Conservative Machzor replaces the Avodah piyut with a passage from Ben Sira - outrageous!
"While Jews reject the apocrypha as having religious value in and of of itself, at various times some in the Jewish community have drawn from it as a legitimate part of Jewish literary creativity; elements of the apocrypha have even been used as the basis for two important parts of the Jewish liturgy. In the Mahzor (High Holy day prayer book), a medieval Jewish poet used Ben Sira as the basis for a beautiful poem, Ke'Ohel HaNimtah. This is a closing piyut in the Seder Avodah section, in the Yom Kipur Musaf. It begins "How glorious indeed was the High Priest, when he safely left the Holy of Holies. Like the clearest canopy of Heaven was the dazzling countenance of the priest". (This can be seen, for example, on page 828 of the Birnbaum edition of the Mahzor.) The Conservative Mahzor replaces the medieval piyut with the relevant section from Ben Sira, which is more direct (Avakesh comments: What a bad idea!). The apocrypha has even formed the basis of the most important of all Jewish prayers, the Amidah (the Shemonah Esrah). Ben Sira provides the vocabulary and framework for many of the Amidah's blessings, which were instituted by the men of the Great Assembly."
Or vice versa....
Ben Sira was a contemporary of Shimon Hatsadik, the last of the Men of the Great Assembly. Some parts of it may have been written with Ruach Hakodesh, see http://www.avakesh.com/2007/01/the_enigma_of_b.html
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