Jonathan Magonet, ed., Seder Hatefillot: Forms of Prayer. Vol. I: Daily, Sabbath, and Occasional Prayers, 8th ed. London: Movement for Reform Judaism, 2008. 750 pp., pictures of the great synagogues of Europe on endpapers.

The British Reform Movement, similar in some ways to the American Conservative movement, has published a new prayer book, the first since the classic 1977 edition, itself the first since 1931.
Producing a new prayer book is not a casual matter. Apart from inflicting an expense on worshippers, it means people will miss the familiar and may feel lost in the new. It must be done with sensitivity, and only compelling considerations, not ego and not political needs of a movement can justify it. Success in such an endeavor is not common.

The 1977 book spoke for the generation that knew the War and the Holocaust and the independence of the State of Israel. Since 1977, the Jewish community has changed greatly. Apart from recognizing the equality of men and women – I have never understood a phrase like “the nobility of Man” to mean males only, but this has become a political thing now and must be dealt with – a new book can no longer assume a community familiar with Hebrew or the liturgy. A new book must confront with flexibility very different populations in the synagogues, yet offer a sense of continuity to those raised in the tradition.

This book succeeds splendidly. Too splendidly. As a reviewer, I would have preferred to find more to criticize, but the various aspects of the book reflect the highest degree of thoughtfulness and careful planning, taste and sensitivity. It is very much not a typical pastiche committee product, something which would remind one of the tralatitious definition of a camel: a horse designed by a committee.

First, the book itself: It is neither noticeably bigger nor heavier than the old standard. A senior congregant can hold it comfortably for the length of a Sabbath service, which is not true of its new American counterpart. It looks kind of like the old book and bears the same English name, both obvious advantages.

The layout is clear. Times New Roman type is the most familiar English font, the particular Frank Ruhl Hebrew font chosen is the recognizable “flame” classic. Frequently Hebrew and English appear on the same page in parallel columns, a novelty that is a response to the need to provide alternative readings without confusing the reader. No choreography is given. The rabbi will have to indicate when to stand and to sit.

The English sprachgebrauche – the vocabulary, language usage, flow of line, and choice of imagery – is excellent; indeed, unsurpassed. The phrasing is nothing short of elegant, the similes and metaphors clear and precise. The writing is thoughtful without pedantry, profound without condescension.

The grammatical problem of the short qamatz – the same sign in Hebrew, ‘T,’ is used for both “ah” and “oh” – has been solved effectively: The “oh” form is in a distinguishably different font and has a tiny “o” over it, assuring correct pronunciation by those inexpert in Hebrew. This consideration does not matter for ordering soup in Tel Aviv, but it does matter in a sacred text.

The philosophic matter of praising God mechai-ei meitim, “who makes the dead live,” has been a Shibboleth for progressives for generations. Those who reject the doctrine of resurrection and who cannot bear to see the phrase as poetic have gone through backbreaking contortions to transmogrify the English: witness a timid “All life is your gift” in the American 1975 Union Prayer Book, which also diffidently adjusts the Hebrew to a bland mechai-ei hakol, “who makes all live.” In this matter it is following the 1940 Union Prayer Book’s “Thou preservest all.”

This book reads, “Who renews life beyond death,” following the 1977 Forms of Prayer. And keeps the traditional Hebrew. This is not a translation, but an interpretation that allows one to see whatever one wishes. It is admittedly a clumsy solution, but I don’t know a better one since our literalists refuse to see the phrase as poetry. The new American prayer book, named Mishkan T’filah, says m’chayeih hakol (meitim), pick one, and translates in one alternative service “the Power whose gift is life,” and in another “You give life to all (revive the dead)”. That last, indecisive as it is, remains perhaps the best solution.

The Amida presents a feminist problem: The traditional form mentions the Patriarchs, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and omits the Matriarchs, Sarah, Rebecca, Rachel, and Leah. Some find this objectionable. But changing the form so as to present all seven with each one preceded by “The God of,” although politically correct, wrecks the scansion. By presenting both forms in parallel on the same page, the editor has solved the problem of catering at once to disparate congregational populations and traditions.

Hebrew readings for congregational responses are given in bold type, which is especially useful when they occur in the middle of a longer Hebrew reading, as in the Kaddish or Aleynu. Almost all the Hebrew is followed immediately by unobtrusive transliterations in italics, which is a recognition that, sadly, many no longer read Hebrew, or do not do so easily. For the Hebraists, tropes are provided for Kiddush and the Shema.

All sources, thankfully, are given, so that the fact becomes immediately apparent that much or most of the Jewish service is Bible quotes or forms thereof. Amazingly, this elementary courtesy is lacking in other progressive prayer books.

Sources as disparate as the Dead Sea Scrolls and Judy Chicago’s thoughtful and aesthetic Amida entitled “And then” have been used. The Sephardi tradition contributes an Eyn Keloheynu: Non komo muestro Dio.

Another response to changing times is the inclusion of explanations of the prayers, their philosophies, reasons for their locations, and implications, all given discreetly on the proper page. Useful box notes on history or philosophy are incorporated inconspicuously within the service. Longer comments on the prayers, marked in place by a tiny blue menorah, are provided later in the book. (The anonymous one on Adon Olam has been bungled by misquote.)

A banausic glossary of terms and persons is at the back of the book, as is an excellent and altogether unique flow chart that shows clearly and succinctly the structure and logic of the Sabbath service by rubric, why things come where they do, and how the philosophy of the service develops. The Greeks, thoroughgoing xenophobes, were known for holding all peoples and cultures other than their own in contempt. They considered non-Greek speakers as subhumans who had no proper language at all but merely barked at one another, “bar-bar-bar,” hence barbaroi, barbarians.

Except for the Jews, who, they found, “pray in philosophy.” That philosophical logic of the Jewish service is made abundantly clear by this flow chart, which a rabbi could use in a service to show the congregation that logic and that philosophy. I have seen this device in no other progressive prayer book.

The service is an orthopractic one, including a musaf and tefillin ritual for those traditionalists who want it but incorporating, on the modern side, extensive reflections on various rites and prayers, unfortunately anonymous. That needs to be corrected in the next edition if possible. The prayer for committee meetings, retained from the 1977 book, has in my experience started many hard Board meetings on the right tone. The unusual inclusion of a prayer for one who has suffered a miscarriage is characteristic of the sensitivity and responsiveness of the whole book. The table song selection is broad and well indexed, easy to use.

The whole business, some 750 pp., has been kept within manageable size and weight by using Primapage paper, thin and strong as Bible paper.

This is a product that will find ready and wholehearted congregational acceptance, because it draws the best from the old and responds sympathetically to the needs of the new. Whatever it has done, whatever it has changed or introduced or deleted, has been done for clear and good reasons. It is a model of what a revision of a prayer book should be.

Comments? podetah@buffalostate.edu.

Updated 8/6/08