סידור אור ושלום | Siddur Or veShalom for Shabbat and Festival use (Izzun Books, 2023)

FOREWORD

Prayer is the act of connecting with the Divine and with ourselves – both the individual, and the community. Jews have established an order for our prayers over the millennia, and as such, we need books that help guide us through these systems. One of the great stumbling blocks of Jewish prayer has always been a tension between the prayers of the book and the prayers the heart. We refer to this struggle as between ḳeva’ and kavvanah, between fixed recitation and personal intention. The reality is this struggle is healthy, as we need both ḳeva’ and kavvanah, and this siddur enables all of us to work harder on both of these aspects of prayer.

Each column provides a way to connect – authentic Hebrew in beautiful print, a wonderful new and engaging translation, full transliteration to enable everyone to participate, and a meaningful commentary.

Jewish prayer has evolved over the generations. Even the central prayer of our people, the ‘Amidah, is also called the Shemonah ‘Esreh, the Eighteen, for its eighteen blessings. Yet the prayer we use today contains nineteen! And different rites, whether Sephardic or Ashkenazic, have distinctly different versions of the prayers, and yet are authentic. They all come from the same origin, but over generations morphed into different practices.

This beautiful siddur is the next step in this progression, allowing for the Sephardic Jew of the 21st century to struggle with ancient texts in a new and meaningful way. It allows all to have a place in the sanctuary and not feel alienated, and makes everyone feel they have the ability to pray.

It has been an enormous honor to partner with Rabbi Adam Zagoria-Moffet and Isaac Montagu in bringing this siddur to life. Congregation Or VeShalom is delighted to be the first community in the world to be using such a wonderful siddur, that is all at once modern and traditional.

Rabbi Josh Hearshen, Iyyar 5782

HASKAMAH

The Sefaradi world owes a debt of gratitude to Rabbi Adam Zagoria-Moffet and Isaac Montagu, the editors of the new Sefaradi siddur which you are now holding. This gratitude extends to our past and our future. Our glorious past has been forgotten not only by others but by us as well, and there are many Sefaradim unaware of their glorious history and of their unique traditions and customs. When we speak of the future, this Siddur is the harbinger of a journey into a new world.

Let me explain. There is a strange consensus among leaders of different religious movements that Sefaradim are not interested in any changes or innovations in the field of tefillah and rituals. They believe that Sefaradim will never attend an egalitarian synagogue or adjust their traditions to be more inclusive and accepting. The truth is that Sefaradim always excelled in inclusion and empathy towards Jews and non-Jews alike.

The term Sefaradi in its narrow geographical meaning refers only to the Jews of Spain, but it has a much broader definition. The Golden Age of Spain was natural continuation of the Geonic period of Babylonia, and both flourished under Muslim rule. When we talk about Sefaradi heritage, we talk about the open mindedness of scholars and leaders from all corners of the non-Ashkenazi world, which allowed them to incorporate cultural achievement, work in tandem with colleagues of other religions, and develop more inclusive and tolerant communities.

Presently, because of several major global factors which reshaped Jewish communities in the last 150 years, among them mass migration, two world wars, and the establishment of the State of Israel, the Sefaradi tradition has been pushed aside and is sometimes treated like Judaism’s stepson or “The Other Face of Judaism.” When we come to the present, I believe that Sefaradim are not so excited about non-orthodox or egalitarian communities because they all cater to the Ashkenazi world.

Even when an invitation is warmly extended, why should one who grew up with one tradition, switch to another? This is why this siddur is so important. On one hand, it exposes the reader to the rich culture of Sefaradim through design, art, and commentary. On the other hand, the Siddur acknowledges the desire of many Sefaradim to form egalitarian and inclusive communities, and it thus ushers in a new era.

The quest of Sefaradim for new ways to express their tefillah in the modern world has produced several prayer books. We could probably count as the first among them the Alats Libbi by Ḥakham Yitsḥak Sassoon. In my review of that Siddur I wrote: “Rabbi Sassoon laments the slow transition from a dynamic liturgy to one that tends towards ossification and which decries any amendment as heresy. He traces the roots of that tendency to the invention of the printing press and the influence of Kabbalah.”

