Comments on: Tzemah Yoreh’s Atheist Siddur https://thisnormallife.com/2010/04/tzemah-yorehs-atheist-siddur/ All about "normal" life in Israel Tue, 20 Jul 2010 19:02:30 +0000 hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=5.7.11 By: Rabbi Adam Chalom https://thisnormallife.com/2010/04/tzemah-yorehs-atheist-siddur/comment-page-1/#comment-334 Tue, 20 Jul 2010 19:02:30 +0000 https://thisnormallife.com/?p=1719#comment-334 What you are doing is quintessential Mordecai Kaplan Reconstructionism (which even the Reconstructionist movement doesn’t do much anymore). I have many thoughts about the problems of a “redefinition while keeping the old words” project, and why Humanistic Judaism’s approach of being willing to change the prayers rather than make them “mean what we want them to mean” is better, but in the end for me it comes down to a statement of integrity. “lo yidabber ekhad ba-peh v’ekhad ba’lev” (BT Bava Metzia 49a) – my ancestors said what they believed and believed what they said, and so do I. Drop me an email if you’d like a short article I’ve written on the subject.

One other note – your second alternative Kaddish (“wonderful is peace in the world”) was done by Rabbi Sherwin Wine, and there is an accompanying Hebrew text that modifies certain words in the Kaddish while keeping the overall rhythm.

Rabbi Adam Chalom

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