New Prayerbooks: Balancing Tradition and Innovation Deborah Glanzberg-Krainin

I RECENTLY HAD occasion to sort and The user friendly nature of most new sid- organize the books on my office shelves. durim points to an implicit acknowledgement There were volumes of poetry, critical essays, of certain realities regarding much of Ameri- scholarly works, and a few of my children’s can Jewish life. It suggests that many users novels and picture books thrown into the mix. of these prayerbooks do not read Hebrew, None of this surprised me. But, as I returned or if they can read Hebrew they might not the books to their newly appointed places understand it, and they may not be familiar on the shelves, I was quite startled to see just with the content and structure of traditional how large the section devoted to siddurim, Jewish prayer. , transliterations, prayerbooks, had become. There are literally and detailed directions represent invitations dozens of different siddurim crowding my to the Jew less schooled in the meaning and shelves, and I want to suggest that my col- mechanics of Jewish prayer. lection reflects a larger trend: This commitment to accessibility is taken are publishing siddurim at a rate that is both further in the newest siddurim published by rapid and intriguing. — and therefore, I would argue, representing I searched a number of online bookstores — the Reform, Reconstructionist, and Con- and found literally hundreds of listings un- servative movements. Each of these volumes der the heading “,” including prayer- casts a wide net by offering choices within books for Shabbat and everyday as well as the texts themselves; these choices reflect machzorim for the Days of Awe, children’s theological boundaries and concerns of the prayerbooks, and a wide variety of commen- various movements while allowing “ways taries on the siddur. Space prohibits an ex- in” to the largest possible number of affiliated haustive review of these many works, so I will, communities. For example, the new edition of rather, raise preliminary questions about what Siddur Sim Shalom offers users two options for the proliferation of siddurim might reflect the Amidah: they can choose to recite it with, or about the American Jewish community and without, the inclusion of the matriarchs along what this might teach us about ourselves. with the patriarchs in the opening blessing. To begin with, please note that this phe- Reflecting their own theological commitments, nomenon covers a broad swath of our com- both Kol HaNeshamah and Gates of Prayer of- munity. The publication of new siddurim is fer users different possibilities for individual not necessarily equated with the creation of prayers or even entire services. new liturgy. Indeed, Artscroll/Mesorah Pub- Choices such as these may point to a trend lications boasts a wide array of traditional toward decentralization in American Juda- prayerbooks, many of which include inter- ism, or at least among some of its branches. linear translations, commentary, and instruc- At the same time, however, a review of recent tions regarding the choreography of prayer siddur publication also suggests the limits to Deborah (sitting, standing, bowing, etc.). Indeed, this that trend. As the last two decades saw the Glanzberg-Krainin, an concern for accessibility is shared by siddurim advent of desktop publishing, many observ- alum of the Wexner reflecting the full diversity of American Jewry. ers expected siddurim to become a highly Graduate Fellowship, is Artscroll’s commitment to commentary is privatized liturgical genre, especially in com- a doctoral candidate shared by the Reconstructionist movement’s munities not committed to the requirements of at Temple University Kol HaNeshamah series, which includes exten- traditionally scripted prayer. Trends in siddur in . She is sive commentary interspersed throughout publications might lead us to think otherwise. writing a dissertation each volume. Also notable in this regard are While there are several siddurim published by on contemporary recent revisions to both the Conservative individuals or by collectives based in a par- American Jewish movement’s Siddur Sim Shalom (1998) and ticular locale — and anecdotal evidence does women’s memoirs. Reform’s Gates of Prayer (1995). Both volumes suggest some experimentation with desktop offer significantly larger amounts of transliter- and Internet technologies — it is also the case April 2005 ated texts than the original editions, published that many recent publications represent estab- Nisan 5765 To subscribe: 877-568-SHMA in 1985 and 1975, respectively. lished segments of Jewish communal life. In www.shma.com 5 