Schedule for the Reading of Historical Writings corresponding to Festivals and Commemorative Days, according to Isaac Gantwerk Mayer

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10 October 2024 under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike (CC BY-SA) 4.0 International copyleft license

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21st century C.E., 58th century A.M., כתובים אחרים ketuvim aḥerim, לוח lu'aḥ

The term “historical writings” is used as a general term for the works in Ketuvim that don’t fit into the categories of the Sifrei Emet (Psalms, Proverbs, and Job) or the Five Megillot (Song of Songs, Ruth, Lamentations, Ecclesiastes, and Esther). This leaves Chronicles, Ezra-Nehemiah, and Daniel. These books are fascinating, strange, and deeply under-studied, and I’ve wanted to increase our reading and analysis of these books for a long time, at least since I designed a cantillation system for them back in 2018.

This is a cycle of readings from the historical writings assigned to holidays in the Jewish calendar. They could be read according to the system I designed or any personal preference — in Syrian practice, for instance, readings from these books are read with the same cantillation system as used for Ruth.

Festival/Commemorative Day	Historical Writings
Pesaḥ First Days	II Chronicles 35:1-18
Pesaḥ Last Days	Ezra 6:19-7:10
Shavuot	Nehemiah 10:1-11:2
9 Av, Tsom Gedalyah, 10 Tevet, and 17 Tammuz	II Chronicles 35:25-36:21
1 Elul	Daniel 4:26-34
Rosh haShanah	Nehemiah 8:2-12
Yom Kippur	Daniel 9:1-20
Sukkot Festival Day	Nehemiah 8:13-18
Shemini Atseret	II Chronicles 7:1-18
Sigd	Nehemiah 9:1-37
Ḥanukkah (Day 1)	Ezra 6:1-18
Zōt Ḥanukkah (Day 8)	Daniel 11:21-45
Tu biShvat	Daniel 3:31-4:25
Taanit Esther and Purim	Ezra 4:1-6, 5:1-2

This is the schedule for the reading of the historical writings in the TaNaKh corresponding to Festivals and Commemorative Days, according to the practice of Isaac Gantwerk Mayer.

Isaac Gantwerk Mayer

From a family of musicians, Isaac Gantwerk Mayer believes that creative art is one of the most powerful ways to get in touch with the divine. He composes music and poetry in Hebrew and English. (He also translates and transcribes Hebrew and Aramaic texts, adding niqqud and t'amim as needed.) Isaac runs a Jewish music transcription service, which will transcribe and set any Jewish music in any language, recorded or written. Contact his service on Facebook or via his music blog.

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Ezra Reads the Law. Synagogue interior wood panel from Dura Europos, Syria.

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