Marking the Sections
Written by Rabbi Professor Jonathan Magonet
Editor's Jottings
If the contents of the new Siddur were shaped by the Editorial Board and through wide consultation within the Movement, the appearance is above all the work of one person, Marc Michaels. His were the various layout experiments before a general pattern emerged, and his has been the steady hand amending, correcting and refining it ever since.
But as a scribe and graphic artist, he early on found a way of indicating the different sections of the Siddur and the services themselves.
His are the graphics that mark, often in a playful or sequential way, significant sections. The four Shabbat services, evening, morning, additional and afternoon, are immediately distinguishable by highlighting one amongst the four Hebrew names
The Torah service graphic weaves in the names of the individual books of the Torah. The Concluding Prayers are indicated by the word ´siyyum´ (conclusion) located in the far end corner of the graphic.
Havdalah is neatly split, the upper part of the name as white on grey, and the lower part as grey on white, illustrating the distinction in time that the name suggests.
These flew off his drawing board, or computer, up to the last minute, with the Study Anthology introduced by the phrase ‘la’asok b’divrei torah’, ‘to engage in the study of Torah’ laid out as for a page of Talmud.
The Psalm Anthology´s Hebrew title ‘Tehillim’ mounts towards heaven, and the ‘Seder Hallel’ sits appropriately on a musical stave. To top it Marc has also designed his own calligraphic version of Psalm 122 with its emphasis on the ‘walls of Jerusalem’.
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