This is an archive of prayers written for, or relevant to, the Fast of תִּשְׁעָה בְּאָב (Tishah b’Av, the 9th of the month of Av) in the Jewish calendar, commemorating the destruction of the first and second Temple in Jerusalem, among other catastrophes. Click here to contribute a prayer you have written for Tishah b’Av. Filter resources by Name Filter resources by Tag Filter resources by Category
Psalm 137 is traditionally recited before the Birkat Hamazon (the Blessing [after eating] the Meal) on a weekday. Psalms 137 (with Psalms 138:1) is read on the day of the Fast of Tisha b’Av. . . . On Tisha be’Av, Jewish communities all over the world add a paragraph called Tefilat Naḥem (the prayer of comfort) to the standard daily Amidah (either for the afternoon service or for all services) praying for a return to Jerusalem. The traditional text discusses Jerusalem being defiled, in the hands of the idol worshipers, putting our people to the sword. But post-1967, Jerusalem has been under Israeli control, and this text has, to many people, felt no longer appropriate in the face of a Jerusalem being rebuilt. Many have written their own versions of a new Tefilat Naḥem for a Jerusalem under Israeli control, but I have felt dissatisfied with a lot of these. Some treat Jerusalem as already fully redeemed, which any glance at the news tells you isn’t the case. Others treat the major step in redeeming Jerusalem as building the Temple, but this seems to me to be only one eschatological part of a larger hope for Jerusalem. Jews have often considered the peace of Jerusalem to be a microcosm of the peace of all the earth. Thus for the Shabbat and Yom Tov Hashkivenu we pray for God to “spread the shelter of peace over us, all Israel, and Jerusalem.” The name Jerusalem, ירושלים, has been analyzed as “they will see peace” יראו שלום, since the peace of Jerusalem means all will see peace. But it’s clear that the peace of Jerusalem is not final or eternal, and it remains a city on the edge of a knife. So my version of Tefilat Naḥem prays not for a return, nor for a Temple, but for the peace of Jerusalem. It can be used at the same time as the standard Tefilat Naḥem (as an extension of the Birkat Yerushalayim in the Shmoneh Esreh for Tisha b’Av) or on its own. Thus I used four asterisks (a tetrapuncta) instead of God’s name, for those who would prefer to avoid a b’rakhah levatalah. Those who would prefer to use this blessing in the Amidah itself could replace the tetrapuncta with the name itself. . . . During the time before there was a State of Israel, those ideals in our hearts which we tried to practice and which we wanted others to practice, seemed not achievable where we were because, we felt we had no influence over our world where we were. And so, the longing for our homeland was tied into the longing for our dreams and our vision. Now that the state of Israel is with us, our dreams and our visions still remain distant from our lives and therefore when we say the Tisha B’av prayers we need to remind ourselves of the distance between that which we would have in this world and that which we do have. . . . The works of the great paytan Yannai were, with the exception of a small handful of poems, almost completely lost until their rediscovery in the Cairo Geniza. This poem, an acrostic comparison of the days of Moses and Jeremiah, was written by Yannai to serve as part of the Musaf Ḳedushah on the first Shabbat after 17 Tammuz, on which the opening section of Jeremiah is recited. It bears structural and linguistic similarities to the later famous ḳinah Esh Tuqad. In its liturgical context, it was intended to introduce the final few verses of the Ḳedushah . Nowadays the custom of poetic inserts into the ḳedushah is nearly extinct, but the poem stands as a moving and powerful work nonetheless. . . . Tags: 43rd century A.M., 6th century C.E., Acrostic translation, alphabetic mesostic, Cairo Geniza, First Shabbat of Admonition, חורבן Ḥurban, Mourning this Broken World, פיוטים piyyutim, קינות Ḳinōt, Shabbatot of Admonition, Siege of Jerusalem (597 BCE), Siege of Jerusalem (70 CE), Three Weeks of Mourning, יציאת מצרים Yetsiat Mitsrayim This anonymously authored ḳinah (קינה, song of “lamentation”) begins with the line “אוֹי נָא לָֽנוּ כִּי חָטָֽאנוּ” (oy na lanu ki ḥatanu, “Woe—alas—unto us, for we have sinned”). Although the ancient Roman Jewish historian Flavius Josephus blames the Roman Empire for the destruction of the Jewish Temple in Jerusalem in 70 CE—and Roman art even celebrates the Roman capture of the Temple’s candelabrum—this ḳinah suggests that the destruction of Jerusalem was, at least partially, the result of Jewish discord. The ḳinah, which was long part of the Romanian prayer service for Tish’ah b’Av, appears in few other traditional prayerbooks for Tish’ah b’Av. It seems that the author of this ḳinah was El’azar ben Kallir (ca. 570–640 CE), who composed approximately half of the kinot most commonly inserted into contemporary Tish’ah b’Av prayerbooks that include the 40-odd most common kinot (קינות, plural of ḳinah) Jews sang throughout Europe during much of the early modern period. The author did not sign their name but left us with an alphabetical acrostic listing of often-concrete reasons to mourn today. . . . Az Bahalokh Yirmiyahu is a kinah, “based on Eikhah Rabati Petikhta 24, in which Jeremiah says to God: “I am like a father who prepared to take his only son to be married, and the son tragically died under the wedding canopy. Do you not feel any pain for me or for my son?” God responds: “Go and rouse Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and Moses from their graves, for they know how to cry…” (Daniel Goldschmidt, Seder Kinot le-Tisha b’Av, Jerusalem, 1972, 98). . . . The qinah, Eikh T’naḥamuni Hevel, in Hebrew with an English translation. . . . ‘Ad Ana Bikhya B’Tsiyon, is one of the oldest qinot of the cycle, dating to the period before rhyme schemes were the norm for Hebrew poetry. It describes the heavenly luminaries themselves as sympathizing with and lamenting for Israel. It goes through the entire zodiac, beginning with Ares and ending with Pisces. It is traditional to stand and recite the last few lines aloud before transitioning into the Ḳedusha d’Sidra. . . . Many communities recite a series of poems interwoven with the Amidah on Purim. These poems, known as the “krovets,” were written by Elazar b. Rabbi Kalir, the greatest of the early paytanim. But lesser known than the krovets for Purim are the krovets for Tisha b’Av, written as well by Elazar b. Rabbi Kalir. A fine example of Elazar’s intricate poetry, the krovets for Tisha b’Av is rife with Biblical citations, finally culminating with the prayer for Jerusalem. Each stanza begins with five tightly rhymed lines beginning with a constant א followed by a quintuple half-acrostic on the second letter, then a poetic volta on the word אֵיכָה, followed by a Biblical citation, a verse starting with the last word in the citation, a letter from Elazar’s name, and a final Biblical citation. The krovets for Tisha b’Av is meant to be part of the morning service, tied into the cantorial repetition for Tisha b’Av. . . . “Alelai Li” is a ḳinah recited on the morning of Tisha bAv. It was written by HaKalir around the 7th century. According to the Koren Mesorat HaRav Kinot, it is number 17 of 50. The title is the refrain of the poem and is an onomatopoeic whimper (try saying it aloud, focusing on the alliteration). It is difficult to translate the opening word “im” which means “if” or “should”. This is an allusion to Job 10:15, “If I have done evil, then woe unto me.” I have decided to translate the ḳinah not in the conditional tense (which would render “If these horrible things happened, then woe is me!”) but as a lament upon memory; however, the former would be a more accurate (if not more awkward in English) translation. Adding to the awkwardness of the poem’s language is the feminine conditional verb that each line has after the word “im”. I have maintained this strange verb tense and placement in my translation by using the English progressive tense. The ḳinah ends with a collection in lines in a different meter suggesting that the Holy One (and the paytan himself) is angered that the Jewish people announce their sufferings but not their transgressions. . . . This is a variation of the qinah for Tishah b’Av, “Shomron Qol Titein” in its Ashkenazi nusaḥ. Isaac Gantwerk Mayer first shared this translation via his Facebook page on Tishah b’Av, 2022. . . . “Oy Meh Haya Lanu” is a ḳinah traditionally recited on the night of Tisha b’Av directly after the reading of Eikha. According to the Koren Mesorat HaRav Kinot, it is number 1 of 50. The title is the refrain of the poem, a reflective lament. This ḳinah is based on the fifth and final chapter of Eikha, taking the opening phrase of each line of the megillah as the first line of each couplet and poetically expanding the description for the second. This translation is an attempt to convey the vulgarity and horror of the paytan’s depiction of the destroyed Jerusalem in vernacular English. The ḳinah ends just as the megillah ends, with the four verses of pleas for redemption. . . . Some Jewish communities, especially those in the region of the Four Lands, have a custom of fasting on the 20th of Sivan. This day has a full seliḥot service, commemorating a series of horrors that occurred on that day, most prominently the Chmielnicki (Khmielnetsky) massacres of 1648-49. But this poem was written for another horrific occurrence on 20 Sivan, the blood libel of Blois in 1171. This was the first time the accusation of ritual murder was ever made against the Jews of France, but it wasn’t the last. This seliḥah poem, written by Hillel ben Jacob of Bonn, starts with the dramatic accusation that God has abandoned the people Israel, continuing by listing those who died in myriad horrid ways, and ending with several citations from the apocalyptic final chapter of the book of Joel. . . . 