But the real power and uniqueness of Alats Libbi is that it offers practical solutions for the many problems surrounding tefillah and does not remain in the realm of theory. Rabbi Sassoon’s Siddur signaled a bold move in a new direction, and as expected, he came under heavy criticism for it, yet Rabbi Sassoon continues to inspire young Sefaradi scholars and activists.

The other siddur which made a huge impact in the Sefaradi world is Zemiroṭ haMizraḥ, a comprehensive egalitarian Maḥzor for Yom Kippur. Daniel Cayre produced a masterpiece and has diligently worked in making the Maḥzor inclusive and inviting. The Maḥzor was officially used on Yom Kippur 5782 at the egalitarian Kanisse Minyan in Manhattan.

And now we have this new siddur. A siddur which breathes life into the ancient tefillot. Upon reviewing and reading the siddur, I was reminded of a dictum by an anonymous Head of the Babylonian Academy from the glorious Geonic period, the same period which laid the foundation for our Sefaradi worldview. He said that everything needs Divine abundance, even the Sefer Torah in the Ark. I feel that the world of Sefaradi prayer needed this moment of Divine abundance, and that the Sefer Torah in the dictum is this siddur. It has been long due and now, thanks to Divine intervention and to the devotion and dedication of a very talented team, we are able to enjoy the abundance which will enhance our prayer. The design of the siddur is gorgeous and inviting. The text comes alive with colours, design, and arrangement of the text. The sizes, colors, and placements of the text highlight important paragraphs or words and serve as tour guides in a fascinating journey, discovering new surprises in the pages of an old friend.

The unique work pays tribute to the Sefaradi tradition, with arabesques and Moorish patterns. On page 81, a beautiful work of calligraphy intertwines the words ani ledodi vedodi li – I am for my beloved and my beloved is for me, with their translation into Arabic, reminding us that Jews and Muslims lived side by side in harmony for centuries, and that Arabic was the spoken language of the majority of the Jewish people for many years. On page 119, alongside the Piyyut which welcomes the Shabbat, Lekha Dodi, there is an artwork depicting an Albanian bride. It is a beautiful reminder of the almost forgotten communities of the Balkans, and an appropriate gesture to the author of Lekha Dodi, Rabbi Shelomoh Alkavetz, who was one of the outstanding scholars of these communities.

The Siddur pleases not only the eyes. It offers a new, fluid, and gender sensitive translation of the text, a transliteration according to Sefaradi pronunciation, and a running commentary. It seems that one could not wish for more, yet there are many more pearls of wisdom and excitement to be found by the traveler in the magical paths of this Siddur. For example, the inclusion of non-binary texts in the blessings, Mi sheBerakh, given to those who are honored with an aliyyah. This is a special moment in which the Olim are acknowledged and welcomed by the community, and there is no better occasion to emphasise inclusivity.

May this siddur be the harbinger of many other prayer and study books in the same spirit of inclusion and sensitivity.

Rabbi Haim Ovadia, Iyyar 5782

INTRODUCTION

1. Tradition

Siddur Masorti began nearly seven years ago as an idea – the notion that the intersection between modern Jewish community and traditional Sefaradi liturgy and culture could be concretised into a prayerbook. Unlike most prayerbooks, when it was published Siddur Masorti was not descriptive of any individual community’s practices. Instead, it was suggestive, aspirational, and surprisingly – successful. Not only has a vibrant and thriving online community emerged around it, but real-world communities have begun or been assisted by the ability to articulate their prayer practice through our work – we could not have hoped for more. Chief among those has been our friends and Community Partner, Congregation Or VeShalom in Atlanta, USA. Or veShalom is a historic Sefaradi synagogue modelling the difficult task of preserving a distinct Sefaradi identity in a modern Jewish world, and we’re elated that Siddur Masorti is a small part of that bigger project for them, and that Congregation Or VeShalom has generously given their own name to our second volume.

