It’s summertime … and the praying is easy

With summer but a week away, we have a new siddur in the stores entitled, “The Koren Ani Tefilla Siddur: A Summer Camp Siddur and Chumash.” You don’t have to be attending a summer camp to use this siddur, and you don’t have to be a kid to use it. This beautiful and user-friendly prayerbook is for all to pray from, all summer long.

The text and translation is from the classic Koren text. Its other features, unique to this particular work, will be the focus of this week’s essay.

First, as a summer siddur, it contains all the Torah readings from Shabbat Korach to Shabbat Ki Tavo and the entire liturgy for the 17th of Tammuz and Tisha B’Av — all of your summer liturgical needs in one convenient volume. This is both a full weekday and Shabbat siddur.

Now for the really big news. The commentary to this work is about the most user-friendly there is; it talks to you, not at you, not down to you, and not above you. Your learning experience will be accompanied all the way through with a smile of intellectual nachas on both your face and your heart.

This commentary is written by Rabbi Dr. Jay Goldmintz, an adjunct professor at the Azrieli Graduate School and rabbi at the Maayanot High School in Teaneck. It is divided into four main segments for your learning pleasure and as an enhancement to your praying experience:

1. Biur Tefilla helps us gain a thorough understanding of the basic text and context of the prayers. It examines and explains a specific word or phrase in the prayer text and provides us with an informative understanding of the historical background of the prayer.

2. Iyyun Tefilla explores the deeper meaning behind the prayer to include the philosophical and theological meanings of the text and its context to the overall placement in the prayer service.

3. Hilchot Tefilla gives us the practical application of the prayer as it applies to ritual requirements throughout the text together with an appendix that focuses on the laws of prayer.