this way, perhaps, we might say that recently dur provides textual evidence of the beliefs, published prayerbooks reflect some of the ten- fears, and longings of the Jewish people. The sions that characterize much of contemporary plethora of siddurim currently available point Jewish American life: most notably, finding to American Jews’ ongoing engagement with appropriate balances between tradition and the text and what it represents. As we cel- innovation and articulating relationships to ebrate 350 years of Jewish life in America, the communal and textual authority. vitality of this engagement provides cause for We are the people of the book. Any sid- optimism about our future. A Culture Loses its Flavor Hillel Halkin HEBREW-ENGLISH and in a sense even legitimizing, the disap- — a field in which I got my start 45 years ago pearance of Hebrew as the international lan- with a stiff and unpaid rendition of a worth- guage of the Jews. less and never published story by a down- It’s true that most Jews in most times and and-out alcoholic Israeli author in New York places in the past could not read (much less write) Hebrew freely, although large numbers Today the international language of the who couldn’t still could cope with certain sa- cred texts. Yet until modern times, a fluency Jewish people has become English. in Hebrew was considered a sign of being an educated Jew. Any such Jew from one part of — is booming. Numerous English volumes of the world could communicate in Hebrew with Hebrew novels, books of poetry, and historical any such Jew from another part of the world. and political works are published every year. Books written in languages that other Jews Hillel Halkin, who Contemporary Israeli authors like Yehuda didn’t know, like the Arabic of Maimonides’ settled in in Amichai, , A.B. Yehoshua, and David Guide To The Perplexed or Yehuda Halevi’s 1970, is the author Grossman are now known to American Jews Kuzari, were translated into Hebrew. As late of Letters To An almost as well as their own native writers. as the last decade of the 19th century, when American Jewish And this is without mentioning Jewish the Russian Jewish intellectual Ahad Ha’am Friend: A Zionist religious texts, where developments have founded his international Jewish review Ha- Polemic (1976), the been even more impressive. The last years Shiloah in Berlin, Hebrew seemed the obvious winner of a National have seen the appearance in English of two language for it. Jewish Book Award, complete new Jewish Bible translations; two Today the international language of the Across The Sabbath more Jewish translations of the Pentateuch; Jewish people has become English. Jewish in- River: In Search 34 volumes of the still unfinished ArtsScroll tellectuals from different countries converse in of A Lost Tribe of Mishna; 27 volumes of Maimonides’ Mishneh it; Jewish leaders exchange views in it; when Israel (2002), and the Torah; the first volumes of Daniel Matt’s pro- there is a scholarly conference in forthcoming A Strange jected 12-volume Zohar; the first 22 volumes of on S.Y. Agnon, ’s sole No- Death. He translates the Steinsaltz Talmud; and the recent comple- bel Prize winner, it is held — I should know Hebrew and Yiddish tion of the 72-volume Schottenstein Talmud. because I participated in it — in English, too. fiction and writes (Both the Zohar and the Talmud, of course, are Knowing Hebrew is no longer the sign of the extensively on Jewish written in a mixture of Hebrew and its sister educated Jew. Indeed, far less American Jews and Israeli politics, language Aramaic.) Moreover, that’s just a can now read and speak Hebrew than can culture, and literature partial list. Many other Jewish philosophical, Palestinian Arabs! in such publications as liturgical, halakhic, and homiletic texts can We Hebrew-English translators are not to Commentary and The be added to it. blame for this; it is, rather, due to the lack of New Republic. He It’s getting to the point that one soon won’t Hebrew education in America. Of course, if is speaking as part of have to know Hebrew at all to consider oneself we weren’t working so hard to make Hebrew the Koret Jewish Book Jewishly literate — and this is precisely the works available in English, perhaps more Awards program. problem. Of course, every positive phenom- American Jews would have to learn Hebrew. April 2005 enon has its down side. But the down side of Yet why should hundreds of thousands of Nisan 5765 the boom in Hebrew-English translation has Americans Jews have to learn Hebrew, you To subscribe: 877-568-SHMA been steep indeed. It has involved accepting, might ask, when a hundred Hebrew-English www.shma.com 6