Azharot are a genre of piyyut today associated almost exclusively with the grand lists of mitsvot recited on Shavuot, but this is not strictly accurate. An azharah is any poetic listing of mitsvot, and often would be recited on the Shabbat before a holiday as a reminder of the halakhot of the upcoming day. In Western Ashkenazi practice, for instance, an extensive azharah by Joseph Bonfils is recited for Shabbat haGadol before Pesaḥ. Presented here is an azharah and pizmon for the Shabbat before Rosh haShanah, by the 13th century Toledan payṭan Pinḥas ben Yosef ha-Levi. This text was published in the old Salonika Catalonian rite at the beginning of this maḥzor. Much of the translation is based on the work of Prof. Yaakov Shmuel Spiegel, published in Hebrew in 1985.

A translation in German and English of the ḳinnah “Sha’ali Serufah ba-Esh.”

Ana is a poem for the first commandment, that discusses all that God did for the ancestors.

A singable translation of Maoz Tsur by the great ḥakham Frederick de Sola Mendes, here transcribed from the Union Hymnal (CCAR 1914), hymn 190. The translation largely reflects the Hebrew, omitting two verses — the final (and according to some, last added) verse, and the fourth verse about Purim and Haman.

A German translation of Maoz Tsur, by the early Reform rabbi Leopold Stein. This singable German translation was cited as an inspiration for Gustav Gottheil and Marcus Jastrow’s well-known English edition. In some communities in the German Empire, for instance the community of Beuthen (now Bytom, Poland), it was recited during the morning service on Ḥanukkah. It poetically translates the first five verses in their entirety, avoiding the controversial sixth verse (said by some to have been added post-facto, and rejected by the early Reform movement).

This is an English translation of Maoz Tsur published by The Hebrew Standard for their 1893 Ḥanukkah issue (vol. 29, no. 12, New York, Friday, 8 December 1893 — 29 Kislev 5654). The Hebrew Standard was one of the biggest English-language Jewish papers in America around the turn of the twentieth century, generally taking a more traditionalist line than the Reform papers and a more moderate line than the leftist ones. This translation, simply titled “Chanukah”, unfortunately goes unattributed in the pages of The Hebrew Standard. The translation follows an ABABCCDD rhyme scheme (for those unfamiliar with rhyme scheme notation, this is the same rhyme scheme as “The Star-Spangled Banner“), unlike the Hebrew’s ABABBBccB.

“Ar’a Raqda,” a piyyut read directly before the Ten Commandments in the Targum, uses wedding imagery and language from the Shir haShirim to paint Sinai as a ḥuppah.

This is the second piyyuṭ in a yotsrot cycle for the Shabbat before Rosh haShanah, according to Minhag Polin (as traditionally practiced in the Ashkenazi communities of northeastern Germany and Poland), all written by a Rabbi Yitzḥak ben Moshe haLevi according to the authorial acrostic. Zunz identifies the author as Rabbi Isaac ben Moses of Mainz, who died in the Gzerot Tatno of 1096. Fraenkel disputes this and suggests Rabbi Isaac ben Moses of Vienna (a/k/a the Or Zarua), of the Ḥasidei Ashkenaz, who died in around 1270. The ofan is an invocation to the listener to repent, calling upon specific angels by name. Also included is the German text of Isaac Seligman Baer’s Avodat Yisrael translation, in modernized spelling.

This is the third piyyuṭ in a yotsrot cycle for the Shabbat before Rosh haShanah, according to Minhag Polin (as traditionally practiced in the Ashkenazi communities of northeastern Germany and Poland), all written by a Rabbi Yitzḥak ben Moshe haLevi according to the authorial acrostic. Zunz identifies the author as Rabbi Isaac ben Moses of Mainz, who died in the Gzerot Tatno of 1096. Fraenkel disputes this and suggests Rabbi Isaac ben Moses of Vienna (a/k/a the Or Zarua), of the Ḥasidei Ashkenaz, who died in around 1270. This zulat piyyuṭ, citing Psalms 119 repeatedly, begs for divine justice, invoking martyrs’ memories (and perhaps endorsing Fraenkel’s suggestion that its authorship must postdate the Gzerot Tatno!).

This is a portion of the tenth gate from ספר תחכמוני Sefer Taḥkemoni of Yehudah Al-Harizi (ca. 1179-1235), narrated by The Farmer. The transcription and English translation was made by Isaac Gantwerk Mayer. Isaac adds, “While Israel Davidson in Parody in Jewish Literature (1907) considered this satire, the imagery of a rooster so desperate not to be killed and eaten that he is begging humans to kill and eat his children instead is horrifying.”