My People's Prayer Book Vol 7 , livre ebook

R ead may be the wrong word. Engage would be better, because this is not so much a book as it is a classic text, and Jewish classics are not read so much as they are engaged. Included here is a classic text of Jewish prayer, spanning 2,000 years of Jewish experience with the world and with God; and nine thoughtful commentaries on that text, each one reaching back in a different way, again through 2,000 years of time. The question ought to be, Who should engage this book in personal dialogue?
If you like to pray, or find prayer services baffling: Whether you are Orthodox, Conservative, Reconstructionist, or Reform, you will find that My People s Prayer Book tells you what you need to know to pray. The Hebrew text here is the most authentic one we have, and the variations among the Jewish movements are described and explained. They are all treated as equally authentic. The translation is honest, altogether unique, and outfitted with notes comparing it to others translations. Of special interest is a full description of the Halakhah (the how to ) of prayer and the philosophy behind it.
If you are a spiritual seeker or Jewishly curious: If you have wondered what Judaism is all about, the prayer book is the place to begin. It is the one and only book that Jews read each and every day. The commentaries explain how the prayers were born, and synopsize insights of founding Rabbis, medieval authorities, Chasidic masters, and modern theologians. The layout replicates the look of Jewish classics: a text surrounded by many marginal commentaries allowing you to skip back and forth across centuries of insight.
If you are a teacher or a student: This is a perfect book for adult studies, or for youth groups, teenagers, and camps. Any single page provides comparative insight from the length and breadth of Jewish tradition, about the texts that have mattered most in the daily life of the Jewish people.
If you are a scholar: Though written in friendly prose, this book is composed by scholars: professors of Bible, Rabbinics, Medieval Studies, Liturgy, Theology, Linguistics, Jewish Law, Mysticism, and Modern Jewish Thought. No other work summarizes current wisdom on Jewish prayer, drawn from so many disciplines.
If you are not Jewish: You need not be Jewish to understand this book. It provides access for everyone to the Jewish wisdom tradition. It chronicles the ongoing Jewish-Christian dialogue, and the roots of Christian prayer in Christianity s Jewish origins.
The My People s Prayer Book: Traditional Prayers, Modern Commentaries series Volume 1- The Sh ma and Its Blessings 168 pp, 978-1-879045-79-8 Volume 2- The Amidah 240 pp, 978-1-879045-80-4 Volume 3- P sukei D zimrah (Morning Psalms) 240 pp, 978-1-879045-81-1 Volume 4- Seder K riat Hatorah (The Torah Service) 264 pp, 978-1-879045-82-8 Volume 5- Birkhot Hashachar (Morning Blessings) 240 pp, 978-1-879045-83-5 Volume 6- Tachanun and Concluding Prayers 240 pp, 978-1-879045-84-2 Volume 7- Shabbat at Home 240 pp, 978-1-879045-85-9 Volume 8- Kabbalat Shabbat (Welcoming Shabbat in the Synagogue) 240 pp, 978-1-58023-121-3 Volume 9- Welcoming the Night: Minchah and Ma ariv (Afternoon and Evening Prayer) 272 pp, 978-1-58023-262-3 Volume 10- Shabbat Morning: Shacharit and Musaf (Morning and Additional Services) 240 pp, 978-1-58023-240-1
Prayers of Awe Volume 1- Who by Fire, Who by Water- Un taneh Tokef 272 pp, 978-1-58023-424-5 Volume 2- All These Vows- Kol Nidre 288 pp, 978-1-58023-430-6 Volume 3- We Have Sinned:Sin and Confession in Judaism- Ashamnu and Al Chet 288 pp, 978-1-58023-612-6 Volume 4- May God Remember: Memory and Memorializing in Judaism- Yizkor 304 pp, 978-1-58023-689-8
My People s Passover Haggadah: Traditional Texts, Modern Commentaries Volume 1- 304 pp, 978-1-58023-354-5 Volume 2- 320 pp, 978-1-58023-346-0


