חצות | Tikkun Ḥatsot: Getting Right at Midnight — An Introduction to the Midnight Rite by Shmuel Gonzales
Contributed by: Shmueli Gonzales (transcription)
The popular practice of a night time prayer vigil is not well understood. In the siddur, most people pass by it because they don’t know what to do with it. Others are confused because of the lack of consistency in its presentation from one siddur to the next. At the end of the day, this ritual would be regarded as a rite reserved for the pious — for the great tzadikim who made regular use of it. . . .
סידור תורה אור (נוסח האר״י) | Siddur Torah Or, the nusaḥ of the school of Rabbi Yitsḥaq Luria as arranged by Rabbi Schneur Zalman of Lyadi
Contributed by: Shmueli Gonzales (transcription), Schneur Zalman of Lyadi
When Rav Yiztḥak Luria, zt”l, also known as the Holy Ari, davvened in Eretz Yisroel he brought about a series of liturgical innovations witnessed in later siddurim. His particular nusaḥ bridged minhag Ashkenaz and minhag Sefarad (the customs of the Rheinland Jews and the customs of the Jews of the Iberian Peninsula) with the teachings of his school of Kabbalists. When two centuries later, the Ḥassidic movement blossomed in Eastern Europe, it found purchase in Lithuania among a mystical school centered around Rav Schneur Zalman of Lyady, the Alter Rebbe and founder of the ḤaBaD movement within Ḥassidism. The Alter Rebbe compiled his own siddur, the Siddur Torah Ohr, “according to the tradition of the Ari.” . . .