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Almighty Father of Heaven,
Thou King of Justice, God of Israel,
to whom every thought and feeling of Thy servants
is open as the day,
though to themselves
all may be unknown;
O strengthen my soul
that it may cease to regard
the approaching day of fast
with dread.
Teach me, O God,
so to govern my thoughts
that I may not regard that solemn day
merely as one of suffering to the body,
but as a day of good to the soul,
a day devoted to Thee, our Father,
and to the thoughts of Heaven.
Remove from me
those tremblings of the soul
with which I sometimes think,
on so long an abstinence from food.
Bid my thoughts be fixed on Thee alone, O God,
that by this day of solemn fast, humiliation, and prayer,
I may draw nearer to my Heavenly Father,
and be more fitted for Heaven
when it may please Thee to take me hence.
O let my sins stand before me,
that I may know wherein I may have committed sin
and guard against them in the future,
and that I may repeat the confession of wickedness
appropriate to the day with fervour and devotion.
O give me strength
that I may go through this long fast without sinking.
Grant me strength that my body may not fail,
nor my spirit droop during this day,
but that I may feel Thy holy spirit
dwelleth in my soul,
that I may look to this day
as one devoted to Thyself alone, O God,
and to none other.
O have mercy on me, Thou King of Justice;
have mercy on my sins,
and bestow on me that holy strength for which I pray.
Father of Heaven,
O answer my call,
and grant my prayer. Amen.
“Prayer for the Penitential Days” by Grace Aguilar was published posthumously by her mother Sarah Aguilar in the UK edition of Sacred Communings, pp. 90-91. It is not found in the US edition.
Grace Aguilar (2 June 1816 – 16 September 1847) was an English novelist, poet and writer on Jewish history and religion. Although she had been writing since childhood, much of her work was published posthumously. Among those are her best known works, the novels Home Influence and A Mother's Recompense. Aguilar was the eldest child of Sephardic Jewish refugees from Portugal who settled in the London Borough of Hackney. An early illness resulted in her being educated by her parents, especially her mother, who taught her the tenets of Judaism. Later, her father taught the history of Spanish and Portuguese Jews during his own bout with tuberculosis which had led the family to move to the English coast. After surviving the measles at the age of 19, she began to embark on a serious writing career, even though her physical health never completely recovered. Aguilar's debut was an anonymous collection of poems, The Magic Wreath of Hidden Flowers. Three years later she translated Isaac Orobio de Castro's Israel Defended into English at her father's behest. Later her The Spirit of Judaism drew interest and sales in both Britain and the United States after being published in Philadelphia by Isaac Leeser. He added a preface to the work elucidating his differences with her, the first of many clashes her work would have with mainstream Jewish thought. In the 1840s her novels began to attract regular readers, and Aguilar moved back to London with her parents. Despite her success, she and her mother still had to operate a boys' Hebrew school to stay solvent, which she resented for the time and energy it took from her writing. In 1847, she became ill again with a spinal paralysis which she did not let prevent her from visiting her brother in Frankfurt. Her health worsened and she died there that September.
Aharon N. Varady (editing/transcription)
Aharon Varady (M.A.J.Ed./JTSA Davidson) is a volunteer transcriber for the Open Siddur Project. If you find any mistakes in his transcriptions, please let him know. Shgiyot mi yavin; Ministarot naqeniשְׁגִיאוֹת 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. (Varady also translates prayers and contributes his own original work besides serving as the primary shammes of the Open Siddur Project and its website, opensiddur.org.)
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