🆕 יום טוב של קהל קדוש קארפינטראס ל״ט בחדש ניסן | Poetic Additions for 9 Nisan, for when guards protected the Jews of Carpentras from an attempted pogrom — by Rabbi Mordecai Astruc (1682)
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❧The Seder ha-Tamid, a Provençal (Nusaḥ Comtat Venaissin) siddur published in Avignon in 1766, has liturgical additions for an amazing five different local festivals — one for Avignon, and two each for Carpentras and Cavaillon. Here’s a series of piyyutim for the ninth of Nisan in Carpentras. On 9 Nisan 5442 (17 April 1682), the gentile murderer of a Jew from Carpentras was drowned according to law. A mob began to form to attack the Jews for deigning to not be murdered. The rector of the comtat, Michele Antonio Vibò, decided to send guards to protect the Jews from the mob. This decision was celebrated by the Jews with multiple piyyuṭim and a full recitation of Hallel. Uniquely for the minor Purims analyzed in the Seder ha-Tamid so far, we know the author of one of these piyyutim, a sage and payṭan by the name of R. Mordecai Astruc! . . .
ברכה לאדונינו הקיסר ירה | Prayer for the Holy Roman Emperor and Empress, Leopold Ⅰ and Margaret (1658/1666)
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❧This is a 17th century prayer for the Holy Roman Emperor found in Ms. 110 (Jewish Museum in Prague, Czech Republic). . . .
אֵל מָלֵא רַחֲמִים | El Malé Raḥamim for the victims of the Chmielnicki massacre (1648-1649), composed in memory of Yəḥiel Mikhel ben Eliezer, the Martyr of Nemyriv (ca. late 17th c.)
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❧One of the most prominent martyrs in the Chmielnicki massacres of 1648–1649 was the kabbalist and sage Yəḥiel Mikhel ben Eliezer ha-Kohen, known to posterity as the Martyr of Nemiryv. This unique poetic El Malei Raḥamim was said in his honor, and communities that fast on 20 Sivan still recite it to this day. . . .
A Prayer for a Woman before giving birth, from a Seder Tkhines (ca. 1640-1720)
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❧A prayer for a pregnant woman anticipating childbirth, from an unidentified volume of the Seder Tkhines (circa 1640-1720). . . .
Teḥinah upon tearing off the pitom of the etrog on Hoshana Rabba, from the Tsenah Ur’enah (1622)
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❧This is Dr. Morris Faierstein’s transcription and translation of one of the earliest teḥinot from the earliest surviving edition of the Tsenah u-Re’enah (Basel/Hanau 1622) as found in his article “The Earliest Published Yiddish Tehinnot (1590–1609)” in Hebrew Union College Annual, 2020, Vol. 91 (2020). The transcription of the Yiddish sourcetext is found on page 206 and the English translation is found on page 187. The translation is shared under the libre Open Access license (Creative Commons Attribution) provided for the critical translation of the text in Ze’enah U-Re’enah: A Critical Translation into English (Volume 96 in the series Studia Judaica, ed. Morris M. Faierstein; De Gruyter 2017). . . .
🆕 Judeo-Italian couplets for each course of the Passover Seder (Venice, 1609)
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❧A series of fourteen short couplets describing the fourteen traditional stages of the Haggadah, written in Judeo-Italian and first published in the famous 1609 Venice Haggadah of Isaac Gershon. The Italian used in the Venice Haggadah lacks a lot of the most divergent aspects of the Judeo-Italian languages, sticking to a more mainline Tuscan grammatical norm, but there are enough obsolete, poetic, or dialectal forms that several footnotes have been included to explain them. Also included is an original English-language rhyming translation! . . .
A Delightful Tkhine for a Pregnant Woman to Say (ca. early 17th c.)
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❧A prayer of a pregnant woman anticipating childbirth. . . .
A Prayer for a Pregnant Woman to Say when She Wishes for an Easy Labor (ca. early 17th c.)
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❧A prayer for a pregnant woman anticipating her childbirth. . . .