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. . . . “Af Oraḥ Mishpatekha” is an ofan, a type of piyyut recited as a part of the Ḳedushah d-Yotzer liturgy as an introduction to Ezekiel 3:12. Specifically, it is an ofan written by the Rokeaḥ, R. El’azar ben R. Yehuda of Worms, for the morning liturgy on Shabbat Ḥazon, the Shabbat before Tishah b’Av. It is here included along with an original translation and with cited verses marked. Also included is a series of images from a 1714 maḥzor printed in Frankfurt au Main that includes the piyyut. To note, the text included above is not exactly the same as that of the 1714 maḥzor, having been edited in accordance with Isaac Meiseles’s 1993 critical edition of the Rokeaḥ’s work. . . . “Bore ‘Ad Anah” is a ḳinah recited in a number of Sephardic communities on Tishah b’Av (or in some cases on Shabbat Hazon, the Shabbat preceding Tishah b’Av), particularly in the Spanish-Portuguese and North African traditions. The author is unknown, but his name is likely Binyamin based on the acrostic made up of the first letters of the verses. In the kinah, the Children of Israel are compared to a wandering dove caught in a trap by predators, crying out its father, God. The ḳinah was likely written as a poignant response to the Spanish Inquisition, appropriate to Tishah b’Av since the expulsion of the Jews from Spain occurred on the 9th of Av in the year 1492. The version presented here was likely censored, as many manuscripts have the fifth verse presented in the following manner directly calling out their Catholic oppressors,” יועצים עליה עצות היא אנושה זרים העובדים אלילים שלושה אם ובן ורוח כי אין להם בושה גדול ממכאובי.” “They counsel against her and she languishes, the strangers who worship three idols, father, son and spirit, for they have no shame and great is my suffering.” . . . This qina is recited in the Spanish-Portuguese rite (as practiced in the Snoge in Amsterdam, the Bevis Marks Synagogue in London, and Shearith Israel in New York City among many other communities) at the conclusion of the recitation of qinot on the evening of the Ninth of Aḅ. Its refrain, taken from the Four Questions of the Passover liturgy, is reframed* as a reflection of the suffering of such a day, contrasting the celebration of salvation on Passover with the fear and desolation of the fast day. . . . Aish Tukad is a ḳinah for Tishah b’Av, usually recited towards the conclusion of the set of dirges for the morning service (in Goldshmidt’s numbering, it is number 32 of our 46 Kinot). According to Goldshmidt’s introduction, the structure of this Piyyut is based on a Midrash in Eicha Zuta 19, where Moses’ praises for God and Israel are seen as parallel to Jeremiah’s laments, thus creating the concept of a comparison between the joy of the Exodus and the pain of the Temple’s destruction. . . . One of the most well-known of the kinot (liturgical poems for mourning), Eli Tsiyon v’Areha is an alphabetical acrostic describing the destruction of Jerusalem. It is recited towards the conclusion of ḳinot, due to the hopeful note in the comparison of Zion to a woman about to give birth, thought by many to be a messianic reference. The author of the work is unknown. . . . This beautiful piyyut of unknown authorship is recited in most Sephardic, Mizrahi and Yemenite traditions on Tisha B’ab at Minḥah. In its stanzas, rich and replete with biblical references (as is particularly common in Sephardic Piyyut), God speaks to Jerusalem and promises to comfort her, and comfort and redeem her people. . . . “V’ahimah Miyamim Yamimah” is a ḳinah that recounts the tragic tale of the children of Rabbi Yishmael as told in the Babylonian Talmud (Gittin 58a). The handsome brother and fair sister were separated and sold into slavery during the conquest of Jerusalem. Their respective masters, not knowing the two were siblings, paired them with the intent of creating beautiful offspring. In their shared cell, the two wept all night until morning, when they recognized one another. They cried on each other’s necks until their souls departed from their bodies. The narrator of our story laments their terrible fate, ending each verse with a haunting refrain: “And so I will wail for all time.” . . . A translation in German and English of the ḳinnah “Sha’ali Serufah ba-Esh.” . . . “Brich aus in lauten Klagen” by Heinrich Heine was preserved in a letter he wrote to his friend Moses Moser dated 25 October 1824. The poem is included in Heinrich Heine’s Letters on The Rabbi of Bacharach, the manuscript of which only survived in a fragment, the rest having been lost, according to Heine, in a fire. The English