U.S. House of Representatives on 28 October 2009. . . .

The Opening Prayer given in the U.S. House of Representatives on 22 July 2009. . . .

The Opening Prayer given in the U.S. Senate on 25 June 2009. . . .

The Opening Prayer given in the U.S. House of Representatives on 18 June 2009. . . .

The Opening Prayer given in the U.S. Senate on 29 January 2009. . . .

The Hebrew and Aramaic text of the Passover seder haggadah set side-by-side with an English translation by Dr. Eve Levavi Feinstein. . . .

The opening prayer offered before the Boston City Council on January 5th, 2009. . . .

A paraliturgical reading of an abridged mourner’s ḳaddish by Rabbi Daniel Brenner set side-by-side with the (amended) Aramaic text. . . .

This list of thirteen supplications for emunah (faith) in particular beliefs was included by Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi, z”l, in his Siddur Tehillat Hashem Yidaber Pi (2009). . . .

A prayer for thanksgiving day in the United States by Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi. . . .

In his Siddur Tehilat Hashem Yedaber Pi (2009), this untitled teḥinah appears just below Rabbi Zalman Schachter Shalomi’s translation of Psalms 15 (recited on joyful and celebrative days when Taḥanun is not recited) and just above the Psalms of the Day section. We are not certain whether this teḥinah is an original prayer by Reb Zalman, a translation of an existing teḥinah found for Taḥanun, or a composite of teḥinot found in the Taḥanun service. . . .

A prayer before commencing the study of Torah in groups, in ḥavrutah study, or alone. . . .

A prescriptive instruction from Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi on the purpose of the taḥanun after the Amidah. . . .

Shabbat Affirmations for erev shabbat in preparation of welcoming the shabbat. . . .