the Open Siddur Project ✍︎ פְּרוֹיֶקְט הַסִּדּוּר הַפָּתוּחַ
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. בסיעתא דשמיא | ||
Contributor(s): “Blessing for a Premature Birth” was written by Rabbi Elliot Kukla and was first published in Where Healing Resides (CCAR 2013), p. 48. . . . Contributor(s): After a brit milah meal, there are several poetic additions traditionally included in the Birkat haMazon. But for young daughters a brit milah isn’t going to happen. So this is a poetic Birkat haMazon to be recited after a Zeved haBat ceremony. . . . שמחת בת (זבד הבת) | Simḥat Bat: Zeved HaBat (The Gift of a Daughter), a Ceremony Guide to the Naming of a Jewish Girl by Dovi Seldowitz (2021) Contributor(s): This Simḥat Bat ceremony guide includes an order of blessings and ceremony with attention to various traditional customs regarding the use of blessings and prayers. The guide also includes words of Torah and rabbinic teachings which relate to the themes in the guide. . . . Contributor(s): This Simḥat Brit was prepared by David Zvi Kalman and circulated via a public post on Facebook on 9 July 2018. . . . Contributor(s): In the weeks leading up to the birth of our first child in 1997, my partner and I spent a lot of time thinking about the brit. Whether it was a boy or a girl we knew that we would have a celebration. If it was a boy we would have a brit, yet we were not happy with the ceremony as it stood. If it was a girl we needed a ceremony which was equally powerful and yet didn’t draw blood. In response to these two concerns I wrote a liturgy for what I called a chag hachnassah labrit/celebration of entering the covenant which could be easily adapted to boys and girls, and I wrote a piyyut (a liturgical poem) for a milah/a circumcision. . . . Contributor(s): This is a simḥat bat baby-naming and welcoming ceremony, based on similar ceremonies by Dr. Devora Steinmetz and Rabbi David Silber, Rabbi Elie Kaunfer and Lisa Exler, Drs. David and Joanna Arch-Andorsky, and others. . . . Contributor(s): In honor of the birth of their son born 23 Shvat 5772 ~ 15 February 2012, Rabbi Emma Kippley-Ogman and Benjamin Kamm share their Brit Shmot (Naming Covenant). The ceremony took place February 23rd, 2012 (Rosh Ḥodesh Adar ~ 30 Shvat 5772) at Congregation Kehillath Israel, Brookline, Massachusetts. . . . Contributor(s): In place of the blood of the slaughtered bulls from the covenantal ceremony in Exodus, we looked for another substance to effect the covenant ceremony. Amalya was born right after Shavuot, on which we have a tradition to eat dairy. In fact, milk itself is associated with the acceptance of Torah, as described in the following Midrash which quotes a verse from Song of Songs (4:11): “Sweetness drops from your lips, O bride; honey and milk are under your tongue and the scent of your robes is like the scent of Lebanon.” . . . Contributor(s): This is a prayer for parents to say for safe sleep for their newborn children. It is based almost entirely on the longer form of the traditional prayers before sleep. Because of gender there are two forms, for a boy and for a girl. I wrote this as part of my daughter’s naming ceremony in January 2001. I used it again in 2006 when my second daughter was born. . . . ברוכה הבאה | Blessed be the newcomer! — a ceremony for the naming of a baby daughter by Joshua Gutoff (ca. 1989) Contributor(s): A ceremony for the naming of a baby daughter. . . . Contributor(s): We name our daughters on their fifteenth day of life. This is based on Vayiqra 12:1-5, which describes the length of a woman’s period of impurity after childbirth. If she gives birth to a son, she is impure for seven days; if she gives birth to a daughter, she is impure for fourteen days. The passage seems to connect the baby boy’s circumcision on the eighth day to the conclusion of the mother’s seven day period of impurity. (Similarly, Vayiqra 22:27 says that