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At first sight, a Jewish religious service seems to consist of an arbitrary collection of prayers thrown together in a random order. Furthermore, every service seems to be completely different from every other service, and they seem to have nothing in common. In reality, every service, without exception, has the same underlying structure. And if we understand that structure, we understand the service. Using computer graphics to illustrate the structure of the Siddur, the author has harnessed modern technology to help explain and understand a book that is centuries old. If someone wishes to have a word-for-word understanding of a prayer, he or she can read the English translation of that prayer in the Siddur. However, such a word-for-word translation of the content of a prayer makes little sense unless the context of that prayer is fully comprehended. The emphasis in The Structure of the Siddur is on the structure of the service. In order to simplify explanations, the author has created many easy-to-use charts. The primary item on virtually every page is a diagram that illustrates some aspect of the structure of the service; the words on the page are essentially an explanation of the diagram. A second expository technique used is top-down presentation. Each chapter begins with a chart showing the overall structure of the topic of that chapter, for example, the Shabbat Amidah. This initial diagram highlights the major components of the Shabbat Amidah. Next, each major component in turn is presented in terms of its constituent subcomponents. Then, each of these subcomponents is presented. Thus, starting with the "big picture" and working down toward the details, the reader can clearly see how each part of the Shabbat Amidah fits together to form the whole. Another feature of this book is that advanced material has been separated from the body of the text into notes headed "For the Maven." In this way, the book caters to both average and erudite readers. There are many excellent books on the Siddur. These books explain the history of the Siddur, the contents of the various prayers, and so on. However, this book is the first of its kind; no other book explains the structure of the Siddur.
by Stephen R. Schach