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Almighty and Everliving God in whose hands is the Soul of all living Incline thine ear to our Supplications and hear our prayer, great and unbounded is thy mercy Awfull and tremendous are thy Judgments On this day of holy Convocation let our prayers be acceptable unto thee | |
oh Lord our God and our redeemer let our Soul be humble as the dust before thee oh our King Forgive our Manifold Sins and transgressions with wich we have offended against thy Great and Holy Name and Grant that we may be written in the Book of life — | |
As it hath pleas’d thee oh Lord our God to send the Angel of death to Visit the City from whence we have late departed and to Spread over it pestilence and Sore disease Hearken unto our prayers this day we beseech Thee and have Mercy upon them let the numbers of those who have Suffered Expiate the Sins of those that remain Judge them not according to their demerits but extend thy mercy toward them | |
Oh God the Restorer of Life to the dead Who is like unto thee Great in power and Might Let the Angel of Health again Visit their borders have pity oh God on the widow and fatherless and all those who are Sore distres’d dry up their Tears and let the Voice of Morning be heard no more in the land Suffer us Speedily to return again to our dwellings in peace that our hearts may Rejoice in thy Mercy and our tongues be Grateful in thy Praise | |
Oh Lord God of Israel have Mercy upon us oh Lord have Mercy [just as][1] Original transcription reads here “on” When our fathers Sinned against thee oh Lord Thou heardest their Prayers & forgave them hear us now we beseech thee oh Lord and forgive us That all Nations of the earth may know the Lord he is God and none[2] Original transcription reads here “thine is none…” Can Save or deliver but thou only | |
For the Sake of thy Great and Holy Name grant Peace unto us and all Israel henceforth and forever Amen Amen |
“Composed for the Day of Atonement during the Prevalence of the Yellow Fever in New York in 1803,” this prayer was likely composed by Abraham Mears Isaacks (1765-1815). It was published in the Publications of the American Jewish Historical Society number 20 (1911), p. 158, as submitted by Rebecca E. Mitchell, one of Isaacks descendants. The original manuscript from which this transcription was derived was not published. The lack of punctuation may have been included in the original, or the prayer may have been reformatted as a paragraph without any indicative line breaks. Without the original manuscript it’s impossible to determine whether any unusual orthography or line breaks were in the original or not. We have added some minimal formatting and spelling for improved legibility, and this can be compared with the image of the source from which out transcription was derived. Where a significant ambiguity remained in the transcription we have added either a note or clarifying text in brackets. We have also replaced all ampersands with “and.” –Aharon Varady
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Notes
“Yom Kippur prayer during the Yellow Fever epidemic in New York, by Abraham Mears Isaacks (1803)” is shared through the Open Siddur Project with a Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication 1.0 Universal license.
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