This is an archive of prayers offered at the primary life cycle ritual for infants. Filter resources by Name Filter resources by Tag Filter resources by Category
To the best of my ability, this is a faithful transcription of Psalms 12 from תהילים או לוס סאלמוס ; טריסלאד’אד’וס דיל לשון הקדש אין לה לינגואה ספרדית (Tehillim, or the Psalms, translated from the Holy language [Hebrew] into the Sephardic language, Estampado por Ǧ. Griffit 1852/3) from a digital copy made available by the collection of Sephardic Studies at the University of Washington. Please join me in making a complete transcription of this Ladino translation of Psalms. –Aharon N. Varady . . . Tags: 19th century C.E., 57th century A.M., Al haShminit, brit milah, Izmir, Ladino Translation, מזמור Mizmor, Needing Proofreading, Ottoman Empire, Ottoman Jewry, תהלים Psalms, Psalms 12, פרשת וזאת הברכה parashat vZot haBrakhah According to Isaac Seligman Baer’s famed Seder Avodat Yisrael, one of the first scholarly siddurim critical editions ever published, there was a custom that on the day of a circumcision, the P’sukei d-Zimra reading of Shirat haYam along with a portion of its introduction would be recited aloud as a call and response by the mohel (circumcizer) and sandaḳ (godfather). Baer’s division of the verses (from Seder Avodat Yisrael, pp. 72-74) is included here, along with a new translation. . . . “Gebet einer Mutter, wenn ihr Sohn durch die Beschneidung in den Bund der Israeliten aufgenommen wird” was translated/adapted by Yehoshua Heshil Miro and published in his anthology of teḥinot, בית יעקב (Beit Yaaqov) Allgemeines Gebetbuch für gebildete Frauen mosaischer Religion. It first appears in the 1829 edition, תחנות Teḥinot ein Gebetbuch für gebildete Frauenzimmer mosaischer Religion as teḥinah №59 on pp. 85-86. In the 1835 edition, it appears as teḥinah №61 on pp. 108-109. In the 1842 edition, it appears as teḥinah №64 on pp. 113-114. . . . A prayer for a mother on the day of her son’s circumcision. . . . This undated “Service for the Blessing of a Baby” by the Hon. Lily H. Montagu (1873-1963) from the archives of the Liberal Jewish Synagogue, London, was published in, Lily Montagu: Sermons, Addresses, Letters, and Prayers (ed. Ellen M. Umansky, 1985), pp. 339-341. Based on the name of the baby for whom the service was performed, we feel confident in dating this service to June 1962. . . . We name our daughters on their fifteenth day of life. This is based on Vayiqra 12:1-5, which describes the length of a woman’s period of impurity after childbirth. If she gives birth to a son, she is impure for seven days; if she gives birth to a daughter, she is impure for fourteen days. The passage seems to connect the baby boy’s circumcision on the eighth day to the conclusion of the mother’s seven day period of impurity. (Similarly, Vayiqra 22:27 says that a newborn animal must remain with its mother for seven days, and on the eighth day and onward it is acceptable as a sacrificial offering.) It seems, then, that for the first seven days of a little boy’s life, and the first fourteen days of a little girl’s life, the child and mother are still closely linked, and both remain separate from the larger family and community. Then, on the eighth day of her son’s life, and on the fifteenth day of her daughter’s life, the mother begins to rejoin her family and community, and the child too becomes incorporated as a member of the family and community. That is why a baby boy’s father becomes obligated to circumcise his son only on the eighth day, and why the baby boy first receives his name at his brit milah; it is then that the baby boy becomes a member of the community of Israel. On our daughter’s fifteenth day, we come together as a family and as a community to welcome this new member and to give her a name. . . . A ceremony for the naming of a baby daughter. . . . In place of the blood of the slaughtered bulls from the covenantal ceremony in Exodus, we looked for another substance to effect the covenant ceremony. Amalya was born right after Shavuot, on which we have a tradition to eat dairy. In fact, milk itself is associated with the acceptance of Torah, as described in the following Midrash which quotes a verse from Song of Songs (4:11): “Sweetness drops from your lips, O bride; honey and milk are under your tongue and the scent of your robes is like the scent of Lebanon.” . . . Tags: 21st century C.E., 58th century A.M., ceremony, dairy foods, הדר Hadar, infants, naming, parent, Parents blessing children, prayers concerning children, Prayers on behalf of children, שבועות Shavuot, שמחת בת simḥat bat, soporifics, Torah as milk In honor of the birth of their son born 23 Shvat 5772 ~ 15 February 2012, Rabbi Emma Kippley-Ogman and Benjamin Kamm share their Brit Shmot (Naming Covenant). The ceremony took place February 23rd, 2012 (Rosh Ḥodesh Adar ~ 30 Shvat 5772) at Congregation Kehillath Israel, Brookline, Massachusetts. . . . For a number of reasons, some medical, some psychological, some spiritual, some communal-traditional, I support and urge male circumcision. When couples have come to me and despite my advice are adamant in refusing to do it with a boy-child, AND/OR if they ask my advice about a brit/ covenant ceremony for a girl — I urge them to follow what I’ve proposed below. . . . In the weeks leading up to the birth of our first child in 1997, my partner and I spent a lot of time thinking about the brit. Whether it was a boy or a girl we knew that we would have a celebration. If it was a boy we would have a brit, yet we were not happy with the ceremony as it stood. If it was a girl we needed a ceremony which was equally powerful and yet didn’t draw blood. In response to these two concerns I wrote a liturgy for what I called a chag hachnassah labrit/celebration of entering the covenant which could be easily adapted to boys and girls, and I wrote a piyyut (a liturgical poem) for a milah/a circumcision. . . . This is a piyyut (liturgical poem) which is intended to be recited at a brit. It is connected to my liturgy for a “chag hachnassah labrit” (available here). The explanation for the chag is also the basis for the piyyut. Translation into English by Shoshanna Gershenson, Maeera Schreiber and Aryeh Cohen. . . . This Simḥat Brit was prepared by David Zvi Kalman and circulated via a public post on Facebook on 9 July 2018. . . . This Simḥat Bat ceremony guide includes an order of blessings and ceremony with attention to various traditional customs regarding the use of blessings and prayers. The guide also includes words of Torah and rabbinic teachings which relate to the themes in the guide. . . . |
![the Open Siddur Project [logo]](https://opensiddur.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/Open-Siddur-Project-Logo-2016.svg){kind=logo}
