THE

SERVICE-RITUAL.

COMPILED BY

RABBI JOSEPH KRAUSKOPF, D.D.,

OF THE REFORM CONGREGATION KENESETH ISRAEL," PHILADELPHIA.

PRESS OF

J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY.

PHILADELPHIA,

PREFACE.

THE design of this Service-Ritual is modest. It does not intend to interfere with, or to supplant, any of the prayer-books now in use. It simply aims to be supplementary to them. Within recent years a want has arisen in the Jewish communal life which the older prayer-books cannot entirely satisfy, and to fill that want is the object of this Ritual. In this country, circumstances, almost uncontrollable, make it wellnigh impossible for the great majority of our brethren to attend the regular Saturday services. To afford these an opportunity for attending Jewish Divine services one day in the week, it has been deemed advisable by a number of our congregations to conduct such services on Sunday, on the day that presents the least interference. For such services has this Ritual been written. At the same time it might be profitably used on any other day of the week, or on any evening, especially in those Jewish communities that are too small to engage the services of a Rabbi, and whose acquaintance with the Hebrew language is too limited to permit them the use of any of the older prayer-books. Almost any one that is familiar with the English language can officiate with this Service-Ritual, in public or within the home circle.

The Ritual has been prepared with scrupulous care. It avoids the monotony of weekly repetitions of the same prayers by giving thirty completely different Services. It makes a hymn-book unnecessary by incorporating in each