This is the first 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 yotser is an exultant heikhalot-tinged description of the midrash of seven heavens befitting the Shabbat before creation. Also included is the German text of Isaac Seligman Baer’s Avodat Yisrael translation, in modernized spelling.

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.”

This seliḥah poem, written by R. Joseph of Chartres, commemorates the martyrdom of approximately 150 Jews in Clifford’s Tower, York, England, in the year 1190. A summary of the events of 1190, sometimes referred to as “the English Masada,” can be found here. Like many medieval Jewish poems about massacres, Elohim B’alunu carefully treads the line between assuming guilt and declaring innocence. This poem, interestingly enough, directly calls out the person seen by R. Joseph of Chartres as ultimately responsible — the crusader King Richard Ⅰ. Beloved in Christian memory, this radical zealot of a king has a much darker, more horrific reputation among Jewish and Muslim groups.

An ahava piyyut for Shabbat Vayera, recited in the old Nusaḥ Polin (Eastern Ashkenazi) rite, written (according to Davidson) by R. Shmuel bar Avraham haLevi. Shmuel bar Avraham haLevi (1165-1216, according to Graetz) was a poet and scholar of the ibn Ḥasdai family of Barcelona, and the father of the noted Maimonidean translator Avraham bar Shmuel ibn Ḥasdai. This piyyuṭ takes God’s fateful instruction to Abraham — “Take, please, your son, your only one, whom you love,” and, in a shocking bit of poetic ḥutzpah, reframes it a request that God takes back Israel!

This meorah, by R. Avraham bar Shmuel of Speyer (the elder brother of R. Yehuda heḤasid and a great scholar in his own right) is recited on Shabbat Naso. This is usually after Shavuot, but sometimes (in 2025, for instance) it is before. This meorah is a poetic interpretation of the Priestly Blessing, and a plea for vengeance against the antisemitic nations. As a meorah, it is recited prior to the final line of the guf and the ḥatima of the Yotser Or blessing.

This is the Minhag Ashkenaz (western Germany, codified in Frankfurt) Maȝaravot for the seventh day of Pesaḥ, by Rabbi Menaḥem ben Jacob of Worms.

The haftarah for the second day of Shavuot, Ḥabakkuk 2:20-3:19, interspersed with a cantillated text of the Targum Yonatan ben Uzziel. Since Targum Yonatan is a bit more drash-heavy than Targum Onkelos, it is translated separately as well. The haftarah reading includes the piyyut Yetsiv Pitgam, with an acrostic rhyming translation of the poem, with the second-to-last verse restored to its rightful place, as well as a concluding paragraph for the meturgeman to recite, as found in the Maḥzor Vitry.

This pizmon was written by R. Shmuel ben Moshe Ha-Dayan of Aram Ṣoba (ca. 1150-1200) an Aleppine payṭan whose works were almost completely lost before being rediscovered in the Maḥzor Aram Ṣoba. It emphasizes the uneasy juxtaposition of the joy of Simḥat Torah with the tragedy of Moshe’s death. Originally it was probably recited before musaf, but perhaps for those who follow Ashkenazi customs a more appropriate location would be as an introduction to the Yizkor service on Shemini ‘Atseret — which for those who don’t keep second-day yontef is the same day.

This piyyut, attributed to Menaḥem ben Aharon, is found in the Maḥzor Vitry, siman 465. It is a note-for-note structural parody of a beloved Pesaḥ maarava poem, Leil Shimurim. Israel Davidson, in his 1907 work “Parody in Jewish Literature,” writes, “The parodist apparently has no other aim than to dress a wine-song in the garb of a religious hymn. The burden of the song is that on Purim one must throw of all care and anxiety… But in order to make our happiness complete, we must remember the needy, and share our luxuries with those that are in want of them.”

An ofan piyyuṭ for the second shabbat after Pesaḥ, as well as the Shabbat between Yom Kippur and Sukkot, recited in the minhag of Pehm and Bruna (Bohemia and Moravia). Signed with the name “Yaakov,” this ofan is of uncertain origin but has been attributed to R. Yaakov ben Meir, more well known as Rabbeinu Tam. Also included is Seligman Baer’s German translation, as well as an original English translation.

