A communal process for writing a new prayer book
Editor’s Note: This article first appeared in eJewishPhilanthropy on January 3, 2025
“Designed by committee” has come to be seen as a pejorative shorthand for a project that had too many cooks 
spoiling the broth, with lots of meetings but little or underwhelming results. The saying “A camel is a horse designed by committee” says it all.
But I have had a different experience. In 2011, after spending 20 years doing Jewish adult education in Toronto, I polled my students and, together with them, created a synagogue “by committee.” At a series of invitation-only parlor meetings, each with a designated audience (e.g., singles, families with tots, families with bnei mitzvah-aged kids, empty nesters and more), we envisioned a shul guided by high lay involvement and deep lay commitment, a covenantal community where every member was expected and trained to take an active role. Thirteen years later, City Shul has over 200 active member units and is recognized as a thriving force in the downtown Toronto Jewish community, and I recently retired from my role as City Shul’s founding rabbi.
A couple of years ago, when some members of the congregation began asking for a prayerbook that would reflect our own traditions, values and unique “traditional-Reform, davening-singing vibe,” I was faced with a dilemma. As the rabbi, I could surely take the task on myself: I could evaluate the many prayer books on the market and then make a suggestion to the leadership on which one to buy; or I could take a stab at creating a siddur myself. But my more aspirational hope was to generate some true ownership of the siddur by the full community, and the only way to do that was by ensuring that its users — the synagogue members — had a voice in the creative process.
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Rabbi Elyse Goldstein is the rabbi emerita of City Shul in Toronto and the author of four books on women and Judaism. She is a member of the National Mentor Team for the Clergy Leadership Incubator (CLI), a two-year rabbinic fellowship program directed by Rabbi Sid Schwarz.
