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a community-grown, libre Open Access archive of Jewish prayer and liturgical resources — for those crafting their own prayerbooks and sharing the content of their practice
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a community-grown, libre Open Access archive of Jewish prayer and liturgical resources — for those crafting their own prayerbooks and sharing the content of their practice
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21st century C.E. —⟶ tag: 21st century C.E. Sorted Chronologically (old to new). Sort most recent first? “A Prayer for New York City After a Mass Shooting” was offered by Rabbi Menachem Creditor and shared through the Open Siddur Project discussion group on Facebook, 29 July 2025 after the 2025 Midtown Manhattan shooting the previous day. This is an original Hebrew tehillah/piyyuṭ that I composed in January 2025 for my local Nash Didan (Persian-Azerbaijani-Assyrian-Jewish) community. The composition weaves together classic liturgical motifs, echoing the themes of Psalms 1, Ashrei, and Aleinu, while remaining a distinct, contemporary composition. It may be recited during Pesuqei d’Zimra, as a supplementary reading near the conclusion of a service, or however best its cadence speaks to the heart of the worshipper—be it chanted in the polyphonic chorus of a congregation or whispered in solitary devotion. The piyyut also functions as a Maskilic shibutz “domestication” of the Gathic Avestan manthras—an endeavor inspired by Rav Meshullam Zalman Schachter-Shalomi’s reclamation of universal sacred sparks, clothing ancient wisdom in the living vestments of the Holy Tongue. Categories: Tags: Contributor(s): A qinah for 7 October and the hostages, to be recited as part of the Tishah b’Av liturgy. Categories: Tags: 2023-2025 Israel–Hamas war, 21st century C.E., 58th century A.M., Alphabetic Acrostic, פיוטים piyyuṭim, קינות Ḳinōt Contributor(s): A liturgy for counting the fifty days of consolation or comfort between Tishah b’Av and Rosh haShanah (non-inclusive), in the style of the liturgy for the omer. Categories: Tags: Contributor(s): A prayer written for the people of Washington DC during the Trump administration’s authoritarian push, August 2025. An ofan — a liturgical prayer to be inserted into the Shaḥarit qedusha d-yotzer — for the first of Elul, the new year for animals. Not as of yet part of a cycle but who knows, maybe a few other parts will be written in days to come! This invocation was given at the 78th annual George Washington Letter Reading Event, August 17, 2025 (23 Av, 5785), held by the Touro Synagogue Foundation to celebrate the famous 1790 letter exchange between the Jewish community of Newport, Rhode Island (represented by warden Moses Seixas) and first president of the United States, George Washington. Washington’s response to Seixas’s letter, in which he quotes some of his most iconic phrasings, is one of the first official statements by the US government on the value of religious freedom. This Letter Reading Event was held in the Old Colony House (where the Jewish community’s letter was probably presented to President Washington), rather than in the Touro Synagogue, due to Congregation Shearith Israel in New York’s barring of the Touro Synagogue Foundation from access to the building. I composed this short blessing when passing by a dead coyote once. Crows and Magpies were congregating around the corpse and I felt this was a moment to notice, sanctify and bless. It was my way of connecting with all of them, dead and alive. Categories: Tags: 21st century C.E., 58th century A.M., animals, ברכות brakhot, corpses, death, עולם הזה Olam ha-Zeh, surprise encounter Contributor(s): This blessing for the consumption of meat (or poultry, or fish) is based on a verse from Vayikra / Leviticus, ch. 17: כִּי נֶפֶשׁ הַבָּשָׂר בַּדָּם הִוא וַאֲנִי נְתַתִּיו לָכֶם עַל־הַמִּזְבֵּחַ לְכַפֵּר עַל־נַפְשֹׁתֵיכֶם כִּי־הַדָּם הוּא בַּנֶּפֶשׁ יְכַפֵּר׃ (“For the life of the flesh is in the blood. And as for me, I have given it to you on the alter to ransom your lives, for it is the blood that ransoms in exchange for life.”) This verse helps us remember (and how can we ever forget?!) that any bloodshed, is a loss of life – human or animal. And, it helps us understand that even when we kill for our own sustanance (or even in a ritual offering), we cause a loss of life. The burden is on us. We are commanded to release the blood-life so we can use the meat. (I wrote more in detail about this blessing here.) Categories: Tags: 21st century C.E., 58th century A.M., animals, ברכות brakhot, eating animals, עולם הזה Olam ha-Zeh, predation, predatory nature Contributor(s): This prayer by Devorah Brous (fromsoil2soul), “A blessing for the bees (5786)” was first published as text rendered inside a video compiled by the author. This abridged adaptation of the birkhot hashaḥr combines two separate