Creator of the worlds!
We know that you have created the world with great wisdom.
You also created the predatory desire (yetser hora) which causes a person to transgress
and, to remedy this, you created the holy Torah.
Therefore we have urged our child to dedicate themselves to the study of Torah.
I beseech You, God,
strengthen their heart so that they may learn with ease,
that they may heed your mitsvos and our advice.
Lead them in the path of Torah and mitsvot.
May we live to see them become a great Torah scholar
and an honorable Jew.
Amen.
“Tkine for a Mother Who Leads Her Child to Kheyder” by an unknown author is a faithful transcription of the tkhine published in רחל מבכה על בניה Rokhl m’vakeh al boneho (Rokhl Weeps for her Children), Vilna, 1910. I have faithfully transcribed the original without any changes from The Merit of Our Mothers בזכות אמהות A Bilingual Anthology of Jewish Women’s Prayers, compiled by Rabbi Tracy Guren Klirs, Cincinnati: Hebrew Union College Press, 1992.
Aharon Varady (M.A.J.Ed./JTSA Davidson) is a volunteer transcriber for the Open Siddur Project, which he founded and directs. If you find any mistakes in his transcriptions, please let him know. Shgiyot mi yavin, Ministarot Nakeniשְׁגִיאוֹת מִי־יָבִין; מִנִּסְתָּרוֹת נַקֵּנִי "Who can know all one's flaws? From hidden errors, correct me" (Psalms 19:13). If you'd like to directly support his work, please consider donating via his Patreon account. Besides his transcription work, Varady occasionally translates prayers and contributes his own original work. (Varady also serves as editor and administrator of the Open Siddur Project website, opensiddur.org, and is an outspoken advocate for open-source in Judaism more of which can be read about in this interview in the Atlantic Magazine.)
Rabbi Tracy Guren Klirs recieved her B.A. in Yiddish literature at the University of Chicago and graduated Phi Beta Kappa in 1977. She was ordained as a rabbi from the Hebrew Union College Jewish Institute of Religion in Cincinnati in 1984. Her book, The Merit of Our Mothers: A Bilingual Anthology of Jewish Women’s Prayers, was published by HUC Press in 1992. She currently serves as director of education at Temple Israel in Charlotte, North Carolina.
Sometimes the best we can do in attributing a historical work is to indicate the period and place it was written, the first prayer book it may have been printed in, or the archival collection in which the manuscript was found. We invite the public to help to attribute all works to their original composers. If you know something not mentioned in the commentary offered, please comment!
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