Sunday, January 27, 2013

Siddurim and tefillos

Our mornings start with davening, and of course, we distribute siddurim.
Each of us has a siddur, ranging from the smallest (mine) to the biggest (Thing 2).  All three are from Artscroll, and each is for the appropriate level.  Mine is a battered, blue, pocket-size Artscroll Korban Minchah siddur with English and Hebrew.  Builder bought me some nameplates for my books, so my Hebrew name is on the cover.  Thing 1's siddur, less than a year old, is already staring to show some dog-earing where she flips the pages absently while davening.  It is the standard-size Artscroll Chaim Shlomo Chinuch Siddur, all Hebrew, and Nusach Sefard.  Thing 2 makes do with the picture-book siddur that Artscroll designed for children.  This is easily not my favorite.  Not only is it nusach Ashkenaz only, but it's missing some of the tefillos we've incorporated, such as Hallel (on Rosh Chodesh), Yotzer Ohr (and would it have been so hard to add one line to the Barchu page), and Tehillim perek 150 (which is shorter and a lot livelier than Ashrei, which they did include.  Nothing against Ashrei--I committed it to memory years ago and won Builder's heart that way--but 22 verses is a lot for a little kid.)  However, since Thing 2 is only on the cusp of learning nekudos, it really doesn't matter that I've had to improvise so much so that she has a page.  
My rule about davening is that we add, but don't subtract.  In other words, if the Things learn a tefillah in camp, davening group or elsewhere, we add it into our morning davening.  However, when Thing 1 told me that her camp skipped certain tefillos that I had made routine, I said.  "That's nice.  You're home now.  No more skipping."  As of now, our morning tefillos consist of the following:
Modeh Ani
Reshis Chochma
Torah Tziva Lanu Moshe
Ma Tovu
Adon Olam
Yigdal
Netilas Yadayim/Asher Yatzar
Bircas haTorah (but we skip the readings from the Mishna and the Talmud)
Bircas haShachar (first 14)
Tehillim perek 150
Barchu/Yotzer Ohr (Builder said it's OK to say this without a minyan, since it's for chinuch purposes.)
Shema/V'ahvta
First two brachos of Shemonah Esrei (eventually we'll add the third)
Aleinu, first half
Ani Maamim number 12 (not my idea, Thing 1 imported it from summer camp two years ago.)

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