works of Rivka Jaussi. The first: a translation of the blessing for distinguishing between day and night. The second: a series of haikus in German for seven out of the dozen or so “berakhot shenitani” (“blessings you [Hashem] gave me”). Categories: Tags: 21st century C.E., 58th century A.M., haiku, interpretive translation, paraliturgical birkhot hashaḥar Contributor(s): This prayer by Rabbi Dr. Berman was offered while serving as guest chaplain before the 119th Congress, 1st Session of the US Senate on 10 September 2025. The prayer was published in the Congressional Record, v.171, n.148 (Wednesday, September 10, 2025), Senate, page S6511. This teḥinah (petitionary prayer) for hormone replacement therapy (HRT) was composed by Isaac Gantwerk Mayer and first published on Bluesky in response to a request for just such a prayer by a Bluesky user, Uili (Sage). Categories: Tags: 21st century C.E., 58th century A.M., gender transition, LGBTQIA+, תחינות teḥinot, transgender prayer Contributor(s): This is a piyyuṭ which was originally commissioned (by Maeera Shreiber who largely translated it into English) and written as an introductory piyyuṭ for the ‘arvit service for a gathering of HUC faculty. It draws on the image of Jacob (who is credited in the Talmud with instituting the ‘arvit prayer) and the angels he met at the place that he rested; and many other images from the tradition (as is made clear in the footnotes). This year it is being chanted in my community (Shtibl in Los Angeles) before the ne’ilah service. Categories: Tags: Contributor(s): Rabbi David Seidenberg writes, “This piyyut is a response to what I think of as the second war with Gaza since October 7, the one started on March 18, 2025, when Israel broke the ceasefire. At that point it became clear that war was being driven not by the hostages or even by eliminating Hamas, but rather by Netanyahu’s coalition and its fascist members and elements eager to colonize Gaza. I am also responding to examples of the glee to destroy that accompanied some soldiers’ desire to punish all of Gaza, expressed in song, tik tok, etc., and the repeated declaration made by various Hardal rabbis that all of Gaza is Amalek, and the apparent careless way of that life gets taken by sniper and drone. I have put those feelings in the first person, in the spirit of all of us taking responsibility for any of our sins, as a community. What is real above all is the sin enumerated in the Syrian Vidui Hagadol: ‘Lo Bacharta Bachayyim, We did not choose Life.'” Categories: Tags: Contributor(s): A pizmon for calling up a (male) Jew-by-choice for his first aliyah to the Torah after completing his conversion process. (Pizmonim for female and non-binary Jews-by-choice forthcoming!) To be recited before the blessing, led by the gabbai with the community responding with the refrain. Categories: Tags: 21st century C.E., 58th century A.M., acrostic, Aliyah, Alphabetic Acrostic, conversion, גרות gerut, פיוטים piyyuṭim, פזמונים pizmonim Contributor(s): The Office of the Chief Rabbi’s prayer on the day following the terror attack in Manchester on Yom Kippur 5786 (2025). Categories: Tags: 21st century C.E., 58th century A.M., British Jewry, English vernacular prayer, Manchester synagogue attack Contributor(s): Other rituals will surely arise — songs, prayers, art, and silence — each guided by the wisdom and imagination of artists, rabbis, and ritual leaders who help us make meaning in the wake of sorrow and hope. Let us honor both the moment and the movement — the courage to create holiness even as we live toward wholeness. Categories: Tags: 2023-2025 Israel–Hamas war, 21st century C.E., 58th century A.M., burial service, English vernacular prayer, Genizah Contributor(s): A Hoshana for Sukkot 5786 to balance the memory of the horrors of 7 October 2023 and the tense anticpation of October 2025, after the ceasefire agreement was signed but not fully implemented. Categories: Tags: 2023-2025 Israel–Hamas war, 21st century C.E., 58th century A.M., הושענות hoshanot, religious Zionist prayers Contributor(s): A new introductory piyyut-meturgeman serving as a reshut for the targum of the haftarah. This genre used to be very popular, especially among the old French paytanim, but nowadays the only one still recited is Yetsiv Pitgam, said in some communities on the second day of Shavuot — although the targum is no longer. I think that’s a shame, so I wrote a new one. I’m probably one of the first people to write one of these since the expulsion of 1394. So of course, it’s meta as all get-out, being a reshut not just for the targum of the haftarah but for the custom of reading the targum of the haftarah with a reshut at all. Categories: Tags: 21st century C.E., 58th century A.M., acrostic, Acrostic signature, Aramaic, הפטרות haftarot, פיוטים piyyuṭim, רשויות reshuyot, תרגום targum Contributor(s): | ||
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