desh | a new new siddur

a new new siddur

(Warning: This post is rather inside baseball; most of you won't give a damn.)

Inspired by the comments on Rooftopper Rav's Jewschool post complaining about the Artscroll Women's Siddur, I've decided to write down what I think it is I want in a new siddur. The target audience of this siddur, I think, would be slightly different than that of all existing siddurim. So here we go:

It should be a "kol bo" siddur, which apparently means "shabbat and holidays and weekdays". I certainly don't need high holiday stuff rolled in.

Except, maybe it should leave out things that are found in any good bentcher? A lot of the suggestions below serve to increase the size of the entire venture, and this might be one way to save some space. Though I'm flexible on this point.

Page layout should be unforgiving. Cram everything together, like Artscroll. Or at least like Sim Shalom. But not like Kol Haneshamah or Purple. We're going for utility here.

Page size and binding should be like Sim Shalom and Artscroll. Pages around 6"x9" or whatever those are, very lightweight paper, perfect-bound. One main thing that's missing from The Purple Siddur and The Yellow Siddur is portability. So how can this slimming down be accomplished?

It should have less than everything transliterated. Purple and Yellow were both revolutionary. And I love Purple. (I don't feel the same way about Yellow, but that's because it's targeted at an audience I'm not a part of.) But I think they've created a trap that all of us liberal siddur brainstormers fall into. Transliterating everything creates a much weightier siddur, not to mention creating massive layout headaches unless you use unnaturally large page sizes. And since we're going for a slightly different target audience here, I'm okay with getting rid of the 100% transliteration. However, I don't know whether some things should be transliterated or not. If you don't transliterate anything, you lose the ability to rope in some less experienced daveners with poor Hebrew skills, since they won't be able to sing along to anything. But if you transliterate some things, you're being normative about which things "are sung" and which aren't. Also, if you do transliterate, do you squeeze it in on the English side of the page like in New Sim Shalom? Maybe you do an interlinear transliteration in the Hebrew? Or would that be too distracting?

Oh, by the way, facing English and Hebrew pages should have the same page numbers. Lots of siddurim are getting this right these days. People calling or writing page numbers shouldn't need to be normative about which version of the prayer they're indicating.

It should have interesting kavanot on occasion. Maybe below a horizontal line on a page or something. I'm not so into that sort of thing, but I know some people are, and kavanot don't hurt anything. However...

It should have literal translations. Nothing frustrates me about Sim Shalom more than poetic "translations" of poetic bits of liturgy, when the "translation" is more like a poem inspired by the original. There are better poetic translations of things out there, but there's a time and place for that sort of thing, and I don't think this prayerbook is it. Unless such inspired work is located as a kavanah on the page in addition to a literal translation.

It should be liberally footnoted. (Can you tell I'm trying to encroach into Artscroll's territory here?) I want to know the source of every text in there. I want to know the translator of everything. It really wouldn't take up that much space.

Here's the big one: It should have lots of pluralistic, non-normative stage directions, also liberally footnoted. "In some communities, everyone stands for this kaddish; in other communities, only people reciting kaddish stand." "Some communities discourage women from reciting kaddish, but many encourage it." If you want to know more, read the footnote, maybe check out the sources, and make your own decisions on what to do. I know of no siddur that guides people to making their own decisions on this sort of thing, informed by knowing the source of whatever practice they're questioning.

It should contain alternate texts and wordings, and clearly distinguish somehow which alternates are for occasions and which are historical or modern changes in text. The challenge here is to come up with some way of making "some people say the imahot" and "most people say this line, but only on shabbat shuvah" visually distinct. Using brackets or small font for both of them won't cut it. And in the case of text changes not occasioned by the calendar or life cycle events, where there's an addition that's clearly non-normative (such as including "v'al kol yoshvei teivel" in the first line of "shalom rav"), I do think it's fine to "diminish" the alternate version by putting it in brackets or a different color or something. But footnote it! But where there are slightly larger text changes, or when there are two widely-used versions of something (like with Yedid Nefesh), it's fine to have "page 156a" and "page 156b". This way the siddur is both letting individuals choose between them and letting page-number-callers decide whether to announce a particular version of a page or just a number.

