We come together as a community on the High Holidays, on Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, to celebrate the New Year, to confront ourselves, to pray and to reflect. Whether you engage in this practice regularly or occasionally, we hope
you will find this machzor meaningful. At Havurat Shalom, where we have dedicated ourselves to creating a truly egalitarian liturgy for Shabbat, we feel we need this balanced and accessible liturgy as much or moreso at this time of the year.
For many years, Havurah members have been adapting the liturgy for the High Holidays and adding it to binders we called “anthologies”. Building on the efforts of those members, we proudly and humbly present the fruits of our
efforts: the complete Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur machzor in one volume.
The Hebrew of our machzor incorporates all the adaptations of the traditional High Holiday liturgy that were made previously by Havurat Shalom and placed in our Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur Anthology. The Hebrew that was not
previously addressed has been adapted in a similar manner.
The English translation and transliterations prepared previously have been incorporated. Additional translations have been written with the intention of providing a fairly literal key to the meaning of the Hebrew, but also to be texts
that worshippers can pray from. It is possible that these translations will be revised and refined in future editions. An attempt has been made to align the Hebrew, English, and transliterations in order to enable readers to move among
them easily.
The Hebrew and translations have been crafted to conform to the principles of the original Havurat Shalom prayer book, Siddur Birkat Shalom. This includes use of egalitarian language, greater variety of appellations and images for God, greater depth and openness in the portrayal of non-Jews, focus on the evil in the world as opposed to “evil people” and increased emphasis on our being a part of the vast web of life, and the divinity within us and in all of creation.
In addition to adapting the traditional machzor, we have added an original meditation to remind us of our potential goodness as we face our wrongdoings, in order to help us in our teshuvah.
Although much has changed in our lives and in the world since our original work began on the first Havurat Shalom siddur thirty years ago, we hope this newest volume will continue our long tradition of revising and opening the liturgy in order to help us all to open our hearts in prayer.
- Havurat Shalom Machzor Committee
you will find this machzor meaningful. At Havurat Shalom, where we have dedicated ourselves to creating a truly egalitarian liturgy for Shabbat, we feel we need this balanced and accessible liturgy as much or moreso at this time of the year.
For many years, Havurah members have been adapting the liturgy for the High Holidays and adding it to binders we called “anthologies”. Building on the efforts of those members, we proudly and humbly present the fruits of our
efforts: the complete Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur machzor in one volume.
The Hebrew of our machzor incorporates all the adaptations of the traditional High Holiday liturgy that were made previously by Havurat Shalom and placed in our Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur Anthology. The Hebrew that was not
previously addressed has been adapted in a similar manner.
The English translation and transliterations prepared previously have been incorporated. Additional translations have been written with the intention of providing a fairly literal key to the meaning of the Hebrew, but also to be texts
that worshippers can pray from. It is possible that these translations will be revised and refined in future editions. An attempt has been made to align the Hebrew, English, and transliterations in order to enable readers to move among
them easily.
The Hebrew and translations have been crafted to conform to the principles of the original Havurat Shalom prayer book, Siddur Birkat Shalom. This includes use of egalitarian language, greater variety of appellations and images for God, greater depth and openness in the portrayal of non-Jews, focus on the evil in the world as opposed to “evil people” and increased emphasis on our being a part of the vast web of life, and the divinity within us and in all of creation.
In addition to adapting the traditional machzor, we have added an original meditation to remind us of our potential goodness as we face our wrongdoings, in order to help us in our teshuvah.
Although much has changed in our lives and in the world since our original work began on the first Havurat Shalom siddur thirty years ago, we hope this newest volume will continue our long tradition of revising and opening the liturgy in order to help us all to open our hearts in prayer.
- Havurat Shalom Machzor Committee
notes on second edition
The first edition of Machzor Birkat Shalom was produced more than seven years ago during the course of a spring and summer. There were some prayers where we wished to do further editing but were constrained by deadlines. After the
Machzor's printing, we also discovered typographical and other errors in both the English and the Hebrew. In addition, since 2014, Havurat Shalom has been able to incorporate non-gendered Hebrew for prayers which previously had different options for male and female davenners. We are excited to present the
second edition where the errors have (hopefully) all been corrected, where some of the issues we were wrestling with have been further developed and where the non-gendered language adopted in our Shabbat prayerbook is reflected in our
Machzor. We have retained the same pagination as the original printing to faciliatate davenners being able to follow the service no matter which edition they are using.
Machzor's printing, we also discovered typographical and other errors in both the English and the Hebrew. In addition, since 2014, Havurat Shalom has been able to incorporate non-gendered Hebrew for prayers which previously had different options for male and female davenners. We are excited to present the
second edition where the errors have (hopefully) all been corrected, where some of the issues we were wrestling with have been further developed and where the non-gendered language adopted in our Shabbat prayerbook is reflected in our
Machzor. We have retained the same pagination as the original printing to faciliatate davenners being able to follow the service no matter which edition they are using.
This machzor is the fruit of many people’s labors. The committee responsible for working over the material in this machzor consisted of: Aliza Arzt, Reena Kling, z"l, Cindy Blank-Edelman, Meredith Jay Arzt Porter, Emily Aviva Kapor, Lawrence Rosenwald
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