Delivered as a Dvar Torah for Shabbat Emor, may 1st 2026
וַיֹּ֤אמֶר יְהֹוָה֙ אֶל־מֹשֶׁ֔ה אֱמֹ֥ר אֶל־הַכֹּהֲנִ֖ים GOD said to Moses: Speak to the priests, the sons of Aaron, and say to them… (Lev. 21:1). This is how our parashah begins, and from here it takes its name “Emor” (Speak). At the center of this parashah is the idea of speaking, of the word, of transmission (as in a famous passage of the Talmud, Yevamot 114a, immortalized by Rashi in his commentary on this passage regarding the commandment of adults to transmit to the young).
Rabbi Tanḥum ben Rabbi Ḥanilai opened the first commentary in his exegesis on this verse in Vayikra Rabbah (26:1), saying: “The sayings of the Lord are pure sayings” (Psalms 12:7). אִ֥מְר֣וֹת יְהֹוָה֮ אֲמָר֢וֹת טְהֹ֫ר֥וֹת — The sayings of the Lord are pure sayings, but the sayings of flesh and blood are not pure. Eighteen hundred years ago, this teacher of our tradition contrasted a verse from Psalms, saying that the words of God are pure… but ours, those of human beings, are not. And it is true. With our words we often lie, hurt, slander, complain, show ingratitude, insult—our words are often not pure. Yet with words we also pray. There are moments in our days when we separate our lips from duplicity and focus them on words of purity to connect with God. About those words—perhaps the purest attempt of all our words—I want to reflect today.
Tonight I am presenting a new edition of the Siddur, prayerbook, that we will use in the community for every Kabbalat Shabbat. And it is almost an audacity to say “I wrote a Siddur.” The Siddur belongs to the entire people of Israel. Our prayer books have no single author nor copyright; they are a compilation developed by our sages beginning about 2,000 years ago with some basic prayers such as the Shema Israel, the Amidah, the Aleinu LeShabeach, and the Kaddish, and complemented over the next two thousand years with additions of biblical passages, psalms, and piyutim (liturgical compositions). I can never claim the title of “having written a Siddur,” God forbid. What I did was simply compile a prayerbook that reflects my feelings and my Judaism within it—what I aspire to be and to do with our community.
But speaking of having “written a Siddur” would not only be a sacrilege in that sense due to arrogance and intellectual dishonesty—it would literally be a violation of a rabbinic prohibition. Yes, just as you hear it. Writing blessings down is (or rather, was) prohibited by our rabbis. In a famous passage of the Talmud where it is discussed which things can be saved from a fire on Shabbat and which cannot, we find the following phrase: כּוֹתְבֵי בְרָכוֹת כְּשׂוֹרְפֵי תוֹרָה — Writers of blessings are like burners of Torah (B. Shabbat 115b). About 2,000 years ago it was strictly forbidden to write in any kind of “Siddur” any blessing or prayer. Technically because these could not be saved from a fire on Shabbat, and one would therefore unintentionally cause words containing the name of God to be burned in a potential fire.
However, there is more. It was not only for this technical reason that our ancestors refused to “put prayers into writing,” but also because they believed that their intention, their spontaneity, and their heart would be lost if words that were meant to be genuine, spontaneous, and arising from the heart were codified. If they were written down, prayer would become fossilized, losing the passion and the true intention of the one who prays. Ideally, the words had to be renewed daily, to be different in each prayer, and to arise from each person’s heart—not from a book telling them what to pray. This is also what Rabbi Shimon teaches in Pirkei Avot: “Be careful with the reading of Shema and the prayer, and when you pray, do not make your prayer something automatic, but a plea for compassion before God” (2:13).
This disdain for written prayer explains why we do not find “Siddurim,” prayer books, until the 8th century C.E. Until that moment, all prayers were 100% oral—more fluid, more creative, less structured, less canonized. And yet today we have Siddurim in our hands, and there is no Jewish community that prays without a prayerbook. For more than 1,300 years we have become accustomed to praying with a book in hand. The icon of Jewish prayer is not someone kneeling by the bed with hands together at chest level, but someone standing with an open book in their hands. Rabbeinu Asher ben Yehiel (13th century, Germany–Spain), commenting on the Talmudic passage, already makes this clear: “And nowadays, since it has become customary to write the order of the blessings, and they contain many matters of Torah, since permission was granted to write them due to ‘a time to act for the Lord,’ they were also given to be read from—and they may be saved from a fire.”
