Page:Philip Birnbaum - ha-Siddur ha-Shalem (The Daily Prayer Book,1949).pdf/14



A great many editions of the Siddur have suffered from gross carelessness. In the first place, the Hebrew text has not been adequately provided with punctuation to indicate the logical relation of words to one another. The prayers have therefore remained unclear even to those who have a fair knowledge of Hebrew. Opinions are still divided as to the groupings of the words of one of the most popular prayers, the Kaddish.

For no sound reason the pages of the Siddur are broken up by several type sizes which have a confusing effect on the eyes of the reader. Those who learn the contents of the prayers soon discover that the emphasis suggested by the larger type is in most cases no emphasis at all. Why, for instance, should one part of the Shema be made to appear more prominent than the other? Why give the impression that certain psalms or the Ethics of the Fathers are of negligible importance? The variation of type sizes frequently causes mental stumbling and interferes with the proper appreciation of the Siddur. Our school children, generally trained in the reading of the larger type in the Siddur, gradually develop a prejudice against whatever appears in the smaller print; they imagine it as too hard to read or too unimportant to learn.

A cursory glance at the complicated directions, frequently attended by a strange mixture of Hebrew and English characters, will suffice to explain the confusion created in the mind of the average worshiper. These directions have “the New Moon” instead of Rosh Ḥodesh, “Pentecost” instead of Shavuoth, “Tabernacles” instead of Sukkoth, “the Eighth Day of Solemn Assembly and the Rejoicing of the Law” instead of Shemini Atsereth and Simhath Torah, “the Ten Days of Penitence” instead of between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. During the High Holyday period one is misdirected into reciting twenty instead of the prescribed nineteen