So, an example of all of this: Aleinu. I'm envisioning two dapim. The first pair of facing pages, page 678a or whatever, has the traditional text, with the "shehem mishtachavim" half-sentence in brackets or small font or something, endnoted. (The note would be 1-2 sentences long, indicating the time period that line was removed, why, and perhaps a source for more information.) Page 678b would have an alternate, modern version of the first paragraph, with authorship and reason for replacement noted in the endnote. It would also have the second paragraph, so people don't have to flip back. On both pages, the first half of the first paragraph and the last line of the second might be transliterated, and the whole thing would be translated. Perhaps both pages would also footnote the entire prayer, indicating that it came from the high holiday liturgy and began being used for daily services in whatever century.

So make hardbound and mini-softbound-pocket editions, cram the weekday torah readings into the back of the pocket one, and we're done!

What do y'all think? Am I missing anything? Who wants to make it with me?

Threaded | Top-Level Comments Only

I'd also like to see clear statements about the origins of various pieces of the liturgy and when they came into the standard matbeah (prayer sequence). Generally speaking, KH does this well. for instance: aleinu was originally a piyut (liturgical poem) used only on the High Holidays, (in rosh hashanah as part of the amidah's malchuyot section i think). Yedid nefesh was composed in the 16th century by Elazar Azikri. I have now forgotten whether it was yedid nefesh or another piece but one of them became so common in the sefardi world that it was used in all services, rather similar to how aleinu took off in the last 400 years. This would serve the purpose of creating more informed daveners but also the important purpose of showing that our cannon has been in a constant state of evolution and serve to counter the claims we often hear (especially from habad) about a 5000 year old matbeah.

great idea for a project, i wonder if you could get buy-in from people with substantial amounts of the liturgy already electronic.

--
ZT

One of these days I'm going to sit down with an artscroll, a koren, and a pen, and copy all the footnotes of things I like. Then I won't need an Artscroll again, for anything :-D

That's about the only advantage Artscroll has for me these days. My ideal siddur wouldn't be translated, but it would have koren mahzor style footnotes explaining tricky Hebrew bits. (Yep, I know I've been lucky to have enough years of formal Jewish education under my belt, plus enough time spent getting distracted during davenning and reading the translations.)

I'm also a fan of offering Aramaic translated into Hebrew.

Oooh, I didn't even think of the Aramaic/Hebrew thing. Great idea! My Hebrew is still weak enough that it makes about as much sense to me as Aramaic, but I'm sure there are people who'd love a Hebrew "beh ana rachetz" and other stuff.

I do love having a hebrew "brich shmay"- that's how I figured out actually what it meant (there are enough cognates that I got the hang of it more quickly than I would have from an english translation)

Also, "brich shmay" has enough first person gendered verbs/nouns that I don't know how to change in Aramaic, but I can change in Hebrew. For example, as someone who identifies as female, I'd rather refer to myself as an "amah" of God, rather than an "eved".

I've heard that the Artscroll women's siddur forgot to feminize things like "modeh ani" (--> modAH ani). But not having actually seen the siddur, I can't say if this is correct.

Some other preferences:
-Logical line breaks that help make the meaning clearer (koren is good at this). The downside is that this is somewhat less space efficient.
-an attractive layout and typeface. Another reason I'm attached to Koren, though I've heard Vilna is good too (not familiar to me, but Alan likes it). Artscroll is so-so in this regard.

A shaded background box is the easiest way for me to deal with seasonal additions. Not sure the best way to deal with micro-changes. Probably have to bite the bullet, give one the more normative space, and provide good footnotes or margin notes.

Part 1(Live journal won't allow the entire response as one post)
It should be a "kol bo" siddur, which apparently means "shabbat and holidays and weekdays".