Siddur Or veShalom is a pan-Sefaradi siddur, with a gender-inclusive English translation, a full and precise transliteration, and helpful instructions and commentary, all intended to present and enhance the traditional Sefaradi liturgical cycle in a way accessible to all users. In all its many variations, Sefaradi liturgy is a beautiful rite, filled with psalms and piyyutim, and chanted aloud and communally. Yet with the complete geographical rupture of most Sefaradi communities in the past century, it is in danger of being lost. We aim to bring not just knowledge of these traditions, but a love of them and a sense of belonging within them, to all who seek them.

Attempting to represent the full panoply of Sefaradi liturgical rites has required the consultation of a momentous list of siddurim, maḥzorim and pizmonim books, of a range of different minhagim. Our main sources are as follows – to all of them we are immensely grateful:

– Seder haTefillah, R’ D. de Sola Pool, New York (Spanish and Portuguese)
– Seder haTefillah, Society of Heshaim, London (Spanish and Portuguese)
– Tefillah leShabbat, Society of Heshaim, London (Spanish and Portuguese)
– Siddur Koren Aṿoṭénu, R’ Meir El‘azar ‘Attiah, Jerusalem (Moroccan)
– Siddur Pataḥ Éliyahu, Joseph-Élie Charbit, Paris (Moroccan)
– Siddur Ben Porat Yosef, R’ Yosef Haziza, London (Moroccan)
– Siddur VeHa‘arév Na, R’ Yitsḥak Sassoon, New York (Syrian)
– Orot Tefillah Series, R’ Eliezer Toledano, New Jersey (Syrian)
– Shir uShṿaḥah Hallel veZimrah, New York (Syrian)
– Tehillat Yesharim, New York (Syrian)
– Siddur Zehut Yosef, Ḥ’ Isaac Azose, Seattle (Turkish and Rhodesli)
– Siddur Kol Ya‘aḳoṿ, Istanbul (Turkish)
– Additional Prayers and Hymns, Prof. Yom Tov Assis, London (Turkish)
– Siddur Sha‘aré Tefillah, R’ Ovadiah Yosef, Jerusalem (Yerushalmi)
– Nusaḥ haTefillah shel Yehudé Faras, Jerusalem (Persian)
– Tikhlal Tefillat Aṿoṭ (Baladi-Yemenite)
– Siddur Sim Shalom, Erets haKodesh and London (‘Adeni-Yemenite)
– Siddur Koren Sefaradim, Jerusalem
– Siddur Tefillaṭ haḤoḍesh, Livorno
– Siddur Mesorat Mosheh, HaRambam
– Siddur Kol Tuv Sefarad, R’ Juan Mejia
– Atar haPiyyut vehaTefillah, National Library of Israel
– A Jewish Woman’s Prayer Book, Aliza Lavie, New York

A look through this list shows the giants on whose shoulders we are standing, and the breadth and richness of Sefaradi liturgical culture. While this is impossible to encapsulate in any one work, we hope that our effort balances the need for diversity in the text with usability. Infinite combinations of different liturgical features exist, and the coloured options shown are an attempt to provide as many of the common variations as possible. However, this book is not prescriptive about exactly which minhag says what, as some siddurim are – this is a task doomed to fail – we merely indicate geographical tilts in which certain features are more or less common. We hope almost any user will be delighted to find within, the words on the tip of their tongue. If one has yet to learn the specific details of one’s own minhag, then that should be a further topic of study, perhaps from the list of books above and from elders of one’s community. No one pan-Sefaradi siddur can or should provide that. But in the mean time, this siddur will still be easy to follow and use, and an educational resource to start that journey.

2. Inclusivity

What makes a siddur inclusive? The first feature to strike the user will be the full transliteration, enabling all to join in with tefillah, but also carefully and precisely written such that it can be a learning tool, temporary training wheels, for the user seeking to improve their Hebrew.

Some notes on the transliteration and on Hebrew, to help such a reader:

– A dagesh in any letter following an otherwise open syllable is classified as a dagesh ḥazak. It indicates the doubling of a consonant, one closing the syllable before and the next starting the syllable after. It is therefore transcribed with a double letter. An exception is made in the first root letter after a prefix, to aid ease of reading – e.g. הַשַּׁבָּת, hashabbaṭ, rather than hashabaṭ or hashshabbaṭ.

