Contributed by: Tracy Guren Klirs (translation), Sarah bat Tovim, Aharon N. Varady (transcription)
The Prayer for the mitsvot of kindling the lights of Shabbat from the Teḥinah of the Three Gates by Sarah bat Tovim (18th century). . . .
Contributed by: Tracy Guren Klirs (translation), Sarah bat Tovim, Aharon N. Varady (transcription)
The Prayer for the mitsvot of preparing Ḥallah from the Teḥinah of the Three Gates by Sarah bat Tovim (18th century). . . .
Contributed by: Jacob Chatinover (translation), Unknown, Aharon N. Varady (transcription)
A prayer in the event of excessive raining causing economic hardship, from Mantua in 1729. . . .
Contributed by: Kathryn Hellerstein (translation), Gele bat Moshe, Aharon N. Varady (transcription)
This is a faithful transcription of the prayer of Gele (Gella), daughter of the printer Moshe, as found at the end of Tefillah l’Mosheh (2nd ed., Halle, Germany, 1710), a prayerbook Gele typeset when she was only 11-years-old. This prayerbook is rare owing to the destruction of the press following the incarceration of Gele’s father for publishing a prayerbook containing the prayer “Aleinu,” which had been forbidden by royal decree. The translation provided here was made by Dr. Kathryn Hellerstein as found in A Question of Tradition: Women Poets in Yiddish, 1586-1987 (2014, Stanford University Press), p. 63-4. The layout of Gele’s prayer follows that of Ezra Korman from his anthology of Jewish women’s poetry, Yiddishe Dikhterins, also the source of the page image provided. If you know the location of a copy or digital scan of this siddur, please contact us. . . .
Contributed by: Binyamin Benisch ben Yehudah Loeb ha-Kohen, Unknown, Aharon N. Varady (transcription), Anonymous (translation)
A prayer for protection and blessing offered in the name of of Rebbi Yishmael from the Sefer Shem Tov Qatan. . . .
Contributed by: Hermann Gollancz, Unknown, Aharon N. Varady (transcription)
This is a version of the Invocation of Baraqon, a spell found in the Key of Solomon (Clavicula Solomonis) and its Hebrew translations (Mafteaḥ Shlomo). This particular variation is as found on the folios 70a-70b of a manuscript republished as ספר מפתח שלמה Sepher Maphteaḥ Shelomo (Book of the Key of Solomon): An exact facsimile of an original book of magic in Hebrew (1914) with a partial transcription translated into English by Rabbi Sir Hermann Gollancz. Claudia Rohrbacher-Stricker writes that Gollancz had located the manuscript in the collection of his father, Samuel H. Gollancz. The manuscript itself dated from around 1700 in Amsterdam, in a Sefardic script. Gershom Scholem was able to prove the Arabic origin of the Baraqon operation in “Some Sources of Jewish-Arabic Demonology,” Journal of Jewish Studies, vol. 16 (1965), p. 6. . . .
Contributed by: Aharon N. Varady (transcription), Harry Friedenwald (English translation), Yaaqov ben Yitsḥaq Tsahalon
In Margaliyot Tovot (“Precious Pearls,” 1665), Yaaqov ben Yitsḥaq Tsahalon abridged Baḥya ibn Paquda’s Ḥovot ha-Levavot (“Duties of the Heart,” ca. 1080) and interspersed it with prayers including this prayer for healers (Tefilat ha-Rof’im) which he recommended should be recited by physicians at least once every week. . . .
Contributed by: Jacob Chatinover (translation), Unknown, Aharon N. Varady (transcription)
This is a 17th century prayer for the Holy Roman Emperor found in Ms. 110 (Jewish Museum in Prague, Czech Republic). . . .
Contributed by: Jacob Chatinover (translation), Yaaqov Ḳoppel ben Tsvi Margoliyot, Aharon N. Varady (transcription)
A kinah/elegy for those massacred in the Chmielnicki massacres of 1648–1649 composed by a possible eyewitness to the tragedy. . . .
Contributed by: Miles Krassen, Aharon N. Varady (transcription)
From the Pri Etz Hadar, the first ever published seder for Tu Bishvat, circa 17th century: “speech has the power to arouse the sefirot and to cause them to shine more wondrously with a very great light that sheds abundance, favor, blessing, and benefit throughout all the worlds. Consequently, before eating each fruit, it is proper to meditate on the mystery of its divine root, as found in the Zohar and, in some cases, in the tikkunim, in order to arouse their roots above.” . . .
Contributed by: Johann Stephan Rittangel (Latin translation), Aharon N. Varady (transcription)
Johann Stephan Rittangel (1606-1652) was a Christian Hebraist and Professor of Oriental Languages at the University of Königsberg (Prussia) from 1640 till his death. Born Jewish, he converted to Christianity (to Catholicism and afterward to Calvinism, and then Lutheranism). After making a translation of the Sefer Yetsirah into Latin in 1642, he made this translation of the Passover Haggadah. In the Haggadah, Rittangel included musical scores for two piyyutim popularly sung during the final course of the Passover seder: “Adir Hu” and “Ki Lo Na’eh.” . . .
Contributed by: Aharon N. Varady (transcription), Aharon N. Varady (translation), Abe Katz (translation), Mosheh Halperin
This vidui prayer for those privileged to live past the age of 50 is found in Rabbi Mosheh ben Zevulun Eliezer Halperin’s Zikhron Mosheh (Lublin: 1611), siman 13. . . .
Contributed by: Akiva Sanders (translation), Unknown, Aharon N. Varady (transcription)
A popular piyyut for Simḥat Torah (4th hakkafah) originally composed as a piyyut for Shavuot and often referred to by its incipit, “Mipi El.” . . .
Contributed by: Akiva Sanders (translation), Unknown (translation), Unknown, Aharon N. Varady (transcription), Aharon N. Varady (translation), Isaac Gantwerk Mayer (translation)
This is a variation of Mipi El in Hebrew with a Judeo-Arabic translation found in the Seder al-Tawḥid for Rosh Ḥodesh Nissan, compiled by Mosheh Asher ibn Shmuel in 1887 in Alexandria. . . .
Contributed by: Yitsḥak Luria, Aharon N. Varady (transcription)
A crucial intention to align one’s davvenen practice with the command to love one’s fellow as oneself per Leviticus 19:18, as recorded in Minhagei ha-Arizal–Petura d’Abba, p.3b by Ḥayyim Vital. . . .
Contributed by: Rabbi Sam Seicol, Elazar ben Moshe Azikri, Aharon N. Varady (transcription)
A variation of the piyyut “Yedid Nefesh” in Hebrew with English translation. . . .
Contributed by: Nina Davis Salaman (translation), Elazar ben Moshe Azikri, Aharon N. Varady (transcription)
The piyyut, Yedid Nefesh, in Hebrew with an English translation. . . .
Contributed by: Zalman Schachter-Shalomi (translation), Yitsḥak Luria, Aharon N. Varady (transcription)
An interpretive translation in English of the shabbes hymn Yom Zeh l’Yisrael. . . .
Contributed by: Nina Davis Salaman (translation), Yitsḥak Luria, Aharon N. Varady (transcription)
A translation of the piyyut Yom Zeh l’Yisrael. . . .
Contributed by: Alice Lucas (translation), Yitsḥak Luria, Aharon N. Varady (transcription)
An abridged rhymed translation of the piyyut Yom Zeh l’Yisrael. . . .