Shalom. What would you like to hear first — the good news or the bad news? I’ll start with the bad news — the new Shabbat Siddur, Tefillah l’Moshe, was delayed in getting to the printer, which means it might not be in our hands on New Years Day 2009, as we had originally hoped.

Now the good news — the new siddur is going to be spectacular, from the cover photo of our own Aron Kodesh to the last user friendly comment. Cantor Berris and I, together with our publisher, Joe Lewis, and members of the congregation, have worked long hours on making this siddur exactly what we want for our synagogue.

We have proofread every letter of every word, including: the Hebrew text, the transliteration, translation and comments, and with each proofreading session, we have made further improvements and eliminated errors (of course, we won’t catch them all).

The extra care and time that we devote to this project assures that:

1. Siddur Tefillah l’Moshe will be arranged according to our B’nai Moshe “way of doing things,” so that it will be easy to find such features as the Psalm for Shabbat and An’im Zemirot.

2. There will be clearly written explanations of when to sit or stand, when and how to respond to the Cantor, and when to include or omit sections, depending on the time of year.

3. Every text is checked carefully for both content and meaning, including new versions of the prayers for the U.S. and Israel, a passage in memory of the Shoah, and a re-writing of the yekum purkan paragraphs into a unified whole.

4. The English translation, based on Joe Lewis’ effort, will be readable, “prayable,” poetic, ring true to the meaning of the Hebrew, and reflect a healthy balance of tradition and modernity.

Siddur Tefillah l’Moshe continues to be one of the most exciting, innovative and unifying projects in the history of our synagogue. We will keep you up to date on its progress, at the High Holiday services and in future issues of the bulletin.