Resources using Hebrew (Ktav Ashuri) script← Back to Languages & Scripts Index This Prayer for Peace by Samuel Avital was composed in January 1984 for a gathering of spiritual teachers from all over the world at Mt. Sinai in March 1984. A month later, the State of Israel would return the Sinai to Egyptian sovereignty. While that event was not documented in any media, the prayer was first published in Four Worlds Journal vol. 2 no. 4, (January 1985), pp. 16-17. Of the event itself, Samuel Avital adds, “I performed there some of my mime performances like Jacob & Angel, Black & White and others.” The prayer for peace is included in Samuel Avital’s Passover Haggadah (2021). . . . This is a kavvanah (intention) for anyone in a desperate circumstance of needing to eat or drink for their mortal health, to do so with the full confidence that they are fulfilling a mitsvah required for them in the Torah, to preserve their life. The kavvanah was related by Rav Yitschok Zilberstein in his Toras haYoledes (1983), chapter 52, section 10, p. 357 (pp. 331-332 in the bilingual edition 1989), “הועתק ממחזור עתיק” (as “copied from an old maḥzor”). Unfortunately, we can’t provide a more direct reference to this maḥzor. If you know, please leave a comment or contact us. . . . In the early 1980s, while speaking at Oberlin College Hillel, Susannah Heschel was introduced to an early feminist haggadah that suggested adding a crust of bread on the seder plate, as a sign of solidarity with Jewish lesbians (suggesting that there’s as much room for a lesbian in Judaism as there is for a crust of bread on the seder plate). Heschel felt that to put bread on the seder plate would be to accept that Jewish lesbians and gay men violate Judaism like ḥamets violates Passover. So, at her next seder, she chose an orange as a symbol of inclusion of gays and lesbians and others who are marginalized within the Jewish community. She offered the orange as a symbol of the fruitfulness for all Jews when lesbians and gay men are contributing and active members of Jewish life. . . . A ḳinnah composed by a concentration camp survivor. . . . The Opening Prayer given in the U.S. House of Representatives on 8 June 1976. . . . A prayer written for the play David Dances (1997) by playwright Stephen Mo Hanan. . . . The pedagogical song “Hashem is Everywhere!” by Rabbi Yosef Goldstein (1928-2013) can be found in the context of his story, “Where is Hashem?,” the second track on his album מדות טובות Jewish Ethics Through Story and Song (Menorah Records 1972). In the instructions to reciting the lyrics, the singer points first to the six cardinal directions and lastly, by pointing inward towards one’s self. In so doing, one explicitly affirms the idea of the divine within ourselves and implicitly, in each other. . . . Variations of the original three lines culminating with “…walk beside me…” first appear in high school yearbooks beginning in 1970. The earliest recorded mention we could find was in The Northern Light, the 1970 yearbook of North Attleboro High School, Massachusetts. In the Jewish world of the early to mid-1970s, a young Moshe Tanenbaum began transmitting the lines at Jewish summer camps. In 1979, as Uncle Moishy, Tanenbaum published a recording of the song under the title “v’Ohavta” (track A4 on The Adventures of Uncle Moishy and the Mitzvah Men, volume 2). . . . A traditional tefilat haderekh supplemented by a 20th century prayer for airplane travel. . . . An original Hebrew translation of the blues-rock portion of the Agnus Dei movement from Leonard Bernstein’s MASS (note: always spelled with ALL CAPS), where the crowd of disaffected and disillusioned young parishioners interrupts the offertory to demand peace now, and hold God to account for not giving it to us. It’s unsurprising that for a composer as proudly and openly Jewish as Bernstein that even his setting of the Tridentine Mass has major “shaking your fist at God” energy. Not gonna