S H A B B A T S
E R V I C E T E M P L A
T E
What Is This?
A lot of young Reform Jews find that using a standard printed prayerbook
for weekly Shabbat services isn't as fulfilling or meaningful an experience
as compiling one's own services. Many people are familiar with this sort
of "creative service" from camps or NFTY or other youth groups. By far
the most aggravating part of creating a creative service is the physical
work of putting together the printed service: the various English or Hebrew
readings, the traditional prayers, additional songs, etc.
For about four years in the Brown-RISD Reform Jewish Chavurah, I've
been producing services really easily and (be it ever so humble) attractively
using this little service template. It has the prayers that we traditionally
do Friday nights, and it makes adding readings and songs easy. Other people
have been nagging me to make this available to the world at large, and
I'm finally doing that.
So here it is. It consists of the following prayers
in Hebrew, Transliteration, and Translation:
-
Shabbat Candle Blessings
-
Reader's Kaddish
-
Bar'chu
-
Ma'ariv Aravim
-
Ahavat Olam
-
Sh'ma and V'ahavta
-
Mi Chamocha
-
V'shamru
-
Avot v'Imahot
-
G'vurot
-
Kedusha
-
Shalom Rav
-
Silent Prayer/Y'hiyu
-
Aleinu
-
Mourner's Kaddish
What You'll Need
A word processing application that can read and translate RTF (Rich Text
Format) files. I created this document using Word 6 for Macintosh, but
I imagine it should work fine in any application that can handle RTF. The
side-by-side text in this version is accomplished using tables, so make
sure your word processor can handle that.
Fonts: The English and transliterated Hebrew text is all in Times,
which I think everyone should have a version of. The Hebrew uses a shareware
PostScript font called ShalomOldStyle. You can download a Macintosh
version or a Windows
version here.
How To Use This
Once you've downloaded the fonts and the RTF file, open the file in Word.
You'll see all of the prayers, in Hebrew, Transliteration, and English.
The Hebrew and Transliteration should run side by side.
All of the text formatting is controlled by the various styles in the
document. All of the Hebrew text is in Hebrew style, all of the
transliteration is in Transliteration, etc. If you don't like
the English font I've chosen, for example, just go ahead and change the
style. I won't mind.
If you want to add English readings, just type them in the spaces between
the prayers. English readings should be formatted with English
style. I've left a blank paragraph in English style between each
paragraph for you. If you want to give credit for one of your readings
to your sources, just put the source in the handy Attribution
style right after the reading. Easy.
Miscellany
I'd love to know if this is useful to anyone. If you use it and like it
or have any problems with it, please let me know (my email address is below).
Have a good time.
For convenience, here are all the files you need: