No book is closer to the heart of the Jew than the Siddur; none has
had such a profound influence [or been] so uniquely able to
penetrate to the very depths of the soul.
For generations, the Siddur was the first book the Jewish child
learned to read, and through the struggle to grasp the combinations
of letters, he repeated and learned to recite its phrases by heart.
This bond with the prayer book engendered a great intimacy between
the Jew and the Siddur in both the emotional and intellectual
spheres. But the bond is not only a primary, intimate one; it is an
ongoing, lifelong process. While other books are used only as study
texts which, once mastered, need not be read again, or are reread
only after a long period, the Siddur accompanies the Jew throughout
life. . . .
No other Jewish book contains the entirety of Judaism. The Siddur
is like a garland, intertwining all the strands of Judaism and
encompassing all fields of Jewish creativity in all their
variegated forms. It includes sections that reflect the
fundamentals of Jewish faith, and those relating to the field of
religious law. . . . [It] contains sections of exalted poetry, and
matters of ritual procedure. There are prayers that deal with the
most intimate details of individual needs and problems,
supplications reflecting the sorrows and aspirations of the nation,
and prayers that touch upon the entire cosmos.
--From A Guide to Jewish Prayer
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