Im Afes Rova’ ha-Qen, an Aqedah (poetic retelling of the binding of Isaac) written by the 12th-century scholar R. Ephraim ben Isaac of Regensburg, is one of the few piyyuṭim of Ashkenazi origin to have a beloved place in the Sephardic liturgy. (Much more commonly things go the other way.) In current Sephardic practice it is recited every single weeknight in the month of Elul, as part of the seliḥot liturgy — as well as on the second day of Rosh haShanah. It is also recited in most Ashkenazi Seliḥot liturgies — in the Bohemian and Lithuanian customs on the fast of Gedaliah, and in the Polish custom on the fourth day of the ten days. Which means that not only is this Ashkenazi piyyuṭ beloved by Sephardim, it is substantially *more* beloved by Sephardim than it is by Ashkenazim! And as with any beloved piyyuṭ, it has been translated into the colloquial for all the people to appreciate its language. The following is not only the complete Hebrew text of Im Afes along with a new English translation, but also a rhyming Ladino translation composed by R. Reuven Eliyahu Yisrael, the spiritual leader of the Sephardic community of Craiova, Romania, and published in the aforementioned town in the year 1910 (in טראדוקסייון ליברי די לאס פואיזיאס איבראיקאאס). To demonstrate the techniques used by R. Yisrael in his translation, a literal translation of the Ladino, as well as a transcription into the Latin-script Aki Yerushalaim orthography, is also provided.

“Yom Nilḥamu Vi” is the reshut offered before the Barkhu preceding the Shaḥarit blessings before the Shema. It is the eighth reshut among the reshuyot in the Old Sefaradi Tiqun for Shabbat Ḥazon — the final shabbat before 9 Av.

“Nishmat Emunim” is the third reshut offered before Nishmat at the outset of the Zemirot (preceding Shaḥarit). It is the fifth reshut among the reshuyot in the Old Sefaradi Tiqun for Shabbat Ḥazon — the final shabbat before 9 Av.

This geulah piyyut, by R. Yehuda heḤasid, is, similar to the prior zulat, a response to the massacres of the First Crusade. It specifically focuses, in the way only a maverick like heḤasid could, on holding God to account for breach of covenant, and calls out both Christians and — on a much rarer theme — Muslims for their slaughter of Jews during the Crusades. As a geulah, it is recited right before concluding berakha of the Emet blessing and the Amidah.

This zulat piyyut, by R. Shmuel bar Yehuda (fl. 12th c.), is a keening cry in response to the traumatic First Crusade Rhineland massacres, known as the Gzerot TaTN”O in Hebrew, specifically focusing on the 3 Sivan massacre and martyrdoms in Mainz. The massacres of the Gzerot TaTN”O were so traumatic to Ashkenazi Jewry that to this day, the Av haRaḥamim prayer for martyrs, usually elided on Shabbat Mevorkhim, is not elided on Shabbat Mevorkhim Iyar or Sivan. As a zulat, it is recited at the end of the “Emet v-Emuna” paragraph. Generally the second half of the paragraph is altered slightly when a zulat is inserted. In this case, the alteration, according to the old Nusaḥ Polin, is included.

The Prayer of Azariah and the Song of the Three Holy Children, one of the apocryphal Additions to Daniel, is an interpolation into the third chapter of the book of Daniel. The editor has here included a new vocalized and cantillated edition of the Aramaic text preserved in the 12th century Divrei Yeraḥmiel (Oxford Bodleian Heb d.11 transcribed by Rabbi Dr. Moses Gaster). The language of this passage is an odd synthesis of Targumic, pseudo-Biblical Aramaic, and even some Syriac forms, so the editor’s vocalization is aiming for a happy medium of all the possibilities.

“Avnei Y’qar” is a succint piyyut for Ḥanukkah, traditionally attributed to R. Abraham ibn Ezra, and particularly beloved by the Yemenites. Interestingly, it doesn’t mention the miracle of the oil whatsoever, focusing on the degradation of the land under Greek occupation as well as the Hasmonean victory itself. Included is a poetic acrostic translation into English.

This is the first of six reshuyot for the first sabbath of rebuke, Shabbat Divrei, the first Sabbath of Rebuke after 17 Tammuz. It is the first reshut recited before Nishmat at the outset of the Shaḥarit service.