[Jewish] donation/project

[rls01 at hampshire.edu]

Hello all.

I hope you are all enjoying your holiday and feel freed from your own personal 
slavery.

My father talked to me today and said that he loved donating the benchers last 
semester and would like to donate something else this semester if we could 
think of anything.  I mentioned prayerbooks. (Though our Chabbad self-help 
guides are good for many reasons). 

Prayerbooks, however, stir up a little more controversy than song booklets.  I 
wouldn't want to monopolize the JSU by donating a load of Conservative books.  
I propose a committee/project group to work with me to find a prayerbook we all 
like or (more likely) compose a prayerbook that my father would be willing to 
copy and bind for us.  Issues I see that need consideration are a 
transliteration that can be trusted, a meaningful english translation, a 
complete-enough hebrew text, and some combination of the three that Reform, 
Reconstructivist, Conservative, Modern Orthodox, etc. members of JSU would be 
okay praying from.  Also, we might want to add in some of the songs that aren't 
in our song books, some of the blessings we have trouble finding, or whatever 
else we would like to have written down somewhere.  

I may very well be in the valley this summer. Perhaps others who are in the 
valley (Jill? Alizah? Raquelli? anyone else?) would like to meet regularly with 
me to put something together. Of course, anyone else would be welcome to input 
their two cents as well. Maybe we could even meet with a rabbi from one of the 
other schools or something who could help point us in different directions or 
explain to us why certain prayers are different in different movements.  

I'm obviously excited, as I love new projects, so tell me if any of you have 
anything to say on the topic.

chag sameach

RL