People no longer knew how to pray spontaneously; many no longer remembered the basic structures (chatimot) established by our sages; others were so unlearned that they did not know the Shema Israel by heart; the Jewish people were already dispersed throughout the world and there was a need to maintain unity; prayers had expanded so much from their original form that it became very difficult for anyone to remember them and lead them entirely from memory… That is why the rabbis decided long ago to set aside the prohibition against writing prayers, and that is why today we all have Siddurim in our hands when we pray.
In a double sense, it is a profanation and a sacrilege to say that “I wrote a new Siddur.” I did not. My decision to compose and compile this new-old (alt-neu) Siddur reflects my way of seeing prayer, my rabbinate, and my Torah.
The Siddur you hold in your hands is essentially traditional in every sense. Its Hebrew, its order, without cuts or omissions, corresponds to the most traditional Ashkenazi liturgy of Kabbalat Shabbat, at least since the 17th–18th centuries. And this is part of who I am. I believe in a traditional liturgy, in reintroducing Hebrew into our prayers as the central axis that connects us with the past and the future, and with all Jews throughout the world in every place of our dispersion. I believe that Siddurim are eternal reservoirs of Jewish thought and theology, and that, with rare and specific exceptions, we should not modify or cut the prayer (at least in the prayerbook itself). Fixed liturgy is the keva—the structured, the unchanging, what sustains. It is up to us to renew it through reinterpretations, new readings, commentary, and melodies; that is our Kavannah, our intention.
Hebrew, transliteration, and English. The Siddur you hold speaks to everyone who walks into the synagogue. There is a conscious effort to give equal space and size to the Hebrew for those who can read it (the ideal), the transliteration for those who cannot yet read Hebrew but want to follow the liturgy and sing, and also the English alongside it for those who wish to delve into the meaning of the words and learn what it is that we sing in the sacred language of our people.
And regarding the English, there is a conscious decision to choose a literal translation and not a contemporary, homiletic, or poetic one, as in other prayerbooks, because “The sayings of the Lord are pure sayings,” and as adults we should strive to connect with the words of the psalmists and poets of our people—even if they sound difficult and complex—until we can make those words our own and understand them in their text and context.
And now, the commentaries. The central element is prayer—that is the ikar—but the tafel, the complement, is the commentary. And this is my humble contribution in this new composition. Based on traditional sources (and not so traditional ones), and on my own experience and ideas that arise when I chant each of these traditional prayers, on every page you will find brief commentaries and inspirations for each psalm, prayer, and blessing. So that the Siddur and prayer can also become an opportunity for Talmud Torah, for the eternal study that is a pillar of our people. If you become bored during my sermon or distracted during prayer, you can turn to those margins and try to find inspiration in one of these reflections.
Finally, the design. Light, modern, colorful, large, beautiful (I believe). And here is where modernity merges with tradition—the ancient with the contemporary—prayers from 2,600 years ago with a cutting-edge design from 2026.
I want to conclude by beginning to thank all those who made possible this work of my hands that is now in your hands. To my wife for her support and love. To the Hager and Elzweig families for sponsoring this first printing of 450 Siddurim, to the Board and the Ritual Committee for supporting this personal project, to Rabbi Mark and to so many other members of the community who offered countless suggestions and corrections, and to God for giving me the possibility of making the love I feel for Torah my daily sustenance.
יהי רצון מלפניך ה׳ אלהי שלא יארע דבר תקלה על ידי – “May it be Your will, Lord my God, that no mishap come about through me.”
Rabbi Nehunia ben HaKanah would say these words before entering to teach a class (B. Brachot 28b). I make these words my own, asking God for forgiveness if there are any errors in this edition—I know there are—in the Hebrew, in the translation, in the transliteration, or in the commentaries. If there are mistakes or suggestions, please do not hesitate to come forward so that we may, God willing, improve the next edition.
וַאֲנִ֤י תְפִלָּֽתִי־לְךָ֨ ׀ יְהֹוָ֡ה עֵ֤ת רָצ֗וֹן אֱלֹהִ֥ים בְּרׇב־חַסְדֶּ֑ךָ עֲ֝נֵ֗נִי בֶּאֱמֶ֥ת יִשְׁעֶֽךָ׃
“As for me, may my prayer come to You, O Lord, at a favorable moment; O God, in Your abundant faithfulness, answer me with Your sure deliverance” (Psalms 69:14).
