Free Siddur Project – פרויקט סדור חופשי

The below links are to files I’ve created of various prayers and such from Friday Evening services. I’ll continue to add to this list as I go along. If you find any mistakes in the Hebrew, punctuation or cantillation marks please drop me a note and let me know. As for the transliteration – I’ve been playing with the program Saffa. Saffa has a four day free trial and in that time I did Friday night. Since that time I’ve added a number of texts including the Birkat. I have yet to find the cash to purchase Saffa but as soon as I do I’ll standardize the transliteration across the board. You’ll also note that I took a crack at translating the Shevah Brachot (something I did for my wedding in July of 2006).

Now… on a technical note… to read the PDF’s you will need Adobe Acrobat reader (which is free). For the Word Docs I’m not sure what version of MS Word you’d need in order to view the files properly but its worth experimenting with it; I know it will work in Word 2003 and 2007. If you want to be able to create your own, I recommend Tavultesoft’s Keyman and the Ezra SIL Unicode font kit since that’s what I’ve been using (both are free). There’s also a bunch more information on both their sites about Unicode and Hebrew and such. One final note – as many of you may know, there is a debate in the world of Jewish Education about when one can and when one cannot write out G-d’s name. You’ll notice below that I subscribe to the belief that in education there is no prohibition against writing out G-d’s name. My intention with the free siddur project is to teach all those that are interested in our prayers about those prayers. I apologize if this has offended you, but sending me a message on this topic is unwelcomed. Thank you for your understanding.

Update: It has recently come to my attention that Tavultsoft’s KeyMan is no longer free. Fortunately, there is a keyboard map that doesn’t require KeyMan. Check out:

http://www.sbl-site.org/educational/BiblicalFonts_SBLHebrew.aspx

Enjoy!

Update: I was recently asked under what license this content is available. I had hoped that the name “Free Siddur” and the fact that the siddur is uncopyrightable would allow those who visit this site to come to the conclusion on their own that this material is free content, but apparently not. So… to be clear, this material is free content. Feel free to use it however you’d like. All I ask is that you let me know when you find mistakes and that you share with me anything similar you create as a result of this site. Thanks!

Now, on to the files: