This Fall at the Open Siddur Project
Aharon Varady
I hope this message finds you and your loved ones safe and well at the end of this dramatic summer. Our last update was mid-July, and so I've been meaning to share with everyone on this list the work that's been posted at opensiddur.org over the last two months. If you'd like more up
As for news, Efraim Feinstein, lead developer of the Open Siddur "Builder" web application has been completing development milestones at a rate of one milestone every two months. Just to remind, the Builder application is our vision --- what exists now is only a shadow of what we envision -- a collaborative publishing social network for folk crafting, maintaining, and sharing their prayers, liturgy-related work, siddurim, machzorim, birkhonim, curricular materials, etc. so they can be rendered as print-ready electronic files suitable for printing and publishing by an on-demand printer. Efraim most recently completed Milestone 0.4.4 which ensures that multiple folk can use the application at once without it crashing. Important backend work. To take a look at the complete list of milestones, see here: http://wiki.jewishliturgy.org/Milestones
By the way, if you're in Jerusalem this September 19, at 7pm, come and stop by the PresenTense Jerusalem Hub where Efraim will be speaking on, "Making 'free' work for social entrepreneurship: the benefits and challenges of developing your idea in an open source community." Curious? Read on:
'Open source" is something of a buzzword in the social entrepreneurship community. This talk will discuss the free software/open source development model as a way to include "socially responsible" software development as part of your social entrepreneurship repertoire. What is it? What are its advantages? What are some of the challenges in applying it? Come with your questions and ideas for discussion.
In other news, I want to celebrate the work of Open Siddur Project contributor, Andrew Meit, who recently completed a gorgeous digital restoration of one of the signature carpet pages of the Leningrad Codex. Andrew is setting up a kickstarter page where he hopes that in return for folk ordering prints of his work, he'll be able to complete his creative work restoring the entire set of carpet pages included in the Leningrad Codex. More news to come with this exciting project.
We're grateful to all the folks who have shared their work this past summer: Gilah Langner, Jill Hammer, David Seidenberg, Chajm Guski, Arthur Waskow, Cary Lesser (Ketzirah), Nissim Nanaḥ, Avi Dolgin, Shmueli Gonzales, Andrew Meit, Eden Village Camp, the Adamah Fellowship, Teva Learning Center, Rachel Katz, Effron Esseiva, Trisha Arlin, Rallis Wiesenthal, and Reuven Brauner. See below for links to their work, work that you can adopt, adapt, and redistribute under the terms of free/libre licenses.
With love and gratitude,
Aharon Varady
Founder/Director/Hierophant
The Open Siddur Project
building open source, interactive, empowering tools for cultivating your spiritual practice
http://opensiddur.org
In 2010 while beginning to prepare resources for Tu Bishvat, I stumbled across a fascinating project over on Wikisource — the Open Breslov Project — a project for creating free digital translations into English of the work of Rebbe Naḥman of Breslov, the work of his student, Reb Natan of Nemirov, and a few others. Closely related to the Open Siddur Project is an effort at Hebrew Wikisource to create free digital editions of all the texts of Breslov Ḥasidut in Hebrew. . . . → Read More: Likutei Tefillot and The Open Breslov Project
Avi Dolgin shares his mindful practice for maintaining “tashlikh consciousness” in the days leading up to Rosh Hashanah. . . . → Read More: A Ten-Step, Four-Worlds, One-Earth Tashlikh
Avinu she-ba-shamayim, our Parent in heaven, v’Ruaḥ kol basar, the Spirit of all that lives, We turn toward You as we recall today with sorrow and honor those who lost their lives ten years ago, and those who gave their lives -– as passengers, firemen, and rescuers –- so that others might live. Grant their souls continuing rest in the shelter of eternity. And grant to us peace and fortitude in the years ahead, that we may restore a sense of trust and security to this great land, that we may be guided not by fear or terror, but by strength and understanding, holding fast to our ideals and upholding our highest values. Guard our comings and our goings in peace, now and always, Amen. . . . → Read More: A Prayer for September 11th, 2001 by Rabbi Gilah Langner
Once upon a time when the Temple still stood, the Rosh Hashanah Livheima celebrated one means by which we elevated and esteemed the special creatures that helped us to live and to work. Just as rabbinic Judaism found new ways to realize our Temple offerings with tefillot — prayers — so too the Rosh Hashanah Livheima challenges us to realize the holiness of the animals in our care in a time without tithes. The New Years Day for Animals is a challenge to remind and rediscover what our responsibilities are to the animals who depend on us for their welfare. Are we treating them correctly and in accord with the mitzvah of tza’ar baalei chayim — sensitivity to the suffering of living creatures? Have we studied and understood the depth of ḥesed — lovingkindness — expressed in the breadth of our ancestors teachings concerning the welfare of animals in Torah? Rosh Hashanah Livheima is the day to reflect on our immediate or mediated relationships with domesticated animals, recognize our personal responsibilities to them, individually and as part of a distinct and holy people, and repair our relationships to the best of our ability. . . . → Read More: ראש השנה לבהמה: explanation and ritual for Rosh Hashanah Livheima (New Years Day for Animals)
Stunden Der Andacht, Fanny Neuda (nèe Schmeidl)’s popular collection of prayers written in German and published in Prague in 1855 was already in its fifth printing a decade later when Rabbi Moritz Mayer published his English translation, Hours of Devotion (1866) in New York. Neuda’s collection of Jewish prayers is unique by virtue of its being possibly the first to authored by a Jewish woman. Earlier collections of tkhinos — petitionary prayers, comprising a growing literature of devotional works for prayer outside of the shul were authored by Jewish men. . . . → Read More: An Abridged English Translation of Fanny Neuda’s Stunden Der Andacht by R’ Moritz Mayer (1866)
Traditional Judaism offers a confessional prayer, or vidui, to be recited during a time of serious illness or near death. If the patient is unable to recite the prayer, others may do so on his or her behalf. This modern adaptation [of vidui] places less emphasis on atonement for sins, and more on the bonds connecting the patient to his or her loved ones. It can be recited by a friend, family member, or chaplain on behalf of a person who is very ill, especially when life and death are hanging in the balance. . . . → Read More: Prayer in a Time of Serious Illness by Rabbi Gilah Langner
Tu B’Av, the fifteenth of the month of Av, comes in July or August, at a time when the air is sweltering, the sun is ever-present, and the green plant life is wilting. In Israel, Av is a month of extreme heat when nothing grows. It comes just six days after the 9th of Av, Tisha B’Av, the holiday of mourning, when the Temple is destroyed, when the Shekhinah grieves like a widow who has lost her mate. The first of Tammuz, when we recognize our exile and mortality, lingers in the heat of the air. Yet Tu B’Av is a holiday of dancing and choosing lovers, a holiday of life. It is a turning around of time. It is the moment when the fallen fruit breaks open to reveal the new seed. . . . → Read More: The Fruit of Tu B’Av: explanation and ritual for the 15th of Av by R’ Jill Hammer
Since the Jewish calendar is not affixed to the sun, but corrected by a leap year to its seasons, Tu B’Av does not normally fall on the summer solstice. And yet, the relationship between Tu B’Av and the zenith of the summer is alluded to in Rav Menashya’s statement regarding Tu B’Av, “From this day onwards, he who increases [his knowledge through study as the nights grow longer] will have his life prolonged.” . . . → Read More: Tu B’Av: sources for study and celebration on the 15th of Av
We are grateful to Rabbi Arthur Waskow for contributing his expansion of and meditation on the Shema, originally composed the 6th of Tishrei, 5764 (October 2nd, 2003).
Sh’ma: An Interpretation for the 21st Century
Sh’sh’sh’ma Yisra’el — Listen, You Godwrestlers! Pause from your wrestling and hush’sh’sh To hear — YHWH/ Yahh
Hear in the stillness . . . → Read More: Shema by Rabbi Arthur Waskow
Rabbi Arthur Waskow writes to share an excerpt of a service for Tisha B’Av emphasizing the significance of the Temple as the temple for the entire earth and all of creation. It’s destruction remains a calamity for all.
Rabbi Waskow writes:
Tisha B’Av (the midsummer day of Jewish mourning for the ancient Temples . . . → Read More: Lament & Hope for Earth: Tisha B’Av for Our Generation (by the Shalom Center and Tamara Cohen)
The idea that tragedy and disaster are punishment for our sins is alien to most most modern Jews. The author(s) of Eikhah believed that what happened to Zion was divine punishment. (This is one reason why it is hard to connect the Holocaust with what we mourn on Tish’a B’av.) Besides the obvious consolation of believing that the tragedy had meaning, the reader might also consider that for the ancients, the two choices were to believe that the destruction was punishment, or that God simply had no interest in them. It is easy to imagine why people would choose the image of a punishing God over the complete absence of God – though the latter possibility is suggested in the very last line of the text, before we go back to repeat the more comforting line “Turn us…” . . . → Read More: Megillat Eikhah (Lamentations) for Tisha B’Av by Rabbi David Seidenberg
We are grateful to Alan Scott Belsky for translating his favorite Prayer for the Government. The version below is included in the סדור שְׂפַת אֱמֶת הֶחָדָשׁ — Siddur Sfat Emet HeḤadash “Daily Prayer with English Directions” (1916, Hebrew Publishing Co., New York, NY) p.195-196. Thank you to Aharon Varady for his transcription of the Hebrew . . . → Read More: A Civic Minded Prayer for the Government (translated by Alan Scott Belsky)
The day after humankind’s first landing on the Lunar surface July 20, 1969, the Jewish Telegraphic Agency reported on a poetic and topical innovation to the Kiddush Levana, the Blessing over the Moon, by Israeli Armed Forces’ Chief Chaplain General Shlomo Goren in the IDF Siddur. . . . → Read More: Dancing with the Moon: innovations in the Kiddush Levana in light of the first moon landing