Question: I am Jewish by birth, but do not speak Hebrew, nor did I have any formal Jewish education as a child. I have recently made the decision to be an observant Jew. Is there any advice you can give me regarding beginning to say the daily prayers. I plan on doing this alone at home. The transliteration is at times difficult to pronounce, and the number of prayers seems overwhelming. I’m not sure I even know what order to say them or at what time of day. Not to mention the bowing and swaying. I should also mention I am “legally blind” also known as visually impaired, so obviously it is nearly impossible to read from a traditional siddur. I have been doing a lot of research online though with the aid of magnification software. I am genuinely and sincerely determined to be the best Jew I can be from now on. Where do I begin?

Answer: You mention you are doing research online. The best online resource for prayer is http://www.siddur.org/. The table of contents may be found at http://www.siddur.org/contents.php.To see, you can probably make the fonts as large as possible. You can also use a magnifying glass.

This site is a wonderful resource for prayer. But I would not necessarily start off with prayer. Why not start with short things that are done daily like blessings. This way you will have the opportunity to practice what you are learning and still make step by step progress.

For example, you can scroll down to “Daily blessings”; then you can pick the subtopic of “Blessings over Snacks”; upon clicking you can click “Blessings before eating” and click “On all else.” This will bring you to the SHEHAKOL page.

This wonderful website gives 1) The transliterated Hebrew version of the blessing 2) the English translation of the blessing and 3) general background, guidance and laws on when the blessing is said.

You can spend some time studying this and then you will be able to say the appropriate blessing daily on many foods.

You can use this procedure and gradually familiarize yourself with the reasons, customs and texts of a variety of prayers.

I hope you find this advice useful. Good luck in your studies.

Russell Jay Hendel; Ph.d.; A.S.A