I've never seen "kol bo" used to describe a siddur before. I've only used it to describe a person doing everything(rabbi,cantor,torah reader). I believe the term here is "siddur shalem," which distinguishes the siddur from just a weekday or just a Shabbat/Holiday siddur.

it should leave out things that are found in any good bentcher? A lot of the suggestions below serve to increase the size of the entire venture, and this might be one way to save some space. Though I'm flexible on this point.

I'm not sure I agree here. On the one hand it's nice to have a nice compact book just for davening, but it's also nice to have the other random prayers for when you need them. Ideally this book should replace Artscroll, and if it doesn't include all of the random prayers you'll still need an Artscroll for reference on occasion(I don't think any other siddur includes as many rarely used but usefull prayers as artscroll). Also, I'd love to see the footnotes on bentching and some of the other prayers. Maybe there are two versions?

Page layout should be unforgiving. Cram everything together, like Artscroll. Or at least like Sim Shalom. But not like Kol Haneshamah or Purple. We're going for utility here.

There is something to be said for keeping the poetic/stanza structure. Sim Shalom spaces there stuff more, but I'm not positive they really paid attention to the poetic structure. Personally I like the Koren layout. But you're right Kol Haneshamah and co. are atrocious.

Page size and binding should be like Sim Shalom and Artscroll.< Pages around 6"x9" or whatever those are, very lightweight paper, perfect-bound.

Ding, Ding, Ding...6x9 exhists for a reason. It's a comfortable size for the human hand. If the siddur is a pain to hold/store no one will use it regardless of what content you put inside.

It should have less than everything transliterated. Purple and Yellow were both revolutionary. And I love Purple. (I don't feel the same way about Yellow, but that's because it's targeted at an audience I'm not a part of.) But I think they've created a trap that all of us liberal siddur brainstormers fall into. Transliterating everything creates a much weightier siddur, not to mention creating massive layout headaches unless you use unnaturally large page sizes. And since we're going for a slightly different target audience here, I'm okay with getting rid of the 100% transliteration. However, I don't know whether some things should be transliterated or not. If you don't transliterate anything, you lose the ability to rope in some less experienced daveners with poor Hebrew skills, since they won't be able to sing along to anything. But if you transliterate some things, you're being normative about which things "are sung" and which aren't. Also, if you do transliterate, do you squeeze it in on the English side of the page like in New Sim Shalom? Maybe you do an interlinear transliteration in the Hebrew? Or would that be too distracting?

The Hebrew should remain clean for people who only want to look at the Hebrew. My personal preference would be no translation or transliteration to keep it compact, but I do see the use for both depending on who you market the siddur to. I think translation and minimal transliteration is a good compromise. But I might limit the transliterations to places where responses are expected instead of singing spots. ex: barchu, kaddish, kedusha, torah service. Maybe add one or two other common parts such as ein keloheinu, anim zemirot, adon olam.

Part 2
facing English and Hebrew pages should have the same page numbers.

That assumes that English and Hebrew are on facing pages. If we are going to restrict this to two columns for the most part then the English and Hebrew can be on both sides of the page.

It should have interesting kavanot on occasion. Maybe below a horizontal line on a page or something. I'm not so into that sort of thing, but I know some people are, and kavanot don't hurt anything.

I hate kavanot, my ideal siddur shouldn't have them and my ideal shul wouldn't include them. If you must include some make them as small and unobtrusive as possible. Bury them with the footnote section, or stick them in the back with small references pointing people to where to go.

It should have literal translations. Nothing frustrates me about Sim Shalom more than poetic "translations" of poetic bits of liturgy, when the "translation" is more like a poem inspired by the original. There are better poetic translations of things out there, but there's a time and place for that sort of thing, and I don't think this prayerbook is it. Unless such inspired work is located as a kavanah on the page in addition to a literal translation.

Agreed.

It should be liberally footnoted. (Can you tell I'm trying to encroach into Artscroll's territory here?) I want to know the source of every text in there. I want to know the translator of everything. It really wouldn't take up that much space.

