A “mi sheberakh” prayer on behalf of the persons attending the prayer and/or Torah reading service. . . .

The full Birkat haMazon (or Grace after Meals) according to Nusach Ashkenaz with optional additions for egalitarian rites, fully marked with ta’amei miqra (also known as cantillation marks or trope). Ta’amei miqra originally marked grammar and divisions in any Hebrew sentences, and older Hebrew manuscripts such as those from the Cairo Geniza often show ta’amei miqra on all sorts of texts, not just the Biblical texts we associate them with today. This text includes the full tradition for Birkat haMazon, including texts for weekdays, Shabbatot, and festivals, as well as additions for a wedding meal, a circumcision meal, and a meal in a mourner’s house. . . .

The text of the piyyut Ein Keloheinu from a 1483 Judeo-Italian translation of the siddur (British Library Or. 2443), along with a transcription into Italian script, a normative Italian modernization, and the Hebrew and English. . . .

The mantra-like piyyut “Ēin k-Ēlohēinu,” a praise of God’s attributes and uniqueness featuring incremental repetition, is found in siddurim as far back as the siddur of Rav Amram, and may date back to the Hekhalot literature. Many versions of it have been compiled in different languages, most famously Flory Jagoda (zç”l)’s Judezmo variant “Non como muestro Dyo.” Here the editor has compiled traditional Yiddish and Ladino translations, as well as developed new Aramaic and Arabic translations for this piyyut. The post-piyyut verses used in both the Ashkenazi and Sephardic rites have been included. . . .

The end of the scroll of Ben Sira (Ecclesiasticus) reconstructed from Cairo Geniza fragments not contained within the Septuagint. . . .

A reading from Jubilees (Sefer haYovelim) 6:15-22, including the text of the Mäṣḥäf Ḳədus (the Ge’ez translation of Jubilees) and original cantillated Hebrew and gender-neutral English translations, for Shavuot. Jubilees is considered to be the earliest source connecting Shavuot with the Sinaitic covenant, and emphasizes the latter as a fulfillment of the Noaḥide covenant (in the narrative of Noaḥ) that had only been maintained through the lineage of Abraham. . . .

The poem lauding the ancestors from Chapters 44 to 50 of Ben Sira (Ecclesiasticus) is considered by many scholars to be the original influence for the Yom Kippur Avodah service, and the paean to Shimon the Righteous bears a striking similarity to the beloved piyyut “Mar’eh Khohen.” This passage from Ben Sira, the great paean on the merit of the ancestors, takes the Hebrew text of one of the Cairo Geniza manuscripts — Bodleian MS Heb e62 — and versifies it according to the standard Septuagintal text, along with vocalization and cantillation per the standard Masoretic EMe”T system for poetic books. It could be read on Yom Kippur for the avodah service, or just studied as a fascinating piece of Jewish history. . . .

This letter, written in Imperial Aramaic in 419 BCE, is among the vast number of papyrus letters found in Elephantine, also known as Yeb. The Jewish (or more accurately, Judean) community of Yeb is a fascinating bit of history — a group of Judean mercenaries who settled in Egypt and built their own smaller temple! Although their origin was clearly Judean, and they referred to themselves as the ḥeila yehudaya = Judean garrison, their form of worship featured no Deuteronomic centralization, no discussion of the patriarchs, and questionable monotheism! Although the primary deity was YHW (note the difference in spelling), multiple other deities or hypostatized aspects of divinity were worshipped, and verbs for the word “God” are conjugated in the plural rather than the singular. This text is one of a series of letters written between the brothers Yedaniah and Ḥananiah. In this case, it is giving instructions for keeping the holiday of Pesaḥ. These instructions are interesting in their own right — the prohibition on beer could alternatively be read as a prohibition on any alcoholic drink, which would align with Karaite practice rather than rabbinic. But what’s even more interesting is what isn’t mentioned — the instructions given mention nothing whatsoever about the exodus from Egypt, or even God! The diktat to observe the holiday is accredited not to God or Moses, but to Darius, king of the Achaemenid Empire! This passage is a fascinating taste of a part of Judaism that we know very little about. Vocalization according to Tiberian norms and translation into English by the translator. . . .

In the 18th and 19th centuries, the common practice among Western Sephardim was to read some or all of the aftarót recited in the three weeks before the fast of Aḇ with a verse-by-verse “Ladino” (in this case meaning standard Early Modern Spanish, not Judezmo) translation. According to Joseph Jesurun Pinto (ḥazzan of Shearith Israel in New York from 1759 to 1766), it was customary in Amsterdam for only the final of the three aftarót, the aftará of Shabbat Ḥazon, to be recited with this Spanish targum, while in London it was customary for all three to be recited. This practice fell out of common usage in the past few centuries, although the Western Sephardic community of Bayonne preserved it up until the Shoah. But to this day a unique cantillation system is used in most Western Sephardic communities for the three aftarót before the fast. . . .

In the communities of Morocco and Mumbai, the day after Yom Kippur was a holiday for priests known as Yom Simḥat Kohen. The origins of this practice can be found in Mishnah Yoma 7:4, where the high priest makes a festival for his loved ones after successfully completing the Yom Kippur rituals. In Mumbai, the practice (as recorded in Joseph Ezekiel Rajpurkar’s bilingual Hebrew/Marathi siddur) was to recite Psalms 85 on Yom Simḥat Kohen. The editor has included the text of Psalms 85, Rajpurkar’s Marathi translation, a new English translation, and a vocalized version of the Arabic tafsir of Rav Saadiah Gaon. . . .

Unlike Psalms 151, 154, and 155, the apocryphal psalms 152 and 153 were not found in the Judean Desert scrolls, but only in the Syriac psalter. It is thus somewhat uncertain if they were actually ever written in Hebrew or in Aramaic. But their language and content is in keeping with other late apocryphal psalms, so it seems very possible that they were of Hebrew origin. These reconstructed Hebrew texts are largely based on the work of Professor Emeritus Herrie (H. F.) van Rooy,[1] an expert in the Syriac psalter, also factoring in some input from the work of J. A. Sanders.[2] Psalms 152 and 153 are included together here because they are framed by the ascriptions as a pair — the former being David’s prayer before going against the wild beasts (see I Samuel 17:34-36), and the latter being David’s thanksgiving afterwards . . .

This is a 14th-century translation of the entire book of Jonah into Judeo-Greek or Yevanic, the traditional language of the Romaniote community of Byzantium. To quote the Judeo-Greek expert Julia G. Krivoruchko, it “exhibits a fusion of contemporary vernacular language with archaic elements” and “favors an extremely literal translation style.” This translation was first published in Greek transcription by the Dutch hellenist Dirk Christiaan Hesseling, who misdated it to the 12th-century based on a mixup between the Seleucid and common eras. Included as part of a Romaniote maḥzor (Bodleian Library MS. Oppenheim Add. 8° 19), this translation was almost certainly in use as a targum for the reading of Jonah as the Yom Kippur minḥa haftarah. In the original manuscript the majority of verses are preceded with a few words of the Hebrew, a common practice for written targumim. . . .

Shmini Atseret is a strange festival. In some ways part of Sukkot, in some ways its own thing, it occupies an equivocal place in the yearly cycle. But one thing that is completely true: Shmini Atseret is on Pi Day. Well, Pi Approximation Day — the twenty-second day of the seventh month. Inspired by my friend and math enthusiast Aryeh Baruch (may he have a long life), I’ve compiled this altered form of the haftarah for Shmini Atseret in the diaspora, including the description of King Solomon’s “molten sea,” as well as an Aramaic “reshut” poem with a numeral acrostic of the first few digits of pi. . . .