a newborn animal must remain with its mother for seven days, and on the eighth day and onward it is acceptable as a sacrificial offering.) It seems, then, that for the first seven days of a little boy’s life, and the first fourteen days of a little girl’s life, the child and mother are still closely linked, and both remain separate from the larger family and community. Then, on the eighth day of her son’s life, and on the fifteenth day of her daughter’s life, the mother begins to rejoin her family and community, and the child too becomes incorporated as a member of the family and community. That is why a baby boy’s father becomes obligated to circumcise his son only on the eighth day, and why the baby boy first receives his name at his brit milah; it is then that the baby boy becomes a member of the community of Israel. On our daughter’s fifteenth day, we come together as a family and as a community to welcome this new member and to give her a name. . . . Contributor(s): This undated “Service for the Blessing of a Baby” by the Hon. Lily H. Montagu (1873-1963) from the archives of the Liberal Jewish Synagogue, London, was published in, Lily Montagu: Sermons, Addresses, Letters, and Prayers (ed. Ellen M. Umansky, 1985), pp. 339-341. Based on the name of the baby for whom the service was performed, we feel confident in dating this service to June 1962. . . . Contributor(s): “Am Tage der Beschneidung” by Anna Lachmann can be found in Rabbi Max Grunwald’s anthology of Jewish women’s prayer, Beruria: Gebet- und Andachtsbuch für jüdische Frauen und Mädchen (1907), pages 404-405. . . . Contributor(s): A prayer of a woman following the birth of her infant child. . . . Contributor(s): A mother’s prayer for an ill infant or child. . . . Contributor(s): “Prayer on the Sabbath of Naming a New Born Daughter” by Marcus Heinrich Bresslau was first published in his תחנות בנות ישראל Devotions for the Daughters of Israel (1852), p. 63. . . . Contributor(s): A supplication of a mother for her sick infant child. . . . Gebet einer Mutter, wenn ihr Sohn durch die Beschneidung in den Bund der Israeliten aufgenommen wird | Prayer of a mother when her son is taken into the covenant of the Israelites through circumcision, a teḥinah by Yehoshua Heshil Miro (1829) Contributor(s): “Gebet einer Mutter, wenn ihr Sohn durch die Beschneidung in den Bund der Israeliten aufgenommen wird” was translated/adapted by Yehoshua Heshil Miro and published in his anthology of teḥinot, בית יעקב (Beit Yaaqov) Allgemeines Gebetbuch für gebildete Frauen mosaischer Religion. It first appears in the 1829 edition, תחנות Teḥinot ein Gebetbuch für gebildete Frauenzimmer mosaischer Religion as teḥinah №59 on pp. 85-86. In the 1835 edition, it appears as teḥinah №61 on pp. 108-109. In the 1842 edition, it appears as teḥinah №64 on pp. 113-114. . . . קמע לשמירה מפני לילית | Apotropaic ward for the protection of pregnant women and infants against Lilith & her minions (CUL MS General 194, Montgomery 1913 Amulet No. 42) Contributor(s): An apotropaic ward for the protection of women in their pregnancy and of infant children against an attack from Lilith and her minions, containing the story witnessing her oath to the prophet, Eliyahu along with one variation of her many names. . . . מה אלו | “Who are these?” — the Origin of the Angels of Healing: Sanoi, Sansanoi, and Semanglof, as told in the Alphabet of ben Sira (ca. late first millennium) Contributor(s): The origin story of Lilith as told in the Alphabet of ben Sira. . . . היסטוריולה של סממית וסידרוס | Historiola of Smamit and Sideros, a reconstruction based on Amulet 15 & Amulet Bowl 12a Contributor(s): A very old tale told for the protection of pregnant women and their infant children as found in amulets from late Antiquity. . . . | ||
Sign up for a summary of new resources shared by contributors each week
TERMS OF USE ✶ COPYRIGHT ✶ PRIVACY ✶ UPLOAD ✶ CONTACT |