Yep, in general I would assume it would be one translator or editorial translation team for the whole siddur so you don't need to note each and every prayer. But if one specific prayer is translated differently it should be noted(but maybe as an endnote instead of a footnote)

It should have lots of pluralistic, non-normative stage directions, also liberally footnoted. "In some communities, everyone stands for this kaddish; in other communities, only people reciting kaddish stand." "Some communities discourage women from reciting kaddish, but many encourage it." If you want to know more, read the footnote, maybe check out the sources, and make your own decisions on what to do. I know of no siddur that guides people to making their own decisions on this sort of thing, informed by knowing the source of whatever practice they're questioning.

Sounds good in theory. In practice you need to be very careful about phrasing. "Some communities discourage women from reciting kaddish, but many encourage it." Even that biases people towards the second statement. Granted I don't think this siddur will ever be seen to say nothing of used by a shul that discourages women from saying kaddish, but that's still no reason to leave a value bias visible. Also, this needs to be concise. People can't read a paragraph every time they need to take an action, and it will just get annoying for people that know what they do.

Part3
It should contain alternate texts and wordings, and clearly distinguish somehow which alternates are for occasions and which are historical or modern changes in text. The challenge here is to come up with some way of making "some people say the imahot" and "most people say this line, but only on shabbat shuvah" visually distinct. Using brackets or small font for both of them won't cut it. And in the case of text changes not occasioned by the calendar or life cycle events, where there's an addition that's clearly non-normative (such as including "v'al kol yoshvei teivel" in the first line of "shalom rav"), I do think it's fine to "diminish" the alternate version by putting it in brackets or a different color or something. But footnote it! But where there are slightly larger text changes, or when there are two widely-used versions of something (like with Yedid Nefesh), it's fine to have "page 156a" and "page 156b". This way the siddur is both letting individuals choose between them and letting page-number-callers decide whether to announce a particular version of a page or just a number.

Which category would you put birkhot hashachar in?

So, an example of all of this: Aleinu. I'm envisioning two dapim. The first pair of facing pages, page 678a or whatever, has the traditional text, with the "shehem mishtachavim" half-sentence in brackets or small font or something, endnoted. (The note would be 1-2 sentences long, indicating the time period that line was removed, why, and perhaps a source for more information.) Page 678b would have an alternate, modern version of the first paragraph, with authorship and reason for replacement noted in the endnote. It would also have the second paragraph, so people don't have to flip back. On both pages, the first half of the first paragraph and the last line of the second might be transliterated, and the whole thing would be translated. Perhaps both pages would also footnote the entire prayer, indicating that it came from the high holiday liturgy and began being used for daily services in whatever century.

That might work, but you need to make sure the layout always has aleinu at the top of the page(which increases whitespace elsewhere).

So make hardbound and mini-softbound-pocket editions, cram the weekday torah readings into the back of the pocket one, and we're done!

Torah readings should be in both. I think you're equating softbound with a shalem siddur and hardback with a shabbat and festival siddur. You might also consider including festival torah readings in the back(most siddurim that include torah readings include them), but that could be a good place to save a couple pages. I've never quite understood the logic of including festival readings and not shabbat readings besides space.

What do y'all think? Am I missing anything? Who wants to make it with me?

Release it under a "free" license so people can make any changes they don't like. Publish it on lulu.com so it can be printed on demand and people can easily print their custom versions.

I'd love the challenge, even if I don't use your version exactly I think its close enough to what I want that I could then modify it for my own use. But the first step is a freely available digital copy of the siddur. Without that siddurim will only come from big business.

Clear notes, not opaquely dogmatic, nice typography and additions that strike a good balance between unobtrusive year-round, but noticeable when relevant.

I must say, originally, I was afraid this would be a treatise on the problems with the new pinch-cantor rule... I mean, I still only barely follow, but whew.

To get to parts I do understand, I'm all about more literal translations. You're dead on, in that trying to translate the poetry really just makes a layer of unnecessary separation from the meaning. I recently heard about a new translation of the Psalms coming out. The translator, Altman I think his name was, scrupulously tried to get away from the traditional and back to the literal... One word in particular, big news - he got rid of "soul."