– A dagesh in a ה, known as a mappik, denotes a lightly aspirated “h” at the end of a word. It is also denoted with a double letter – e.g. לְבוּשָׁהּ, levushahh.

– A pataḥ under ע, ח or הּ at the end of a word is said before the consonant rather than after – e.g. כֹּחַ, koaḥ.

– Stress naturally falls on the final syllable, and on alternating syllables backwards from the last syllable. Where stress deviates from this, such as due to a sheva or ḥataf vowel, the final irregularly-stressed syllable in the word is underlined, and stress then alternates backwards from that syllable unless again shown otherwise – e.g. בַּֽחֲצֵרֶ֗ךָ, baḥatsarekha.

– A kamats in a closed, unstressed syllable is a kamats katan, and pronounced “o”. A closed syllable simply means that the syllable ends in a consonant sound – e.g. חָכְמָה, ḥokhmah.

– Sheva na (a sheva that is articulated as a vowel) is found when a sheva is:
   • At the start of a word, e.g. וְהוּא, vehu.
   • Following a long vowel, e.g. נֹּפְלִים nofelim.
   • Under a dagesh, or following another sheva, e.g. מִּשְׁפְּחוֹת, mishpeḥoṭ.
   • Under the first of a double consonant, e.g. הַלְלוּ, halelu. This is except if it is:
      – In a letter at the end of a word, e.g. נָאַמְתְּ, na-amt.
      – Following the primary stressed syllable, e.g. לָֽיְלָה, laylah.
      – Following an וּ at the beginning of a word, e.g. וּמְקַבֵּל, umḳabbél.

– Consonants and vowels must always alternate. This indicates that an וּ with a vowel immediately following it should be read as vv (see dagesh ḥazak) and an וֹ immediately preceded by a vowel should be read as vo – e.g. מִצְוֺת, mitsvoṭ.

– An apostrophe indicating a ע will face the vowel in the same syllable – e.g., Eli‘ezer, Yehoshua’.

– The syllable אָיו at the end of a word is articulated av – e.g עַלַָיו, ‘alav.

In the Hebrew text, very few changes for inclusivity are required – we have not aimed to undo the innate grammatical structures of the Hebrew language. Where necessary we have offered a third option, following the guidance of the Non-Binary Hebrew Project (and our own Aramaic variation on the same) for the few incidences of first-person language in the siddur. We have also brought to the fore places where traditional Sefaradi texts already centre (or at least enable) inclusivity, women or queer people, but have perhaps been forgotten – ranging from inclusive morning blessings found in the Cairo Geniza, to the use of the gender neutral Portuguese/Ladino/Aramaic “de” in place of ben/bat (son/daughter), from queer medieval Sefaradi poetry, to the work of Sefaradi paytaniyyot through history, from inclusion of the Imahot in traditional mishebérakh prayers, liturgy and piyyutim, to positive rabbinic rulings on the role of women from Sefaradi ḥakhamim through history. All of these are part of our minhag, but many are accessibly published here for the first time.

Most of the difference, however, occurs in the English translation. Hebrew is a heavily-gendered language, but English is not. Thus it is as either ‘He’ הוּ א perfectly acceptable to translate the Hebrew pronoun or ‘It.’ The trouble, of course, is that many people rightly find ‘It’ to be an inaccurate and potentially irreverent pronoun with which to refer to the Divine. As a result, throughout Siddur Masorti we have experimented with another grammatically correct way of rendering language genderneutral in English, the singular ‘They.’ There is a huge benefit to utilising this particular grammatical form when discussing the Divine.

Hebrew has already introduced us to using a plural noun for a singular subject (and singular verbs), with the common divine appellation Elohim (lit. ‘deities, gods’). A phrase like ‘Elohim oseh’ is normally translated with both words in the singular (‘God does’) even though a literal translation would be ‘Gods does’. To say ‘Gods do’ in Hebrew, you would use the phrase ‘Elohim osim’ which is never used to refer to the Divine. Therefore, in defaulting to ‘He,’ we actually lose this unique paradox of the Hebrew language – the plural noun representing a singular subject – despite it being absolutely foundational in our theology. Thus an accurate English translation would actually be ‘They does.’

