← Back to Languages & Scripts Index According to Mishnah Pesaḥim 10:4, “One expounds (doresh) from ‘A wandering Aramean was my father’ (Deuteronomy 26:5) until he finishes the whole story.” This supplement to Maggid, the verse Deuteronomy 26:9 and its midrash, fulfills the obligation. The verse and its midrash fit into the Passover Haggadah after the ten plagues and the midrash on them, right before the song Dayyenu. . . . A paraliturgical translation of “k’Gavna” — a portion of the Zohar on parashat Terumah read before Ma’ariv in the ḥassidic-sefardic nusaḥ. . . . This prayer is not a comprehensive list of every single sin we sinned, every error we erred, every mark we missed. The original Al Ḥeyt is intended to show us the roots of all failures, to dig beneath how we harm, to see where that hurt came from. We follow these trails together, not absolved from our own repairs, but never alone in struggles to uproot, to propagate new ways of being ourselves, new ways of being ourselves, of being together. . . . A reading for the New Year’s Day for Animals — Rosh haShanah laBehemot — on Rosh Ḥodesh Elul. . . . A Torah reading (divided into three aliyot) and a Haftarah reading to be recited for days commemorating genocides such as (but not limited to) the Holocaust. . . . This formulation of the Birkat Yeladim (Blessing of the Children) maintains a connection with tradition and serves to degender the blessing by calling upon quoted, mixed gender texts which have merit for children of any gender. . . . This acrostic poetic form of Birkat haMazon was written for the se’udah mafseqet (pre-fast meal) before Yom Kippur, in the manner of the poetic Birkat haMazon variants recorded in the Cairo Geniza. . . . This is a poetic text for Birkat haMazon, signed with an alphabetical acrostic and the name of the author, to be recited on the first of Elul. It celebrates the variety of God’s creation as exemplified by the natural diversity of species, as well as alluding to the livestock tithes traditionally assigned on the first of Elul. . . . A Birkat haMazon with additions for the pre-Fast meal of Tisha b’Av . . . Many communities have a custom of reciting “simanim” on the night of Rosh haShanah — invocations on a series of foods punning over their Hebrew or Aramaic names. This is an assortment of common simanim, along with English loose translations that preserve the punning aspects of the foods. . . . The Raḥamana piyyut is a litany beloved in Sephardic and Mizraḥi communities, a standard part of their Seliḥoth services throughout the month of Elul and the days of repentance. Traditionally it cites a list of Biblical men (Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, Moses, Aaron, Pinhas, David, and Solomon) and asks to be remembered for their merit and their covenants, for the sake of “Va-yaŋabor” — the first word of Exodus 34:6, the introduction to the verses of the Thirteen Attributes recited in Seliḥoth services. This text instead uses Biblical women (Sarah, Rebecca, Leah and Rachel, Serach, Miriam, Deborah, Ruth, Hannah, and Esther). . . . A schedule for the reading of Proverbs, Job, Chronicles, Ezra/Neḥemiah, and Daniel, corresponding to each Torah portion of the annual reading cycle in the rabbinic Jewish calendar. . . . In all modern communities, the standard practice is that on the three Shabbatot before the Ninth of Av and the seven after it the standard haftarah is replaced. Before the Ninth of Av they are replaced with haftarot of rebuke, from Jeremiah and the opening of Isaiah, and after they are replaced with haftarot of consolation from the later parts of Isaiah. Rambam’s Mishneh Torah, though, preserves a very different custom, one where each one of those Torah portions has an associated haftarah, related not to the calendar but to the parashah itself. Here the editor has compiled a list of these haftarah readings, along with brief notes to explain their connection with the parashah. . . . There are all sorts of customs associated with weddings in Judaism. But one custom that has been practiced for a long time and deserves a comeback is the additions to the Torah reading for Shabbat Kallah. Shabbat Kallah, the Shabbat in the “Sheva Berakhot” week after the wedding, is in many Sephardic communities preferred over Shabbat Ḥatan, the aufruf Shabbat before the wedding. And in all sorts of communities across the Jewish world, there have been customs for specific readings for Shabbat Kallah, treating it as a Special Sabbath in its own right. Traditionally this special maftir and haftarah would recited by the groom (along with an Aramaic translator interpolating