Big discussion on why, on NPR, but mainly because what translators have traditionally translated into English as "soul" really means "life-breath" (was it "nefesh" or somesuch?), and actually had different contextual meanings from association. E.G., it also means "neck"... and thus Psalm 69 in the King James (and most after) begins with a very poetic, hard to follow "Save me, O God; for the waters are come in unto my soul" where in the original, it was much more like "Help me, Lord, I'm in up to my neck and sinking." That's an image that hits a lot more viscerally.

The two things to always remember about translating is (1) it's hard, and (2) there's just no such thing as doing it perfectly. Given that, I think there are different imperfect translations for different situations. For example, from everything I've heard, Everett Fox's translation of the Torah is one of the best ever written. But it sacrifices some of the word meanings for a better sense of the idiomatic stuff and word play in the original...which I think makes it worse to use as a translation facing the original, for someone who hopes to learn the Hebrew better.

I think the single hardest thing about a siddur project is picking a translation or translations or translators or translation style(s).

*nod* It's always the case in translation, part particularly so for texts written in a context more or less alien to the average reader, whether from culture or simple chronology. Isaac Asimov (I think it was) had a wonderful essay on "Lost in the Non-Translation, where he talked about the Book of Ruth losing some value because people don't walk around complaining about how "Those damn Moabites are ruining the country."

I'm personally a fan of being literal insofar as the translation, and explanatory footnoting where something is lost by being literal about it. That's just me, though, and obviously not considering constraints of the siddur project.

On the learning aspect (YMMV etc), for my part, I solidly avoided using translations as learning material when studying my Crazy Moon Language^tm. After a certain point, I even stopped using translation dictionaries. Once the basics were down, it was much, much more useful to use a dictionary in German, rather than try to cherry-pick potential English synonyms, because it provided better perspective on the word-on-itself, as opposed to trying to "hook" it onto a word I already knew. This of course means I'm also pants at translation, myself, because I think either in English or German.

meta question: what are the advantages of "make your own siddur" vs. having a premade one?

It's tempting to personalize the "perfect" siddur for myself. But on the other hand, my preferences shift over time, and it would be a prohibitive waste of resoures to update each time. Maybe (in our theoretical world of personalized siddurim) just updating each time I wear out a siddur?

On the side of having a standard siddur-- many people find it useful to have an announcer or at least a guide sheet to help with page numbers.

maybe a standard with the option to alter it? is this a pipe-dream?

(I'm more intrigued by the idea than anything else; I'm pretty well set with siddurim myself)

Which category would you put birkhot hashachar in?

If you're talking about the brachot specifically, and the three that are often different in liberal siddurim than in traditional text, then my preference would be to find a way to put new and old on equal footing. (Either pages "a" and "b", or some sort of vertical line on the page splitting the two.) But if this siddur ever actually gets made, I'm sure it won't only be up to me.

I think the "birkkot hashachar unit" as a whole is just really problematic for this siddur. There are so many variations in all the stuff before psalm 30, and I know so little about them, that I just have no idea how to handle it at all.

Release it under a "free" license so people can make any changes they don't like. Publish it on lulu.com so it can be printed on demand and people can easily print their custom versions.

I'd love the challenge, even if I don't use your version exactly I think its close enough to what I want that I could then modify it for my own use. But the first step is a freely available digital copy of the siddur. Without that siddurim will only come from big business.

I love free content as much as anyone. But I also like prayers written recently enough that copyright hasn't expired, and I also like translators I don't know personally; and that stuff would almost be impossible to put in anything free-content. Finding a balance between those two would be a fun challenge.

Also, there are already siddurim that don't come from big business. Purple and Yellow are two great examples. There's just not much quantity or variety in what's out there. Yet.

