On the Eve of Publication
Written by Rabbi Professor Jonathan Magonet Friday, 01 February 2008
A Prayer Book in the Making
| Article Index |
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| On the Eve of Publication |
| Some Weighty Decisions |
| The Last Word on Hebrew |
| One Size Doesn’t Fit All |
| Amen Selah |
| All Pages |
What’s In A Name?
The last diary sounded a positive note, because the major work of editing and preparing the layout of the Siddur had been completed. What remained were the technical processes of getting final agreement from the Assembly of Rabbis and the Movement Board so that we could move ahead with arrangements for printing. These were achieved with only one issue suddenly emerging for major discussion amongst the rabbinic colleagues, namely the choice of a name for the new volume.
The debate was sparked off by concerns about the name ‘Iyyun T’fillah’ ‘Devotion in Prayer’. Though it has this positive connotation as one of the activities ‘whose interest we enjoy in this world, while the capital remains for us in the world to come’ (Shabbat 127a), there is, inevitably, a different rabbinic tradition as well. This one understands the phrase to mean ‘calculating the results of prayer’, as if we had entered a negotiation with God. Those in favour of the title argued that in our own time this ambiguity accurately reflects something of our own difficulties with prayer so that it should nevertheless be used. We even addressed this issue by changing the translation to ‘engaging with prayer’, which accommodates these and other possible meanings. Nevertheless, concerns were still expressed. A number of counter suggestions were made, amongst them retaining the old title ‘Seder Ha-t’fillot’, ‘Forms of Prayer’ that goes back to the original version of the Reform Siddur, and its Sephardi predecessors. It was decided that such an important issue required a proper voting procedure within the Assembly of Rabbis which was undertaken in stages, eventually excluding all other names except these two. By a narrow margin ‘Forms of Prayer’ won and is indeed the title of our new Siddur. However, so as not to lose the valuable ideas that arose from this debate, we have retained ‘Iyyun T’fillah’ as the title for the meditations before the services and the reflective passages.
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