Subscribe to Print Edition | Fri., July 10, 2009 Tamuz 18, 5769 | | Israel Time: 01:26 (EST+7)
Haaretz israel news English
web haaretz.com
Haaretz Toolbar
Diplomacy
Defense Jewish World Opinion National
Print Edition
Car Rental
Books Haaretz Magazine Business Real Estate Focus U.S.A. Travel Week's End Anglo File
Share |
Prayer ala carte
By Raphael Ahren
Tags: Aharon Varady, Israel News

Aharon Varady always dreamed of putting together his own prayer book. Realizing that many people - including himself - often see prayer as a dull and robotic exercise in the fulfillment of a religious duty, he thought for years about ways to enable people to create their own prayer book, or siddur, in order to make the most of their experience.

A fellow at this year's PresenTense Institute, Varady earlier this month finally embarked on a daring project, creating a tool for "individuals and groups to build the siddur they've always wanted," as his Web site explains.

Varady's Open Siddur project aspires to funnel all different regional traditions, translations, commentaries and instructional notes that Jews from the four corners of the world have produced through the ages into one Web application. The site will provide the core liturgy and enable users to freely add content, comparable to cooking Web sites where food aficionados exchange and comment on each other's recipes.
Advertisement
Similarly, at OpenSiddur.net users can download different prayers, add creative translations, commentaries and other "siddur recipes," as the 34-year-old Philadelphia resident put it. Looking for an oriental version of the morning services or a rare medieval religious poem? Chances are that sooner or later someone will upload it to the site, Varady assures.

"We believe the text of the siddur is an aggregate of thousands of years of inspired authors," Varady told Anglo File this week. "This culture, which right now is locked in text we can [only] read on paper, is not yet available easily to manipulation and remixing, adopting and tweaking for people who want to use the siddur as a spiritual tool."

While the new site facilitates the study of Jewish liturgy, he says, its main purpose is helping those who are dissatisfied with the way conventional siddurs dictate prayer. "People don't feel they can be engaged with their prayer," Varady says. "It's programmed for them."

Varady is one of sixteen fellows currently participating in the Jerusalem-based PresenTense Institute, which for the third consecutive summer invited Jewish social entrepreneurs mostly from English-speaking countries into its headquarters on Emek Refaim Street to assist them in launching their various projects. During the six-week program, fellows have a designated work space, whenever their full schedule of skill-building sessions, "Lunch N' Learn" forums and field trips allows it.

Sparking a paradigm shift

Ariel Beery, the New York-born co-founder and director of the PresenTense Group, believes that Varady's project might "spark a paradigm shift in how we approach individual spirituality and group coordination in an age of radical interdependence," as he told Anglo File this week. "If we've learned anything from Facebook it's that even though every person has their own page and profile, it is the interaction [that] provides the value people seek."

But the soft-spoken Varady, a technology consultant and city planner by profession, takes a more modest approach. "If there's anything radical about my project," he says, "it's that an individual can start creating an archive of personal prayers and keep it private or share it with others."

He notes that his innovative project was inspired by Jacob Freedman's "polychrome" siddur, which color coded parts of the text to indicate during which time periods various prayers were added. Freedman started his project in the late 1960s but never completed it. Now, Varady says, the time has come to once again try to create a prayer book for people "who take their prayer very seriously, or for independent congregations that are struggling to create a relevant siddur for their community."

Varady realizes that some people - especially those who are proud to pray with their grandfather's siddur - will not be attracted to a Web site offering prayer a la carte, picking and choosing texts from various geographic areas, time epochs and religious streams.

Yet he thinks his project has the potential to make praying interesting to those who otherwise wouldn't bother. "We can teach children that prayer is important," he says, "but we can't take for granted that this will be relevant for them when they are adults, when they have a choice. What we can do is provide the deepest resources for them to engage in this essential creative process."
PROMOTION: Mamilla Hotel
Bookmark to del.icio.us  
 
'Self-hating Jews'
Barak Ravid / Netanyahu's paranoia extends to Rahm Emanuel and David Axelrod
Kashrut by video
Israel rabbi proposes 'virtual' kosher supervision - via video cameras
Special Offers
Advertisement
hotel Jerusalem
David Citadel Hotel, come stay at the finest of Jerusalem hotels.
ISRAEL ARMY SURPLUS STORE
IDF insignia,Uniforms, Paladium Boots Watches, Israel Army T-shirts & Collectibles
Dead Sea Skin Care
Quality cosmetics from the Dead Sea. Coupon code HAARETZ for 12% off!
Eldan Rent a Car
Israel's leading car rental company offers you a 20% discount on online reservations
Junkyard
Junk a car - get free towing nationwide and a tax-deductible receipt
More Headlines
22:57 Sarkozy: Israel strike on Iran would be catastrophe
00:48 Mubarak: Israel scuttled Shalit deal at last minute
01:15 Settlers are encountering their first real opponent - Obama
22:16 Thousands protest in Iran, defying crackdown vow
20:25 Aide: Netanyahu told German FM West Bank cannot be 'Judenrein`
17:32 Germany calls for ban on neo-Nazi Web sites abroad
22:16 WATCH: Daily news round-up from Israel
17:53 Netanyahu's paranoia extends to 'self-hating Jews' Emanuel and Axelrod
22:37 Livni: Netanyahu only interested in harming Kadima
22:41 Shalit negotiator denies connection to suspected fraud
Home | TV | Print Edition | Diplomacy | Opinion | Arts & Leisure | Sports | Jewish World | Site rules |
| Israel 2009 election results | Makom: Engaging on Israel
| Search engine marketing
Haaretz.com, the online edition of Haaretz Newspaper in Israel, offers real-time breaking news, opinions and analysis from Israel and the Middle East. Haaretz.com provides extensive and in-depth coverage of Israel, the Jewish World and the Middle East, including defense, diplomacy, the Arab-Israeli conflict, the peace process, Israeli politics, Jerusalem affairs, international relations, Iran, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, the Palestinian Authority, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, the Israeli business world and Jewish life in Israel and the Diaspora.
© Copyright  Haaretz. All rights reserved