translation here by Nina Salaman was transcribed from her anthology, Apples & Honey (1921) where it appears under the title of “Martyr-Song,” published at an earlier date in The Jewish Chronicle. . . . “Am Fasttage des vierten Monats” was translated/adapted by Yehoshua Heshil Miro and published in his anthology of teḥinot, בית יעקב (Beit Yaaqov) Allgemeines Gebetbuch für gebildete Frauen mosaicher Religion. It first appears in the 1829 edition, תחנות Teḥinot ein Gebetbuch für gebildete Frauenzimmer mosaicher Religion as teḥinah №28 on pp. 36-37. In the 1835 edition, it appears as teḥinah №28 on pp. 42-43. In the 1842 edition, it appears as teḥinah №30 on pp. 45-46. . . . A prayer for those martyred in the First Crusade and Rhineland Massacres, and by extension, all subsequent pogroms up until and including the Holocaust. . . . This prayer and “A Prayer for Knowledge of the Messiah” were published as “Two Short Prayers” with a lengthy introduction probably penned by Isaac Leeser in the Occident 9:5, Ab 5611/August 1851, p.253-255. . . . A prayer for the 9th of Av, the anniversary of the destruction of Jerusalem. . . . Many communities have a custom of announcing on the night of 9 Av the years since the destruction of the Temple. The Yemenite rite is unique in that it announces both the years since the destruction of the second, but also the years since the destruction of the first, in this poetic form recited after the conclusion of the evening kinnot. Why? Because the Yemenite community traced its origins back to the destruction of the first temple, claiming not to have returned under Ezra. Here the original Hebrew text is included along with a new translation and a transcription in the Yemenite pronunciation style. . . . A supplicatory prayer for mourning on Tish’a b’Av. . . . A prayer for Tisha b’Av. . . . “The City of Light” is a poem written by Felix Adler. The earliest publication I could find for it dates to 1882, in Unity: Freedom, Fellowship and Character in Religion vol. 8, no. 12 (16 Feb. 1882), p. 477. . . . Tags: 19th century C.E., 57th century A.M., English poetry, Ethical Humanism, ירושלם Jerusalem, mortality, משיח Moshiaḥ, Paris Commune, Prayers as poems, Siege of Paris (1870–1871), universalist, we are the music makers “That Religion Be Not a Cloak for Hypocrisy,” by Rabbi Mordecai Menaḥem Kaplan can be found on p. 435-5 of his The Sabbath Prayer Book (New York: The Jewish Reconstructionist Foundation, 1945). . . . Tags: 20th century C.E., 58th century A.M., communal shame, corruption, difference disagreement and deviance, English vernacular prayer, false piety, חלול ה׳ Ḥillul Hashem, improper use of the crown, inclusion and exclusion, labor exploitation, Psalms 5, religious hypocrisy, tolerance and intolerance This untitled prayer written by Isaac Bashevis Singer on the back of a receipt (dated 1 March 1952) was discovered by David Stromberg in 2014 in the archives at the Harry Ransom Center in Austin, Texas, and published online by Tablet (1, 2) with permission of the Susan Schulman Literary Agency. . . . “Kinah Lekhurban Gan Eden” was written by Richard Kaplan and first published as the fourth track to his album Life of the Worlds: Journeys in Jewish Sacred Music (2003). This work is under the copyright stewardship of the estate of Richard Kaplan and was republished here at the request of Barak Gale who made a recording of the song with the permission of Richard Kaplan while he was alive. . . . “A Memory’s fire burns within me still” was adapted by Andrew Meit from Gabriel Seed’s translation of the kinah, Aish Tukad b’kirbi (“A Fire Shall Burn Within Me”). . . . A playful, expansive, embodied riff on “Hashiveinu Hashem eilecha v’nashuva, ḥadesh yameinu k’kedem.” Suitable for Tisha B’Av, Elul, the Days of Awe, and every day. . . . Supplemental prayers for the Birkat Hamazon on Tisha b’Av, Tu b’Av, and Shabbat Naḥamu. . . . Supplemental prayers for the Birkat Hamazon for the break fast meal after Tisha b’Av. . . . A Tishah b’Av seliḥah for Gaza during the 2014 Gaza War. . . . Tags: 2014 Israel–Gaza conflict, 21st century C.E., 58th century A.M., English vernacular prayer, ארץ ישראל Erets Yisrael, Israeli–Palestinian conflict, מדינת ישראל Medinat Yisrael, Needing Translation (into Arabic), Needing Translation (into Hebrew), فلسطين Filasṭīn Palestine, Palestinian Diapsora, Palestinian refugees, Refugee Crisis, סליחות səliḥot “For Tisha be’Av: Our Cherished Litany of Loss” by Rabbi Menachem Creditor was first published on his website, here. . . . A ḳinnah composed in response to the agonizing and cruel United States immigration policy implemented under the presidency of Donald Trump. . . . A prayer for the correction of the United States immigration policy in support of immigrants and open borders. . . . A meditation on living through the lens of dying. . . . |
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