OK, so it’s no secret that I really hate the ArtScroll siddur. But I never really had a clear example of why Koren is clearly better, although we all knew this. I hated it because it was taking over our Conservative synagogue; I hated it because the Ohel Sarah is ridiculously offensive; I hated it because it’s basically an entire empire; and I hated it because it brings its agenda into people’s homes just because it looks like it might be made of faux leather and the name is popular so why not buy one?
But I was just scanning that list of laws at the back of the Koren on Saturday during a particularly boring dvar Torah, and I noticed something: Koren is different.
1.) Behold—Laws of Tzitzit, #323:
Putting on a four-cornered garment with tzitzit attached fulfills an affirmative mitzva from the Torah. The obligation applies only during the daytime [מנחות מג]. Since wearing tzitzit is a time-bound mitzva, women are exempt [שו''ע או''ח, יז:ב].
Let’s take a look at this revolutionary sentence. First of all, you may have noticed that they cite their sources, whereas ArtScroll just expects you to take their word for it. Next, their sources include such classics as the Talmud and Shulchan Aruch, not crazy sources I don’t know like freaking Feinstein and the Rebbe and Luzzato and whoever else they decide to throw in. Next, here’s the revolutionary part—they say “women are exempt”, not “women should not do this”. Unlike ArtScroll, they are making no value judgment on my behalf. It’s not the siddur’s job to tell me what I should or shouldn’t do, if you ask me. It should tell me the facts and the laws and perhaps the customs, but not that not following them is basically going to send me to Hades (seriously, that’s their tone…have you read Ohel Sarah, by the way?) They do the same treatment with tefillin: “Women are exempt”, not “Women have such a special snowflake soul that they do not need tefillin. Tell your wife to light candles instead.”
2.) Koren includes things that ArtScroll would never even imagine including, just because it leads to orgies:
Laws of Birkat HaGomel, #398: A husband may say Birkat HaGomel for his wife, or a father for his children [משנ''ב, שם: יז]. But, according to most authorities, it is preferable that a woman say Birkat HaGomel for herself in the presence of a minyan.
Whoa! For herself? With a minyan? Isn’t that how the Temple was destroyed?
3.) Nowhere in the Laws of Erev Shabbat does it mention that candle-lighting is a “woman’s special privilege” or that “it is preferable for a woman to do it”. Nor does it say in the Laws of Mourner’s Kaddish that “women shouldn’t say the Mourner’s Kaddish”.
3.) Koren acknowledges that women are also obligated in Kiddush. Not only in their laws on Kiddush (#454: “Women are obligated in this mitzva, and a woman is permitted to say Kiddush for herself and others.”), but in their utter lack of need to inject their ideology via omission. When speaking of Kiddush throughout the siddur, Koren always includes “under the age of Bar/Bat Mitzvah”, not “Bar Mitzvah” and hope we won’t notice. That’s important.
4.) Speaking of which, Koren doesn’t include its laws within the body of the siddur. It leaves them for the end. For example, when I read the brachot for the tallit, I am not subjected to a big grey box at the bottom saying “Women should not wear a man’s vessel.” Same for the brachot for tefillin. And through the text, it includes “one does this” or “some say the following”. No “a man wraps the tefillin around his arm seven times”, because whatever the writers of Koren may believe personally, they leave it at home.
Unlike ArtScroll.
5.) Customs are treated as just that—customs. Through my Koren, I see “it is the custom that…” or “some have the custom to say this standing”, not “we do this”, or “we believe that”. In my Koren Sacks siddur, the English commentary doesn’t tell me I’m going to Sheol if I don’t follow the custom; instead it gives me a brief synopsis of why a certain thing is the custom. For the HaKorbanot stuff, for example, it says: “There are different customs as to how many passages are to be said, and one should follow the custom of one’s congregation.” Elsewhere, it says “Tachanun is not said in the presence of a groom (and some say a bride).”
5.) There is a Zeved Habat section, which is surprisingly full and doesn’t just consist of two psalms or something. As far as I can see, Zeved Habat is conducted in the synagogue with a rabbi and a congregation (I’ve heard it called by different names), and that it’s already a “longstanding custom of the Sephardim and increasingly adopted by Ashkenazim”. Better yet:
If food is served at the ceremony, the meal has religious significance (seudat mitzva) and should be accompanied by words of Torah.
And the ceremony totally ends with this line:
All say: Our sister, may you grow to become thousands of myriads.
How fun is that?
There is also a fairly long Prayer After Childbirth that is said in the synagogue and requires congregational responses and possibly even the rabbi. Like the Zeved Habat, Koren Sacks attempts to invest it with religious significance:
In Temple times, mothers would offer a sacrifice after the birth of a child (Lev. 12:6-8). No record exists of a formal prayer offered on such occasions: there may have been no fixed text (1031).
These are two ceremonies that I hope really do catch on because of “what a siddur said”.
(The only thing that’s a little weird about Koren is that their Prayers to Be Said Before Death comes literally right after their Prayers for Illness and Prayers for the Recovery of Illness. Yeah, that’s a good message.)
Basically, I like Koren because it’s very clean and direct. It doesn’t shamelessly insist that I accept its ideology, it’s not part of a vast empire, and it’s not overextending its market. More importantly, it’s a siddur, and not a nonnegotiable ideology. And Modern Orthodoxy (and for that matter, Conservatism) seriously needs a new player in the market.
…It’s time to get rid of your ArtScrolls.
just yesterday, i was thinking to myself, “the internet sure does seem to love koren sacks compared to artscroll, but i wish i could read a direct contrast of the two before i buy yet another siddur!”
so–thanks.
Oh, cool! I hope I was influential!
BUT…I love the Artscroll תנק. With rare rare rare rare rare exception, their translation is always exactly how I would translate it.
Ooops…typo…I meant תנך. (Duh.)
Does their Tanach have…oh, commentaries?
I like the new Koren line of siddurim, too, but when I was in Israel earlier this summer, I checked out their illustrated kids’ siddur (short, picture-book thing with some tefillot), I was appalled to see only men/boys in the Torah-learning-related illustrations, among other sexist issues with how and when boys and girls are depicted.
Ugh. I thought my Tzivos Hashem children’s handbook that I bought for $1 had a handle on that already. I wonder what would happen if someone were to write to Koren asking what their deal is…I might do it. I expected better from them.
Yep, Koren ftw.