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July 2018 Schedule for the Reading of Psalms corresponding to Festivals and Commemorative Days, by Isaac Gantwerk MayerThis system attempts to remedy that, selecting psalms that reflects the meaning of the holiday in some way. It includes every single commonly celebrated holiday, including sub-ethnic celebrations like Mimouna or Sigd as well as more recent national holidays like Yom haAtzmaut. It also includes a system for dividing Psalm 119, a massive 176-verse acrostic hymn to Torah, throughout the weeks of the Omer season as a preparation for Sinai. . . . “Us and Them,” by Barbara Gish Scult was shared by Mel Scult via the Open Siddur Project discussion list on Facebook. . . . Categories: Repenting, Resetting, and Reconciliation “For Tisha be’Av: Our Cherished Litany of Loss” by Rabbi Menachem Creditor was first published on his website, here. . . . Categories: Tishah b'Av On May 15th, 2018, Rabbi Danya Ruttenberg tweeted this blessing. . . . Categories: Well-being, health, and caregiving 💬 איכה פרק ו׳ | Lamentations “chapter 6” in cantilized English, a supplement to public readings of Eikhah by HIAS (2018)As we prepare to observe Tishah b’Av and commemorate the destruction of Jerusalem that led to the exile of the Jewish people for centuries to come, we are acutely aware that we find ourselves in the midst of the worst refugee crisis in recorded history, with more than 68 million people displaced worldwide. Given these extraordinary numbers, the continued attacks on asylum and the refugee resettlement program in the United States over the last eighteen months are even more inhumane. Of course, we know that the proverbial 10th of Av will come, and we will rise up from our mourning with renewed resolve to support refugees and asylum seekers. First, though, we take time to dwell fully in the mourning demanded by the 9th of Av. We fervently lament the many cruel actions this administration has taken to limit the ability of refugees and asylum seekers to seek safety in our country, and we mourn for lives destroyed and lives lost. . . . תְּפִילַּת הַנּוֹטֵעַ | Prayer for a Virtual Tree Planting in Israel, by Rabbi Eliyahu Yosef She’ar Yashuv Cohen (2012)This is the prayer for planting trees by the late chief rabbi of Haifa, Eliyahu Yosef She’ar Yashuv Cohen zt”l (1927-2016). . . . Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi, z”l, included his translation of the Shema in his Siddur Tehillat Hashem Yidaber Pi (2009). . . . Categories: Shema Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi, z”l, included his translation of the Birkhot haShaḥar in his Siddur Tehillat Hashem Yidaber Pi (2009). . . . Categories: Birkhot haShaḥar Tags: 100 blessings a day, blessings, ברכות brakhot, challenge, Dawn, devotional interpretation, interpretive translation, Late Antiquity, Prayers in the Babylonian Talmud, wrestling, ישראל Yisrael Contributor(s): Zalman Schachter-Shalomi (translation), Unknown Author(s) and Aharon N. Varady (transcription) An Untitled Prayer for Shaḥarit on days without Taḥanun after Psalms 15, by Rabbi Zalman Schachter-ShalomiIn his Siddur Tehilat Hashem Yedaber Pi (2009), this untitled teḥinah appears just below Rabbi Zalman Schachter Shalomi’s translation of Psalms 15 (recited on joyful and celebrative days when Taḥanun is not recited) and just above the Psalms of the Day section. We are not certain whether this teḥinah is an original prayer by Reb Zalman, a translation of an existing teḥinah found for Taḥanun, or a composite of teḥinot found in the Taḥanun service. . . . Categories: 🤦︎ Taḥanun (Nefilat Apayim) Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi, z”l, included his translation of an abridged form of the prayer Aleinu in his Siddur Tehillat Hashem Yidaber Pi (2009). . . . Categories: Aleinu The “Prayer for the Peace of Jerusalem” by the late chief rabbi of Ḥaifa, Eliyahu Yosef She’ar Yashuv Cohen zt”l (1927-2016), is often included in programs praying for peace in Jerusalem in periods of conflict. . . . Categories: Conflicts over Sovereignty and Dispossession, Shiv'ah Asar b'Tamuz, 🇮🇱 Yom Yerushalayim (28 Iyyar) “Courage to Withstand the Ridicule of the Worldly,” by Rabbi Mordecai Menaḥem Kaplan can be found on p. 433-4 of his The Sabbath Prayer Book (New York: The Jewish Reconstructionist Foundation, 1945). . . . Categories: Labor, Fulfillment, and Parnasah, Bedtime Shema, 🌐 International Workers' Day (May 1st), Well-being, health, and caregiving “That Religion Be Not a Cloak for Hypocrisy,” by Rabbi Mordecai Menaḥem Kaplan can be found on p. 435-5 of his The Sabbath Prayer Book (New York: The Jewish Reconstructionist Foundation, 1945). . . . Categories: Tishah b'Av, 🇺🇸 Abraham Lincoln's Birthday (February 12th), Repenting, Resetting, and Reconciliation, Roleplaying Tags: 20th century C.E., 57th century A.M., communal shame, corruption, difference disagreement and deviance, English vernacular prayer, false piety, חלול ה׳ Ḥillul Hashem, improper use of the crown, inclusion and exclusion, labor exploitation, Psalms 5, religious