A Short Tribute

Many Jews have given themselves permission to begin the morning Shacharit prayer at Hodu. They consider everything written in the siddur prayer book from the section of the Binding [of Isaac] before Hodu to be insignificant. This situation is all the more severe among our Ashkenazi brethren, where the congregation begins praying at Hodu and Baruch She’Amar. The general public, therefore, is not stringent about first reciting the Binding and Offerings, and has all but forgotten this part of the prayer’s sequence…This sequence has been strictly maintained by the Sephardim of all origins, in all communities and synagogues, where the cantor begins by reciting the Binding out loud, not skipping or omitting anything. The Jews of Yemen have also preserved this sequence. In recent times, however, students raised in Ashkenazi yeshivot have also begun to disregard the prayer’s completeness. And out of our own failings, there are some yeshivot whose students are all Sephardi, and who also begin the prayer at Hodu. They consider the omission to be permissible, and beleive that they are allowed to abandon their ancestral customs and detach themselves from the Sephardi public.