the Open Siddur Project ✍︎ פְּרוֹיֶּקט הַסִּדּוּר הַפָּתוּחַ
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🖖︎ Prayers & Praxes // 📅︎ Prayers for Civic Days on Civil Calendars // International Civil Calendar // Gregorian New Year's Day (January 1st)
Gregorian New Year’s Day (January 1st) Opening Prayer on the Significance of New Year’s Day, by Rabbi Mordecai Kaplan, J. Paul Williams, and Eugene Kohn (1951)![]() ![]() ![]() This opening prayer for New Year’s Day, “The Significance of the Day,” was first published in The Faith of America: Readings, Songs, and Prayers for the Celebration of American Holidays (Jewish Reconstructionist Foundation 1951), p. 3-4 — as preface to a number of readings selected by Mordecai Kaplan, Eugene Kohn, and J. Paul Williams for the day. . . . Closing Prayer for New Year’s Day, adapted by Mordecai Kaplan & Eugene Kohn from a prayer by Members of the Faculty of the Colgate Divinity School (1947)![]() ![]() ![]() This “Closing Prayer” for New Year’s Day was adapted by Mordecai Kaplan and Eugene Kohn from a prayer first published by unnamed “Members of the Faculty” of the Colgate-Rochester Divinity School (The Colgate-Rochester Divinity School Bulletin, “Prayers for the New Year,” vol. 19 no. 2 (1947), pp. 65-71). Kaplan & Kohn’s adapted prayer essentially contains excerpts from the prayer of the Faculty (excluding any with explicit Christian content). The adapted prayer was published in The Faith of America: Readings, Songs, and Prayers for the Celebration of American Holidays (Jewish Reconstructionist Foundation 1951), p. 25-26. –Aharon Varady . . . ![]() ![]() “Saturday night, Dec. 31, 1836” by Grace Aguilar was published posthumously by her mother Sarah Aguilar in Essays and Miscellanies (1853), in the section “Sacred Communings,” pp. 196-199. In the UK edition of Sacred Communings (1853) the prayer appears with small variations of spelling and punctuation on pages 112-115. . . . |