more on Mishkan T'fillah (2)

[cellio]

More comments on the new (draft) siddur.

I took a closer look at the section of psalms (p'sukei d'zimra). None of them have transliteration, though for some there is room on the page using their standard layout. In some cases they do side-by-side English and Hebrew (the norm elsewhere is side-by-side transliteration and Hebrew, with translation below); on these pages, the psalm is long enough that a translation would not fit below it and still be on one page. I think there's nothing wrong with splitting a psalm across two pages in that case, in order to preserve the format and content; I wonder why they are reluctant to do it. (It seems obvious that this was intentional.)

In at least one case there is no literal translation -- only a "creative" reading based on the actual text. I think there were two or three cases of this, though I am not certain. (I'm not fluent in Hebrew. A couple of the English readings sounded close but off, but I'd need to look at the siddur and a psalm translation side by side to check.)

I don't think we should ever get one of these creative adaptations at the expense of a translation. Once you've provided Hebrew, translit, and translation, then feel free to throw in other stuff in my opinion, but do not cut any of that essential trio in order to make room for something that is quite optional. I suspect this is "coastal Reform Judaism" at work; I have been told by many people, including rabbis from a variety of locations, that the midwest tends toward more traditional liturgy, while the east and west coasts tend for more creative adaptations. This is the only siddur CCAR is going to publish for this generation; it should meet everyone's needs as much as possible, and that includes serving that traditional sector.

Ok, other bits:

In the blessings of the morning, the new one I mentioned last time is "b'tzelem Elohim", not "b'tzeit" as I remembered last time. What's that, the difference between singular and plural? Oh, and it's "she'asani", not "she'asah", which strengthens my suspicion that the latter is a typo in Silverman.

This siddur also adds "...she'asah li kol tzarki" to this section (she'asah, not she'asani). I failed to note what this means. I know I have seen it at Tree of Life.

Some of the translations in this section are wacky for no discernable reason.

The congregation is getting used to the wording changes I noted last time, including "meitim". Error from last time: two of the three occurrences were changed from "ha-kol" to "meitim", not one as I mentioned before. The chatima is "ha-kol"; the rest is "meitim".

After kedusha, the siddur offers both v'shamru and yismachu. I believe that the latter is what is supposed to be here; I wonder where the v'shamru tradition comes from. (We also did it at this point in the service in our previous home-brew siddur. It was v'shamru, eloheinu v'elohei avoteinu..., then yismachu.)

We didn't have a torah service this week, but I noticed in flipping through that the misheberach text (a mix of Hebrew and English) matches the Debbie Friedman song.

Overall, things went more smoothly this week, which is what I expected. By the end of the trial period (sometime in February), I expect that this group will be thoroughly comfortable with this siddur. (I wonder if we'll keep using it, or go back to ours until this is actually published.) I'm comfortable with using the new siddur now, but I adapt to stuff like this very quickly, in part because I've made an effort to learn the structure of the service and the reasons behind it.

Next weekend I'll be away at a con, so no Mishkan T'fillah for me for two weeks.

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Comments

[cellio]

"While reciting this text, be sure to keep very firm in your mind the fact that the Reform Movement totally disagrees with the philosophy of this paragraph"

*laugh*!

Oh yeah; that's another thing. I noticed this week that in the morning brachot, there is a small notation next to each one (in the margin) that says things like "for health" or "for awareness" and so on. Some of them are approximately literal; others screamed "earthy crunchy trendy new-age" at me. I wish I had a copy of my own so I could be more specific. But they didn't do this elsewhere in the siddur that I noticed; only there. I wonder why.