Kehilat Bβnai Shalom uses the Jeremiah Greenberg Messianic Shabbat Siddur with additional material.
What document did Adonai write Himself and gave to mankind? The Ten Commandments. Good, that’s one. What else did He write for mankind? How about the blue prints for the First Temple as well as the Order (Siddur).
Let begin by reading from 1 Chronicles 28
Note that it says “the plans for the vestibule, its houses, its treasuries, its upper chambers, its inner chambers, and the place of the mercy seat; and the plans for all that he had by the Spirit, of the courts of the house of Adonai, of all the chambers all around, of the treasuries of the house of God, and of the treasuries for the dedicated things;”. This is describing the plans or I believe we could properly call them the blue prints (maybe He wrote with Techelet?). It is important to also note that in the middle it records “plans for all that he had by the Spirit”. In Hebrew it reads that is was from Ruach which is often used as Holy Spirit or the Spirit of G-d. Thus we can see that this were given by Adonai Himself to King David.
But just in case you think I may have been too quick to say that all of this (and more) were provided by Adonai Himself, lets read another verse a little further down:
So King David himself says that Adonai (many Bibles write this as the LORD since they use LORD with all capital letters to record a reference to the tetragramaton) Himself wrote this with His own hand.
Does this make you look at the First temple a little different than if it was just David’s design? Do we put more weight behind what Adonai Himself plans for us?
“What about the Siddur? You said it was given by G-d as well.”
To get the answer to this we need to look a little closer at a verse we previously read:
This ‘work of the service of the house of Adonai’. This is the instruction on how to perform the services in the temple. The blessings, the songs, the psalms, … The Siddur.
So now we see that Adonai Himself wrote how the services were to be conducted and thus provided the Siddur. It was important enough for Him to write it down Himself to ensure the order of the service was done properly.
So why do we use the Siddur (in Hebrew this word means order) in our service? Since Adonai Himself provided the Siddur for the first Temple we can assume this would be a good order to follow. Traditional Judaisms have followed (and amended) this liturgy since it was given. Throughout the generations. We know things have added but the oldest prayers form the foundation for the service and it is these that we use as the basis for our service.
“How do you know what has been added?” One of the great treasures of Judaism is its record. The Talmud and Mishna provide a pretty clear outline of when prayers were added or modified to the Siddur (service) and often times who made the additions. It does require study and digging to find this information but it is there.
It is in the Talmud and Mishna that we find the tradition of accrediting some of the pieces used in the liturgy e.g. Joshua said (wrote) Aleynu when he lead the first service in the Mishkan (wilderness tabernacle). If you stop and think what it must have been like for him. Moshe has died and you are preparing to enter the land that Adonai promised to your forefathers, Abraham, Yitzahk and Yaacov. I would have felt overwhelmed at the magnitude of what was about to occur but remember that Joshua spent much time in the mishkan (…Joshua the son of Nun, a young man, did not depart from the tabernacle. Exodus 33:11 (NKJV))
The next time you arise to sing the Aleynu, take a moment to stop and recall what it must have been like. Imagine how you would felt if you were standing watching as Joshua began to praise Adonai. We need to recall these facts to help us continue to keep Adonai in awe and reverence.