Dedication of Mishkan T’filah
December 21, 2007
Rabbi Bruce Kadden

“All beginnings are difficult,” says the Talmud. 

I don’t know that the author was thinking about beginning to use a new siddur, but the concern is certainly appropriate.  Change is challenging, and a change from something that we have grown used to can be quite unsettling.

Although I grew up in a Reform congregation using the Union Prayer Book, I have used Gates of Prayer throughout my more than 25 years in the rabbinate.  To say that I am comfortable with it is an understatement. 

But times change, and as I said last week, Gates of Prayer was very much a prayer book of its time:  the 1960s and 1970s which were characterized by theological confusion and an almost anything goes attitude.  Reform Judaism has come to recognize that if we try to be all things to all people we end up standing for nothing.

We are well into a new century and Reform Judaism has grown and developed, rediscovering lost traditions while becoming more open to spirituality and mysticism. 

At one time, Reform worship was much like a performance, conducted by the rabbi, cantor and choir, with the congregation as a passive audience.  Now, Reform Jews want to participate in worship, want to be engaged in the prayer experience.  Mishkan T’filah was designed with this goal in mind:  from the choice of fonts of the Hebrew and English texts, to the inclusion of transliteration on the page, to the elimination of italic typeface. 

The birthing process of Mishkan T’filah has been long –much longer than planned—and challenging.  It has produced what is an aesthetically pleasing, uplifiting, siddur.

Please take a copy of Mishkan T’filah into your hands and rise as we read together the dedicatory prayer and conclude with the Shecheyanu, a blessing that affirms that this is truly a new beginning.

Words on a page,

That open our hearts and minds,

That challenge us to think,

That link us to our ancestors

And to each other.

Ancient prayers

Borne out of longing,

Preserved in times of darkness

Bringing comfort and courage

A sense of history and destiny.

New prayers

Written by men and women

Trying to make sense of

Our tradition and the modern world.

The old and the new

Together on one page

Reminding us that

Only by embracing our past

In the light of the present

Can we prepare for the future.

Entering the Mishkan for the first time

We pray that its words challenge and inspire us

Bringing us closer to our tradition

to one another

And to God.

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