Our prayer book - Siddur Lev Shalem - is designed for use by individuals as well as congregations, in the home and in the synagogue.

 

The siddur begins with home preparation for Shabbat -- including meditations on candle lighting, a song that incorporates halakhic instruction, a passage about the neshamah y’teirah (additional spirit) of Shabbat, an introduction to Shabbat from the Zohar, and much more.

 

In the tradition of Mahzor Lev Shalem, the siddur includes an extraordinary array of sources and commentary -- historical, halakhic, and spiritual.

 

While the siddur includes all the traditional prayers, psalms, and songs that are familiar from previous Conservative siddurim, it serves also as an anthology, offering a wide array of readings that can be used to celebrate Shabbat as well as material for study about Shabbat: poems both ancient and modern, Hasidic wisdom, rabbinic midrashim, and commentary on the history and diversity of the liturgy.

 

Today, as in the medieval synagogue, each community and individual can choose from the variety of texts offered, adding our own voices to the harmonious and lavishly textured “Song of Shabbat.”