Therefore through using a singular-they to refer to the Divine, we are able to truly capture the uniqueness of the Hebrew. It is meant to remind the worshipper of the utter inability of language to capture Divinity – with any resulting uncomfortability hopefully being a useful reflection on how difficult it is to talk about that which we normally call ‘God.’

The added benefit of course is that the singular-they removes any question of gender, which is theologically useful. No legitimate source of Jewish theology would claim that the Divine is male; the basic premise of a bodyless, immaterial deity prevents such categories of ‘male’ and ‘female’ from being accurate descriptions of Divinity. Instead, even the most ‘orthodox,’ will explain that the capital-H ‘He’ is simply used as a matter of convenience, and because Hebrew itself defaults to the male-gender when aiming to convey a gender-neutral subject. The hope, therefore, is that the genderneutral English translation found through Siddur Masorti will be a reminder of theological truth and a productive paradox in an attempt to capture the ineffable through language. Wherever the singular-they is used, it is represented in Small Capitals in order to distinguish the Divine from other occurrences.

May this help us to recognise that They is beyond all language even as we recite the words of the liturgy and the prayers of our hearts.

3. Beauty

Prayer is, or should be, an aesthetic experience. The encounter with the words of the siddur is not a purely linguistic exchange, it is a multisensory dialogue between the book and the user. As a result, design is perhaps more important to a siddur than to most books. While most books printed are designed to be read, a siddur is designed to be used. In this way it functions more like an instructional manual, or a book-length infographic – requiring clear illustrations, easy-to-interpret instructions, and rubrics that make the encounter between the user and the text as intimate as possible. This has informed the layout of every page of this siddur.

You will also find the works – both literary and visual – of many talented people in our Siddur Masorti community. We were honoured to put a call out for community contributions for this second volume and to receive so many excellent submissions in return (far more than we could include). We have endeavoured to place these works, both poetry and visual art, in the siddur in ways which are non-intrusive to the prayer experience but perhaps useful to the contemplative or educational engagement with the siddur. It is our hope that these visual and poetic illuminations, in the full spectrum of colour, communicate the richness of Sefaradi life and culture.

4. Special thanks

This siddur would not exist without the contributions of an incredible community of people. From proofreading translation, transliteration, Hebrew and commentary, to suggesting and sourcing rare books and piyyutim, from creating gorgeous artwork and poetry, to a roster of teachers, mentors and friends we have been incredibly lucky to learn from. The list below represents just the tip of the iceberg of an international community who care about the traditions, inclusivity and beauty of the Sefarardi world – so to all of you, thank you.

Daniel Alhadeff
Joel Arogeti
Dr. Gloria Joyce Ascher
Aaron Asher
Sophie Bigot-Goldblum
R’ Daniel Bouskila
Daph ben David
R’ Nissim Elnecavé
Osnat Bensoussan-Farouz
R’ Josh Hearshen
Morris Maslia
Al Maimon
Hefsi Cohen-Montagu
Shoshana Freed-Boardman
Lilinaz Evans
R’ Mark Greenspan
Lior Gross
Aaron Kaiser-Chen
Karen Leff
Binya Kóatz
Naomi Klionsky
Adam Kofinas
Miriam Kunin
Ikenna Maduno
R’ José Rolando Matalon
R’ Juan Mejia
R’ Rachel Montagu
Simon Montagu
R’ George Mordecai
R’ Haim Ovadia
The Myers Foundation
Rowan Joss Franck
R’ Stephanie Ruskay
Akiva Sanders
Noam Sienna
H’ Asher Shasho-Levy
Ruben Shimonov
Olve Utne
Aharon Varady
Beebee Vanunu
Mikayla Zagoria-Moffet
Azriel Zagoria-Moffet
Mirushe Zylali
and many many more!