lie, I was listening to this on a plane out of Jerusalem as the war was starting, and I started to tear up. I immediately started writing this translation and finished it up in the process of about an hour while stuck somewhere a few thousand feet above Greenland. It’s amazing and moving and tragic and enraging and a little full of itself in exactly the right way to hit me in the heart. . . . The Opening Prayer given in the U.S. House of Representatives on 18 February 1969. . . . The Ḥassidic-Sefardic edition of Ha-Siddur Ha-Shalem, a bilingual Hebrew-English comprehensive prayerbook arranged and translated by Paltiel Birnbaum for the Hebrew Publishing Co. in 1969. . . . The Opening Prayer given in the U.S. House of Representatives on 2 May 1968 in the event of the 20th anniversary of the establishment of the State of Israel. . . . “baShanah haBa’ah” (Next Year) by Ehud Manor written in 1968 in memory of his brother Yehudah. . . . The Opening Prayer given in the U.S. Senate on 17 April 1967. . . . The Opening Prayer given in the U.S. Senate on 21 February 1967. . . . A Hebrew translation of the lyrics to Harry Nilsson’s “One” (1967) as sung by Aimee Mann (1995) . . . The Opening Prayer given in the U.S. Senate on 27 April 1966. . . . This is the scholar Dr. Jakob Petuchowski’s translation of the Amidah for Shabbat Minḥah from his Shabbat Minḥah prayer-pamphlet (1966), p.5r-13r. . . . This prayer-leaflet was primarily intended for a group of Hebrew Union College students who met every sabbath afternoon for extra-curricular (noncredit) Torah study with Rabbi Dr. Jakob Petuchowki in the mid-1960s. Their service was conducted entirely in Hebrew and in the traditional nusaḥ with some minor but interesting Liberal innovations. Petuchowki writes, “We have omitted only the various repetitions as well as the prayer for the restoration of the sacrificial service. (But we have retained the place of Zion as the symbol of the messianic hope.) In the ‘Alenu prayer, we have preferred a positive formulation of the “Election of Israel” to the traditional negative one.” . . . The blessing for Tsar Nicholas II as given in the lines of the musical, Fiddler on the Roof. . . . This is an adaptation of the “Last Rites of Bokonon” from the 99th chapter of Kurt Vonnegut’s novel Cat’s Cradle (1963) translated by Amatsyah Porat for the 1978 Hebrew language edition of the novel. . . . A comprehensive prayer book compiled by the chief rabbi of the IDF for military personnel serving the State of Israel. . . . “Tefilat haDerekh l’Tsevet haTsolelot,” a prayer by Rabbi Shlomo Goren for missions of submariners in the service of the IDF was first published in his Siddur Tefilot l’Ḥayyal (p. 76 in the 1963 printing). . . . Rabbi Shlomo Goren’s “Tefilah Lifnei Yetsiah laQrav,” a prayer for IDF soldiers before embarking on a combat mission was first published in his Siddur Tefilot l’Ḥayyal (pp. 72-73 in the 1963 printing). . . . “Tefilat haDerekh l’Tayas,” a prayer for sorties by military aviators in the service of the IDF by Rabbi Shlomo Goren was first published in his Siddur Tefilot l’Ḥayyal. . . . “Tefilat haDerekh l’Tsanḥan,” a prayer by Rabbi Shlomo Goren for missions of paratroopers in the service of the IDF was first published in his Siddur Tefilot l’Ḥayyal (p. 75 in the 1963 printing). . . . In 2017, Rabbi David Evan Markus prepared the end of Dr. King’s famous speech read at the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom (August 28, 1963) with trope (t’amim, cantillation). The following year on Facebook he shared a recording of the reading hosted on Soundcloud. Rabbi Markus writes, “This weekend at Temple Beth El of City Island, I offered the end of Dr. King’s 1963 “I Have a Dream” speech, which I set to haftarah trope because I hold Dr. King to be a prophet. When my community applauded, I offered President Obama’s response, ‘Don’t clap: vote.’ And do more than vote: organize, donate, volunteer, help, heal, advocate. Only then, in Dr. King’s words quoting Isaiah 40:5, will ‘all flesh see it together.'” . . . This undated “Service for the Blessing of a Baby” by the Hon. Lily H. Montagu (1873-1963) from the archives of the Liberal Jewish Synagogue, London, was published in, Lily Montagu: Sermons, Addresses, Letters, and Prayers (ed. Ellen M. Umansky, 1985), pp. 339-341. Based on the name of the baby for whom the service was performed, we feel confident in dating this service to June 1962. . . . The text of the prayer, haNoten Teshuah, as adapted for Queen Elizabeth II. . . . The Opening Prayer given in the U.S. House of Representatives on 20 April 1961. . . . The second revised edition of Rabbi Simeon Singer’s Authorised Daily Prayer Book, enlarged under the direction of chief rabbi Israel Brodie and published by Singer’s Prayer Book Publishing Committee in 1962. . . . A Passover Seder Haggadah in Hebrew and Aramaic (or Kurdish, as stated on the title page) published in Israel for the wave of Kurdish-Jewish immigrants from Iraq and other eastern countries. . . . A weekday prayerbook (not including the prayers for Shabbat or specific festivals beyond Rosh Hodesh and intermediate festival days) prepared by the Prayerbook Commission of the Rabbinical Association of America under the chair of Rabbi Gershon Hadas and published in 1961. . . . In 1960, the Publishing House of the Composers’ League in cooperation with the Center for Culture and Education (בית הוצאה של איגוד הקומפוזיטורים בשיתוף עם המרכז לתרבות ולחינוך), published the songbook זמר־חן (Zemer Ḥén), containing the now popular Ḥanukkah song and melody “Banu Ḥoshekh l’Garesh” (p. 49), originally simply titled “Ḥanukkah” by Sara Levi-Tanaiׁ (1910-2005). . . . A prayer book ( maḥzor ) for the Jewish penitential holy days of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, translated and arranged by Rabbi Ben Zion Bokser (1907-1984). . . . A maḥzor for Rosh haShanah and Yom Kippur, prepared for a mid-20th century Conservative Jewish congregation in Philadelphia. . . . A trans-denominational prayer book compiled for the use of United States personnel in the Armed Services. . . . A bilingual Hebrew-English maḥzor for Rosh Hashanah (“Sephardic-Ḥasidic”). . . . Ben Zion Bokser’s popular mid-20th century modern prayerbook for Conservative American Jewry. . . . A bilingual Hebrew-English maḥzor for Yom Kippur (“Sephardic-Ḥasidic”) from the mid- 20th century. . . . The prayer for peace and prayer for the government of the Choral Synagogue in Moscow in 1956. . . . The mi sheberakh for the IDF composed by Rabbi Shlomo Goren in the context of the Suez Crisis and Israel-Egypt conflict of 1956. . . . This manual has been devised for the express purpose of giving the Rabbi, or anyone officiating at a Jewish ceremonial or ritual, a concise and practical aid that will facilitate the task of officiating , and will obviate the necessity of resorting to the voluminous literature pertaining thereto. . . . This “Prayer for the Success of the Four-Power Conference at Geneva, Switzerland (18 July 1955)” was composed in 1955 by the Office of the Chief Rabbi (of the United Hebrew Congregations of the UK and the Commonwealth) for the success of a meeting of the “Big Four” (President Dwight D. Eisenhower of the United States, Prime Minister Anthony Eden of Britain, Premier Nikolai A. Bulganin of the Soviet Union, and Prime Minister Edgar Faure of France), ostensibly to promote international trade, but hopefully as well, to reduce international tensions and make some progress towards ending the Cold War. . . . The popular Israeli song from the 1950s. . . . Prayer of Thanksgiving on the Occasion of the 70th Anniversary of the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, to Be Recited on Sabbath 22nd May 1954 / 19th Iyyar 5714 after the Prayer of the Queen and the Royal Family (London: 1954, Office of the Chief Rabbi) . . . |
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