The Koren Children’s Siddur (K-2) is lively, beautiful, and fun. The drawings are contemporary and relevant; nuanced and interpretive. In short, the siddur fits our criteria for being aesthetically pleasing, an important feature at the very least for the child whose attention might otherwise wander. The illustrations themselves are explicated in a unique Educator’s Companion, written by the project director, Dr. Daniel Rose.
The most critical feature, however, is surely the “word bubbles” or “kavanot”on each page that direct the child toward a thought or idea rooted in that particular prayer. Examples include: “What special gifts has Hashem given you?” “How is Hashem like a king?” “What makes you happy?” “Why do we need Hashem’s help to pray?”
Given the variety of schools, families, traditions, abilities, levels, and priorities, it would be impossible to come up with a siddur that contained all the prayers that any school would expect to be included for its students while still keeping the size manageable for young hands, and so particular prayers were selected after serious deliberation.
The goal of the project is a paradigm shift wherein a greater focus of tefillah education is on meaning-making and not just ground-covering. It’s about encouraging students – and the adults in their lives – to try to focus on the quality, not just the quantity; the personal, not just the communal; on the kavanah, not just the keva.
The features of the siddur for older students, Ani Tefilla, were designed with the same primary goal in mind as its name indicates; namely, to help students find their own voice within the standardized text. The commentary was divided into four different sections, each with its own emphasis and goal, and is peppered with questions along the way that encourage the davener to confront the text on a personal level.
In so doing, I took some cues from the rationalist school of thought about prayer, most often expressed in terms of R. Shimshon Raphael Hirsch’s view of prayer as a reflexive and self-reflective activity, a way of confronting oneself in the presence of Hashem. At other times, the questions are used to enable the text to confront the davener, essentially asking or challenging the person to translate the words and values of prayer into a more prayerful life when one leaves the synagogue.
Among the siddur’s other features, the Amidah has only one blessing per page in an attempt to slow the davener down; the Minchah Amidah leaves blank space for one to add one’s own personal associations; there are stories and anecdotes from a variety of sources to help concretize or spiritualize the themes on the page; there is an emphasis everywhere on the function of each part of the service so that one gets the sense there is a goal to strive for; and there are appendices on frequently asked questions about prayer and suggestions for enhancing one’s kavanah in order to grapple realistically and honestly with the challenges of keva.
Lest one imagine we are kidding ourselves into thinking this is the magic bullet for what ails tefillah in schools and shuls, rest assured we have no such illusions. These are, after all, just siddurim. The real work with children and adolescents, as always, lies in the frontline work we do as teachers and parents. It is about the way we guide kids and nurture their inner souls, the ways we teach and inspire them, the ways we listen to them and allow them to find and then express their own voices.
