One of my favorite projects in 2011 was a siddur for an overseas youth organization with members from different Jewish backgrounds. They wanted a prayer book that would satisfy the needs of their whole community, so (for example) we included both an Orthodox and a Reform amidah.

Truly, the differences in prayer are minor. I’ve never seen a Jewish prayer book of any denomination that lacked beautiful words to inspire us in our daily struggles. Still, the differences between one group of Jews and another loom large, as they always have: my mother was a Litvak, my father a Polack; a couple of generations before their romance, their union would have been unthinkable.

When I was a child, our family went to the Orthodox shul. I didn’t know anyone in the Reform shul and could barely imagine what kind of people went there, or why. For people more observant than we, my Booba had an epithet: Meshugga frum. I grew up thinking we were right, and the rest were either bordering on heathenism or just plain nuts.

Oh, how easy it is for a child to view those outside his own little group with a mixture of suspicion and scorn, and how hard it is to grow out of the arrogant ignorance of immaturity.

That’s why I think of that little siddur with satisfaction and with hope. If we can weaken the barriers that separate one Jewish person from another and instead strengthen the bonds that bind us, surely we can bring honor to God and benefit to humanity.