for the maftir). The maftir is from the story of Abraham’s servant tasked with finding a wife for Isaac, and the haftarah is from the book of Isaiah and compares a groom and bride to the relationship between God and Israel. . . . A blessing for announcing the new moon of Nisan, for Rosh Ḥodesh Nisan, and for the whole month. . . . A blessing for announcing the new moon of Av, for Rosh Ḥodesh Av, and for the whole month. A poem of grieving and gentleness as part of collective liberation. . . . A blessing for announcing the new moon of Elul, for Rosh Ḥodesh Elul, and for the whole month. A poem of kindness, rootedness and transformation as we enter into a time of turning and returning. . . . A soulful, playful, embodied, grounded poem for announcing the new moon of Tishrei, for Rosh Ḥodesh Tishrei (otherwise known as Rosh HaShanah) and for the whole month. . . . A blessing for announcing the new moon of Shevat, for Rosh Ḥodesh Shevat, and for the whole month. . . . A blessing for announcing the new moon of Adar, for Rosh Ḥodesh Adar, and for the whole month. . . . A poem-blessing for trailblazers of many kinds, to honor everyday courage and to inspire trust and self-compassion. . . . A playful, powerful, passionate reading for Passover seder or any time. Can be chanted to the traditional Ashkenazi lilt for the Four Questions. . . . An alternative weekday aliyah. . . . A paraliturgical translation of the opening paragraph of the Shema. . . . A prayer for focusing one’s mind and intention during the separation of dough in the preparation of halah before Shabbat. . . . A short amidah for the Friday evening service for Shabbat. . . . A companion to the classic piyyut, Yigdal. . . . Two kavvanot, one for before and one for after casting away in a Tashlikh ritual. . . . An opening prayer for divine communication and closeness. . . . A ḳinnah for humanity’s willful, negligent, and callous destruction of habitat and species known and unknown. . . . A prayer for children on the first day of a new year of school. . . . A summary of the lineage of the Mesorah, as it passed through generations of Israelite and Jewish women. . . . A Mimouna packet including havdalah, a Moroccan-rite birkat ha-ilanot, traditional study texts, and yehiretzonot. . . . A prayer for safe travel. . . . A prayer for safe travel. . . . A prayer for the Passover seder recognizing the enslavement and estrangement of Jews and Israelites of African descent with hope for their ingathering. . . . A prayer for women caught up in the torment of ‘get’ refusal from a husband who refuses to grant them the document required for a religious divorce. . . . Hineni – the leader’s prayer that opens the High Holy Days Mussaf has always been a challenge for me. While a dramatic moment in the service, it always seemed a little *too* grand to represent a prayer of humility. This is a version of it I wrote in an attempt to make myself more comfortable at that moment. –Rabbi Oren Steinitz . . . A prayer for the safety and well-being of women who are victims of violence, and especially domestic violence. . . . A prayer for children at the onset of the school year. . . . A prayer-poem by Rabbi Arthur Waskow reflecting on our difficulty breathing, as a society, as humanity, and as a interconnected, interbreathing biosphere. . . . The full text of Rabbi Lauren Berkun’s benediction offered at the end of the third day of the Democratic National Convention, 20 August 2020. . . . Modeled after Gil Scott Heron’s “The Revolution Will Not be Televised,” written for Passover during the pandemic (April 2020). . . . A Hoshana prayer supplement for Hoshana Rabbah during the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic in 2020. . . . A Mi Sheberakh prayer offered on behalf of those battling, suffering from, and imperiled by the 2019-2020 Coronavirus Outbreak and pandemic. . . . A prayer disseminated by the Masorti Movement in Israel in response to the Coronavirus outbreak in Israel and around the world. . . . A prayer in response to the suffering of the coronavirus and the danger posed by its global spread. . . . An adaptation of the kinnah, “Eli Tsiyon v’Ar’eha,” Composed for Tisha B’Av 5780 in light of the Covid-19 pandemic. . . . A prayer for collective and communal well-being with an emphasis on dismantling systems of oppression and repairing their harms. . . . An acknowledgement that the land we are conducting our religious ceremonies on is the sacred and traditional land of Indigenous people. It involves a kavvanah and study verses as well as the land acknowledgement. . . . |
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