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 Contributor(s): |
Aharon N. Varady (transcription), David Seidenberg and neohasid.org
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Blessings Before Eating, Rosh haShanah la-Behemah, Earth, our Collective Home & Life-Support System
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blessings, eco-conscious, ברכות brakhot, ecoḥasid
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The Talmud (Brakhot 35a-b) teaches that eating food without saying a brakhah (a blessing) beforehand is like stealing. A lot of people know that teaching, and it’s pretty deep. But here’s an even deeper part: the Talmud doesn’t call it “stealing”, but מעילה ׁ(“me’ilah“), which means taking from sacred property that belongs to the Temple. So that means that everything in the world is sacred and this Creation is like a HOLY TEMPLE. . . . |
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| Contributor(s): |
Aharon N. Varady (transcription)
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Government & Country, United Kingdom
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19th century C.E., Great Britain, British Commonwealth, 57th century A.M., British Jewry, British Empire, הנותן תשועה haNotén Teshuah, British Monarchy, Constitutional Monarchy, Queens
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The text of the prayer, haNoten Teshuah, as adapted for Queen Victoria. . . . |
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| Contributor(s): |
Aharon N. Varady (translation), Refoyl Finkl (translation), Aharon N. Varady (transcription) and Yitsḥok Leybush Peretz
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National Brotherhood Week, Rosh Ḥodesh Adar (אַדָר) Alef & Bet
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20th century C.E., 57th century A.M., Yiddish songs, Ode to Joy, Sardonic poetry, Jewish particularism, contrarianism, satire
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Y.L. Peretz rejected cultural universalism, seeing the world as composed of different nations, each with its own character. Liptzin comments that “Every people is seen by him as a chosen people…”; he saw his role as a Jewish writer to express “Jewish ideals…grounded in Jewish tradition and Jewish history.” This is Peretz lampoon of the popularity of Friedrich Schiller’s idealistic paean made famous as the lyrics to the climax of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony. . . . |
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| Contributor(s): |
Aharon N. Varady (transcription), Lyons Collection Committee (translation) and Hendla Jochanan van Oettingen
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Government & Country, Washington's Birthday (3rd Monday of February), United States of America
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United States, Presidents Day, Spanish-Portuguese, 56th century A.M., 18th Century C.E., K.K. Shearith Israel, Sepharadi Diaspora, American War of Independence, Western Sepharadim, American Jewry of the United States
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Prayers recited on special occasions and thus not part of the fixed liturgy offered America’s foremost Jewish congregation far greater latitude for originality in prayer. At such services, particularly when the prayers were delivered in English and written with the knowledge that non-Jews would hear them, leaders of Shearith Israel often dispensed with the traditional prayer for the government and substituted revealing new compositions appropriate to the concerns of the day. A prayer composed in 1784 (in this case in Hebrew) by the otherwise unknown Rabbi (Cantor?) Hendla Jochanan van Oettingen, for example, thanked God who “in His goodness prospered our warfare.” Mentioning by name both Governor George Clinton and General George Washington, the rabbi prayed for peace and offered a restorationist Jewish twist on the popular idea of America as “redeemer nation”: “As Thou hast granted to these thirteen states of America everlasting freedom,” he declared, “so mayst Thou bring us forth once again from bondage into freedom and mayst Thou sound the great horn for our freedom.” . . . |
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| Contributor(s): |
Aharon N. Varady (transcription), Friedrich Schiller and Unknown Translator(s)
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National Brotherhood Week, Rosh Ḥodesh Adar (אַדָר) Alef & Bet
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liberation, emancipation, 56th century A.M., 18th Century C.E., Hebrew translation, German vernacular prayer, Ode to Joy, Enlightenment, euphoria, civil declarations and charters, Needing Proofreading
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In 1785 Friedrich Schiller wrote his ‘An die Freude an ode ‘To Joy’, describing his ideal of an equal society united in joy and friendship. Numerous copies and adaptations attest to its popularity at the time. The slightly altered 1803 edition was set to music not only by Ludwig van Beethoven in his Ninth Symphony but also by other composers such as Franz Schubert and Pyotr Tchaikovsky. Hs. Ros. PL B-57 contains a Hebrew translation of the first edition of the ode (apparently rendered before the 1803 alteration), revealing that the spirit of the age even managed to reach the Jewish community in the Netherlands. Whereas the imagery of Schiller’s original is drawn from Greek mythology, the author of the שִׁיר לְשִׂמְחָה relies on the Bible as a source. In fact, he not only utilises Biblical imagery, but successfully avoids any allusion to Hellenistic ideas whatsoever. . . . |
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| Contributor(s): |
Aharon N. Varady (transcription) and Gershom Mendes Seixas
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Conflicts over Sovereignty and Dispossession, Washington's Birthday (3rd Monday of February), War
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North America, England, Revolutionary War, תחינות teḥinot, 56th century A.M., 18th Century C.E., Western Sepharadim
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Fred MacDowell: “Then, as now, war was looked upon by many as a great evil, especially between brothers, and many American Colonists only wanted the oppressive measures of King George III to be lifted, bloodshed ended, and peace restored. The nascent American Congress called for a day of “Humiliation, Fasting and Prayer” along these lines for May 17, 1776. It was for this occasion that this prayer was recited in Congregation Shearith Israel in New York. As you can see, a complete service was arranged for this occasion, meant to invoke the solemnity and seriousness of the occasion; after morning prayer, Taḥanun was to be sung to the tune of a Yom Kippur pizmon; a dozen Psalms recited, and then the Ḥazan would recite this prayer written for the occasion, and of course all were to be fasting. The prayer hopes for a change of heart for King George III and his advisors, that they would rescind their wrath and harsh decrees against “North America,” that the bloodshed should end, and peace and reconciliation should obtain between the Americans and Great Britain once more, in fulfillment of the Messianic verse that Nation shall not lift up sword against nation. Of course this was not meant to be, and six weeks later the American Congress declared independence from Great Britain, and there was no walking back from the hostilities which had already occurred.” . . . |
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