hypocrisy, tolerance and intolerance 💬 בן סירא מב:כא-מג:לא | ben Sira 42:21-43:31, a hymn of creation translated by Rabbi Mordecai KaplanEcclesiasticus (ben Sira) 42:21-43:31 is presented as “God the Lord of Nature” in The Sabbath Prayer Book of Rabbi Mordecai Kaplan (The Reconstructionist Foundation 1945), p. 376-372 in the Supplements subsection, “God in Nature.” The text of Ben Sira used here differs in places found in other manuscripts. . . . The Pious Man, a prayer-poem by Mordecai Kaplan adapted from the essay “An Analysis of Piety” by Abraham Joshua Heschel (1942)“The Pious Man” is a prayer-poem from Mordecai Kaplan’s diary entry, September 19, 1942, on the virtue of piety as expressed in an essay published earlier that year by Abraham Joshua Heschel. Piety was a Roman virtue, but in this essay, A.J. Heschel appears to be describing an idealization of Ḥasidut. . . . דער נײער קאָלאסוס | The New Collosus, a paean to the Shekhinah/”Mother of Exiles” by Emma Lazarus (1883, Yiddish translation by Rachel Kirsch Holtman 1938)This is the sonnet, “The New Collosus” (1883) by Emma Lazarus set side-by-side with its Yiddish translation by Rachel Kirsch Holtman. Lazarus famously penned her sonnet in response to the waves of Russian-Jewish refugees seeking refuge in the Unites States of America as a result of murderous Russian pogroms following the assassination of Tsar Alexander II in 1881. Her identification and revisioning of the Statue of Liberty as the Mother of Exiles points to the familiar Jewish identification of the Shekhinah (the Divine Presence, in its feminine aspect) with the light of the Jewish people in their Diaspora. . . . Categories: 🇺🇸 Mother's Day (2nd Sunday of May), 🇺🇸 Independence Day (July 4th), 🇺🇸 Thanksgiving Day (4th Thursday of November) Contributor(s): Rachel Kirsch Holtman (translation), Emma Lazarus and Aharon N. Varady (transcription) This beautiful piyyut of unknown authorship is recited in most Sephardic, Mizrahi and Yemenite traditions on Tisha B’ab at Minḥah. In its stanzas, rich and replete with biblical references (as is particularly common in Sephardic Piyyut), God speaks to Jerusalem and promises to comfort her, and comfort and redeem her people. . . . Categories: Tishah b'Av 💬 מגילת אנטיוכס עם טעמי מקרא | Megillat Antiokhus, with ta’amei miqra (for cantillation) by Isaac Gantwerk MayerPerhaps Megillat Antiokhus could be read a la Esther on Purim (the holiday with the most similarities), going to Eicha trope in the upsetting parts. A few notes: on the final mention of Bagris the Wicked I included a karnei-farah in the manner of the karnei-farah in Esther. I also included a merkha kefulah in the concluding section, which (according to David Weisberg’s “The Rare Accents of the Twenty-Eight Books”) represents aggadic midrash material. It also serves as a connection to the Chanukah haftarah, which is famously the only one that has a merkha kefulah. –Isaac Mayer . . . Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi, z”l, included his translation of the prayer Psalms 6 in his Siddur Tehillat Hashem Yidaber Pi (2009). . . . Psalms 15 is read on special days of festive joy in place of Taḥanun. Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi, z”l, included his translation of Psalms 15 in his Siddur Tehillat Hashem Yidaber Pi (2009). To the best of my ability, I have set his translation side-by-side with the verses comprising the Psalm. –Aharon N. Varady . . . Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi, z”l, included his translation of Psalms 25 in his Siddur Tehillat Hashem Yidaber Pi (2009) for days on which Taḥanun is practiced after the morning Amidah. . . . Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi, z”l, included his translation of “Barkhi Nafshi” (Psalms 104) for Rosh Ḥodesh in his Siddur Tehillat Hashem Yidaber Pi (2009). To the best of my ability, I have set his translation side-by-side with the verses comprising the Psalm. –Aharon N. Varady . . . Psalms 104, translated by Mordecai Kaplan and presented as “God as Creator and Renewer of Nature” can be found on p. 360-5 of his The Sabbath Prayer Book (New York: The Jewish Reconstructionist Foundation, 1945), the first prayer in a subsection of supplementary prayers called “GOD IN NATURE.” . . . Contributor(s): Mordecai Kaplan, the Masoretic Text, Unknown Author(s) and Aharon N. Varady (transcription) אַשְׁרֵי יוֹשְׁבֵי בֵיתֶךָ | Ashrei Yoshvei Veitekha :: Sitting in your home is happiness (Psalms 145), translated by Rabbi Zalman Schachter-ShalomiRabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi, z”l, included his translation of Ashrei in his Siddur Tehillat Hashem Yidaber Pi (2009). . . . A “transtropilation” of an English translation of Lamentations (Eikhah) by Len Fellman. . . . Tags: 21st century C.E., 58th century A.M., Cantillated readings in English, English Translation, Mourning this Broken World, transtropilation Contributor(s): Yirmiyah ben Ḥilkiyah haKohen, Barukh ben Neriyah, the Masoretic Text and Len Fellman (translation) | ||
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