Page:Philip Birnbaum - ha-Siddur ha-Shalem (The Daily Prayer Book,1949).pdf/11

 INTRODUCTION

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The Siddur is the most popular book in Jewish life. No book so completely unites the dispersed people of Israel. If any single volume can tell us what it means to be a Jew, it is the Siddur which embodies the visions and aspirations, the sorrows and joys of many generations. The whole gamut of Jewish history may be traversed in its pages; it is a mirror that reflects the development of the Jewish spirit throughout the ages. Interwoven into the texture of the prayers are passages from the Bible, the Mishnah, the Talmud and the Zohar. The poetic and philosophic creations of numerous known and unknown authors constitute a considerable part of the Siddur. No other book so thoroughly expresses the creative genius of our people across the centuries.

The Siddur passed through a long process of evolution until it finally emerged as a rich anthology of our literary classics. It abounds in quotations from every book of the Bible; it includes half the Book of Psalms, the entire Song of Songs, and lengthy excerpts from each of the Five Books of Moses. The Ethics of the Fathers and other chapters of the Mishnah have become particularly popular because they form part of the Siddur, which contains also extensive selections from the vast Hebrew literature that was written after the Talmud. Though its language is largely biblical Hebrew, it embodies a great deal of post-biblical diction. Aramaic, too, the common Jewish tongue that once replaced Hebrew for a long period, is prominently featured in prayers like the Kaddish and the Yekum Purkan.

Judaism demands from its adherents a knowledge of the Bible and the traditions based upon it. Many, however, lack the leisure or the aptitude for such study; hence, the Siddur has developed in a way that enables every worshiper to become familiar with the various forms of Jewish learning and religious expression. Since the