My Prayer Book (Siddur)

This morning I got up super early (5:00-ish am) to pray outside in the early morning.  I commemorated the occasion with these pictures of my prayer book, or siddur, which I thought you might like to see.  The siddur I used this morning is the one I received at my "siddur party" in first grade...yes, it's survived all these years!

In this picture, my siddur is on my lap, open to the Aleinu prayer.  In this prayer, we praise God as Master of the Universe and all creatures.  This prayer was composed in the Second Temple period.  The Aleinu prayer concludes every service, and it is present in our Rosh HaShanah (New Year) liturgy as well.  I chose this prayer as the place to which to open the siddur for this picture purely because I had finished there.

And here is a picture of my siddur, closed, on my lap.  I designed and made the cover in tenth grade.

 

And, unsurprisingly, I am ending with a picture of "Jacob," my precious little one! Here he is: