The Super Prayerbook

When I was visiting my grandparents this past weekend, my grandfather pointed to his collection of very old books. Since I'm in a psalms study group, I immediately noticed a little brown leather-bound book titled "Psalms and Hymns." I opened it to the first psalm, which clearly said "Jesus Christ" in the middle instead of "God" or "the Lord." Flipping through a few other psalms, I found that this occurred very frequently. There were also multiple versions of each psalm (in long meter, short meter, etc.).  

But this wasn't all that this little book had. It also had a detailed index of the psalms for meditation (based on themes and words in the psalms), several hymns, even more prayers, a guide for running a Presbyterian church, guidelines for weddings, funerals, and baptisms, how one should observe the sabbath, and a "short" catechism with 100 questions and answers about the beliefs of Christianity.

A "complete" Jewish prayerbook, in terms of the breadth of content, also covers the home and synagogue prayers for all Jewish holidays, as well as some traditional Jewish hymns. But it usually won't include psalms, nor does it tell you how a synagogue should be governed or how to organize a funeral and burial. Since Jewish law covers everything from how to keep the sabbath to how to inspect your veggies for bugs, it would be impossible to contain in a prayerbook even in a compact summarization.

However, one of the things I thought was wonderful about the Presbyterian prayerbook, though, was the organization of prayers by one's personal need. While there are some Jewish books with special prayers for funerals, visiting the Western Wall, or prayers for women (which are mostly about marriage, pregnancy, childbirth, and the purity laws), I haven't seen a prayerbook with headings such as "for the person whose brother got engaged" or "for the person who is moving away from home." Often, the everyday and not-everyday events that fall outside the services and  aren't accounted for, leaving one feeling that even a "complete" prayerbook is still incomplete.