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INTRODUCTION TO THE LITURGY OF SHABBAT AT HOME: WHY THE HOME?
Lawrence A. Hoffman
INTRODUCTION TO THE LITURGY OF SHABBAT AT HOME: WHY SHABBAT?
Lawrence A. Hoffman
SHABBAT Z MIROT : AN EXPANDING FRONTIER OF THE JEWISH SPIRIT
Lawrence A. Hoffman
S UDAH SH LISHIT : A RITE OF MODEST MAJESTY
Michael Chernick
INTRODUCTION TO THE COMMENTARIES: HOW TO LOOK FOR MEANING IN THE PRAYERS
Lawrence A. Hoffman
THE LITURGY
1.WELCOMING SHABBAT
A. HADLAKAT NEROT ( CANDLE LIGHTING )
B. BIRKAT BANIM ( BLESSING OF CHILDREN )
C. SHALOM ALEIKHEM ( PEACE TO YOU )
D. ESHET CHAYIL ( A WORTHY WOMAN )
E. KIDDUSH ( SANCTIFICATION )
F. Z MIROT ( TABLE SONGS )
I. YOM ZEH L YISRA EL ( THIS IS ISRAEL S DAY )
II. D ROR YIKRA ( LET HIM PROCLAIM FREEDOM )
III. Y DID NEFESH ( SOUL S COMPANION )
IV. SHABBAT HAMALKAH ( THE SHABBAT QUEEN )
2. KIDDUSHA RABBAH ( THE GREAT KIDDUSH )
3.BIDDING SHABBAT FAREWELL
A. HAVDALAH ( SEPARATION )
B. SHAVU A TOV ( A GOOD WEEK )
C. ELIYAHU HANAVI ( ELIJAH THE PROPHET )
About the Contributors
List of Abbreviations
Glossary
CONTRIBUTORS
MARC BRETTLER: Our Biblical Heritage
MICHAEL CHERNICK S udah Sh lishit: The Third Shabbat Meal
ELLIOT N. DORFF: Theological Reflections
DAVID ELLENSON: How the Modern Prayer Book Evolved
ELLEN FRANKEL: A Woman s Voice
ALYSSA GRAY: Our Talmudic Heritage
JOEL M. HOFFMAN: What the Prayers Really Say
LAWRENCE A. HOFFMAN: History of the Liturgy
LAWRENCE KUSHNER AND NEHEMIA POLEN: Chasidic and Mystical Perspectives
DANIEL LANDES: The Halakhah of Prayer


Why the Home?
Lawrence A. Hoffman
PRAYER BOOKS, SYNAGOGUE, AND HOME
Normally, we think of the prayer book (or Siddur [pronounced see-DOOR or, commonly, SIH-d r] as it is called) as containing the liturgy for the synagogue, and indeed, that is correct. But the original prayer books from the period called the geonic era (c. 750-1034), and their medieval successors, too, contained much more than that. They were compendia of prayer in general and included not only synagogue prayers for the entire year, but also prayers said privately (such as the bedtime Sh ma ) or at home with the family (the entire Passover Haggadah, for instance, or the home liturgy for Shabbat, the topic of this volume). Instructions were liberally interspersed alongside the prayers, providing the information people needed for their life of prayer, whether communal or private.
The important point is that the printing press had yet to be invented, so these early prayer books were hard-to-get handwritten documents copied painstakingly by scribes, and not for private use but for the community. Prayer leaders might read from the book as they recited the liturgy aloud at services; individuals who, normally, didn t have their own copies would request instructions on how to pray at home and receive answers based on what the leaders read in the town s official copy. The Siddur became not just a book of prayer, but also a standard reference guide to be consulted for everything from how to say the morning Sh ma to the requisite customs for a funeral. All of that would change with the invention of printing.
Europeans were not the first to develop the modern technology of printing. Koreans were using it as early as 1403. But it was being studied independently by Europeans-including at least one Jew, Davin de Caderousse of Provence-by the 1440s, when Johannes Gutenberg (1400-1468) set up his epochal printing press. Its breakthrough was its use of a technology that made it possible to print from individual letters cast in moveable metallic type, rather than inking a wood or metal block that could print only an entire page (or part, thereof), but could not be disassembled and put back together again, letter by letter, in other combinations. Scribal replication of manuscripts would soon become obsolete, a consequence not lost on scribes who frequently opposed the new technology on theological grounds. But the revolution was not immediate. Printed books were still costly and rare. William Caxton, for instance, the first British printer, set up a press in Westminster in 1476 but managed to produce only about a hundred items in almost twenty years.
About the same time (1475), the first dated Hebrew books were being printed (some, without dates, may have come somewhat earlier); and by the sixteenth century, printing was becoming feasible on a wide-scale basis. Up until then, reading had been a public, not a private, matter-Benedictine monks, for example, spent four hours a day being read to. But by 1597, books were becoming sufficiently standard, at least among the élite, that it was felt necessary to impose imperial censorship over the Frankfurt book fair. Also in the sixteenth century, the great publishing houses for Jewish books made their appearance.
Still, with output necessarily limited, printers had to choose their Jewish titles carefully and design them to the taste of what was still a very tiny moneyed clientele. Liturgical works were obvious candidates for inclusion. A prayer book was the first publication of a Hebrew printing press established in Prague in 1512, and beautifully designed versions of Italian prayer books printed on p