אֵין אַדִּיר כַּיְיָ (מִפִּי אֵל) | Ayn Adir kAdonai (Mipi El) :: There is none like YHVH
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❧A popular piyyut for Simḥat Torah (4th hakkafah) originally composed as a piyyut for Shavuot and often referred to by its incipit, “Mipi El.” . . .
📄 מעריב ליל שבת לפי נוסח פרס העתיק | Maariv for the Sabbath Evening according to the Ancient Persian Rite
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❧This is a transcript and translation of the Maariv service for Shabbat evening in the Old Persian rite, as recorded in MS Adler 23 ENA (https://hebrewbooks.org/20923) in the JTS Library. The Old Persian rite shows some fascinating unique linguistic features. The first thing that immediately strikes one is its tendency towards poetic extensions and doublings, even in texts (such as the Avot blessing) where most other rites are almost completely uniform. It also shows some nonstandard vocalizations that appear to be influenced by the Babylonian system of vocalization. In modern Persian communities the standard rite is a variation of the Sephardic rite used throught the Mizraḥi world, but this older rite with its unique facets deserves to be preserved as well. This is part 1 of a planned series of transcripts and translations from MS Adler 23 ENA. . . .
אֵין אַדִּיר כַּיְיָ (מִפִּי אֵל) | Ayn Adir kAdonai | לָא קָאדִּר סַוָא אַלְלָה (There is none like Allah), minhag Cairo variation with a Judeo-Arabic translation
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❧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. . . .
הַנּוֹתֵן תְּשׁוּעָה | The Prayer for the Safety of Kings, Princes and Commonwealths, presented by Menasseh ben Israel to Oliver Cromwell (1655)
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❧The text of Hanoten Teshua in its English translation as presented by Menasseh ben Israel to Oliver Cromwell in 1655. We have reconstructed the corresponding Hebrew from the S&P nusaḥ of the Jewish community in Amsterdam. . . .
אַדִּיר הוּא | Adir Hu, the acrostic piyyut in its Latin translation by Johann Stephan Rittangel (1644)
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❧The alphabetic acrostic piyyut, Adir Hu, in its Latin translation by Johann Stephan Rittangel as found in his translation of the Pesaḥ seder haggadah, Liber Rituum Paschalium (1644). . . .
תהלים א׳ בלשון ספרדית | Psalms 1 in Spanish (trans. Rabbi Yahakob Yehuda, Leon Hebréo 1671)
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❧Autor ninguno se halla, que declare el tiempo en que David compuso este Psalmo; ni la causa de haverlo introduzido por primero: mas amiver, es, que conociendo David que la razon de haver Dios rebotado de su gracia a Saul, y haverlo elegido ael en su lugar, havia sido por transgredir su mandado en la guerra de Ha-malek, por las persuasiones, y confejos de los inicos de su pueblo; como el mismo confessó al Propheta Semuel: por esso, quiso David dar’principio àfu Libro, con un loor que sirviesse de dotrina, y de advertimiento dela felicidad que alcançan los fieles siervos de Dios, que andan con toda integridad en fus carreras de virtud, y las adversdades, y castigo que estáparalos infieles, y los inicos aparejado, por los justos juyzios de Dios, del modo que sucedió a Saul, que fue desposseido de su Reyno, el, y sus hijos, y todos sus defendientes parasiempre, por los consejos de que el, se dexó persuadir, donde Dios le declaró su castigo. . . .
תהלים ב׳ בלשון ספרדית | Psalms 2 in Spanish (trans. Rabbi Yahakob Yehuda, Leon Hebréo 1671)
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❧Este Psalmo, es el segundo en numero, por haverlo David en el principio de su Reyno, quando por oir las naciones circunvezinas, que lo havian ungido por Rey sobre Israël, vinieron todos juntos al desafio contra el, en compañia de los Philisteos sus capitales enemigos, y por esso comiença el Psalmo: Paraque se juntan las gentesy, etc. De suerte que assi como el Psalmo precedente, fue el primero por la donacion del Reyno, que Dios le hizo, assi este segundo fue adjunto a el, por la possession del Reyno que entonces tomava, suyetando con la divina assistencia las naciones, pues le embiava de los Cielos, su favor por medio de los Angeles sus ministros, como consta de Semuel Segundo, 5:24. . . .