Eliezer Schweid (1929-2022) was widely recognized as one of the foremost historians of Jewish thought of this era. He was Professor Emeritus at Hebrew University and an Israel Prize recipient.Gershon Greenberg is a visiting professor in the history of Jewish religious thought through the Holocaust at Hebrew and Bar Ilan universities in Israel. He is based at American University in Washington, D.C. where he created and directed the Jewish Studies Program and serves as Professor of Philosophy and Religion.

• Translator’s AcknowledgementsTranslator’s Introduction: Eliezer Schweid as Worshipper in the State of IsraelAuthor’s Preface: My Path to the Jewish Prayer Book (Siddur Hatefillah)Introduction: The Siddur (Jewish Prayer Book): Its Sources, Goal, and Theological BasisWorship of God and the Process of the Sacred Congregation’s Formation and ExpressionPrayer as a Form of Primal Expression of the Human SoulTorah and Prayer: The Problem of Love and Sin in the Relations between God and the Human BeingThe “Name and Kingship” Blessing as the Fundamental Rubric of Standing before God in PrayerEstablishing the Covenant of Faith between the Individual Human Being and His GodPrinciples of FaithKeriyat Shema—Covenant of Love between God and His PeopleThe Poetics of the Shema and the Shemoneh EsreiThe Shemoneh Esrei Prayer: The Kedushah (Sanctification) and Ḥaninat Hada’at (God as Giver of Knowledge)The Shemoneh Esrei Prayer—Requests by the Individual in the Assembly: Teshuvah (Repentance) and ForgivenessThe Shemoneh Esrei Prayer: Redemption, Healing, and LivelihoodThe Shemoneh Esrei (Eighteen Benedictions) That Are Really Nineteen: Redemption from Deepening ExileThe Shemoneh Esrei—Responding in Anticipation of Complete RedemptionTypes of Biblical Poetry as a Source of PrayerBetween the Poetry of Prophecy and PrayerThe Poetry of the Psalms: Personal-Soulful and Societal-Political MessagesHymnal Song for the Sabbath Day. The “Sign” between God and His Treasured Nation and the Isolation from ChristianityBreaking the Boundary of Mystery between the Kingdom of Heaven and the Earth: Praying with Devekut (Adherence) and with Kavanah (Intention)Epilogue: The Universality and Perpetuity of Moving from Slavery to Freedom and from Exile to RedemptionGlossaryIndex

“Schweid’s comprehensive work digs into the depths of Jewish prayer as hardly any other scholarly book does. The reader’s feeling is that the book emerges from the author’s deeper need to search the soul and the profound meaning of prayer in Judaism.” – Alessandro Grazi, Journal of Modern Jewish Studies