I think it would be ideal to release it under a Creative Commons license that would permit users to "remix" the text. I believe that it would actually be VERY easy to find a translator (or team of them) who would be willing to do the work if they knew it would be released under a license that is not abusive so that as many people as possible can enjoy it! Myself included. :O)

Also, for the record, I HATE Everett Fox's translation, but I think it's mostly just a question of aesthetic preference.

I'm a fan of the all Hebrew siddurim. When I was at CJC I would use an all-Hebrew artscroll when I wasn't leading davening, so I wouldn't have to be offended by the footnotes, since I can't read them!

So mine would be all Hebrew, no footnotes, basic directions (which could be pluralistic) in English and Hebrew, and the entire Chumash and Haftorahs only in Hebrew.

But keep in mind that I like the traditional liturgy. For the most part a Koren meets my needs. I just don't own one!

I was actually looking the Artscroll Women'ssiddur today in the JTS library, and it did in fact forget to feminize modah ani, or even put shelo asani shifcha instead of aved

oops :)

Guess they were too busy taking stuff out and inserting "girly prayers" to actually make relevant changes.

There is justification for women saying "shelo asani eved/goy instead of shifcha/goya, as some understand the blessings to be communal (yeah, pretty masculine-centric, but I suppose Hebrew often is.) But the right thing to do would still be to footnote it.

It wasn't a mistake. It was a deliberate choice. There is substantial traditional and halachic basis for *not* gendering certain parts of the liturgy, and instead keeping them exactly the same for both men and women.

Don't get me wrong, that's not how I pray, and I make all those changes in my siddur-of-choice (Tehillot Yisrael), but it wasn't a mistake.

Ooh, I like this idea, like how many siddurim distinguish those few Avinu Malkeinu lines that differ between fast days and 10 yemei hatshuva days.

For the record,, since we're recording, I LOVE Everett Fox's translation (of Chumash and Shmuel). Has he also translated the traditional text of the siddur? If so, I would *love* to get my hands on it.

While we're dreaming, I'd like a Shabbat siddur that has the entire Chumash and Haftarot in Hebrew *and* English, along with Shabbat prayer services, *and* birchat hamazon/brachot achronot/havdala. Basically, just like the Artscroll travel chumash, except that since it also has Aramaic, Rashi, and Scroller Rebbe Commentary it's way too heavy for me to be comfortable. And I doubt there's much of a market for Hebrew/English Torah/haftara without also Hebrew/English prayers, so I guess translate that part too.

Text Source - DavkaWriter includes full Siddur texts. I don't know what the licensing issues might be for a project like this, but it might be worth exploring.

Speaking of DavkaWriter - I find it far and away the best tool for working on projects of this sort.

Transliteration - In projects I undertake of this sort, my tendency (not my preference) is to provide transliteration in the name of usability. I daven in a Reform community, and though I wish it were otherwise, people cannot be counted on to be able to decode Hebrew. That being said, we need to consider our target audience. The CCAR, in producing Mishkan Tefilah, opted to offer transliterated and untransliterated editions. It is, in many ways, reminiscent of the Purple Book.

Rendering the tetragrammaton - My preference has always been Adonai. The Women of Reform Judaism is coming out with a Torah Commentary of its own which has what might be the most elegant solution for a Havurah setting: it just drops the tetragrammaton untransliterated into the English text. I like this because it lets readers cope with it in any way they please. (The trend in Reform has been to render the Name "Eternal" which does nasty things to the grammar, so I like Eskanazi's departure from it.)

Notes - I think in terms of layout AS gets this right, and Metsudah does OK. We need to be wary of producing something with more notes than text on a page though.

Stage directions - I think these are important; it should be explained that whatever one does is OK, but that these are the minhag of various communties up front.

Translation - I'm very hands on when it comes to this; I think we should do our own once we get some controversies settled.

"it just drops the tetragrammaton untransliterated into the English text"

I'm in love

The old Birnbaum siddurs do these kind of footnotes VERY well

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a new new siddur

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The new Singer's Siddur gets a lot of this right.

Inside Baseball...

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Licensing

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Re: Licensing

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