This is an archive of prayers, prayer-poems, and songs for Yom haKippurim (the Day of Expiation), the second of the three Yamim Nora'im (Days of Awe). Click here to contribute a prayer you have written, or a transcription or translation of a historical work by someone else. Filter resources by Name Filter resources by Tag Filter resources by Category Filter resources by Language Filter resources by Date Range
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An alphabetic acrostic pizmon for seliḥot and Yom Kippur with an alphabetic acrostic English translation. Categories: Tags: Contributor(s):
A pizmon in the nusaḥ hasepharadim recited at Seliḥot during the monh of Elul and Yom Kippur. Categories: Tags: Contributor(s):
A poetic Birkat haMazon text for the breakfast after Yom Kippur found in British Library MS Or. 9772 D. All the opening words of the alphabetical acrostic are from Psalms 111. Categories: Tags: Contributor(s):
This is the piyyut “Ma’aseh Eloheinu (The work of our God)” a piyyut by Meshullam ben Ḳalonymous in the qerovot section of the reader’s repetition of the Yom Kippur shaḥarit amidah, published in Adler and Davis’s Maḥzor for Yom Kippur, Avodat Yom ha-Kippurim vol. 2 (1904), p. 67. Categories: Tags: Contributor(s):
This is the piyyut “Asher Omets Tehilatekha (Thou, the might of whose praise)” a piyyut by an unknown paytan (possibly Meshullam ben Ḳalonymous) in the qerovot section of the reader’s repetition of the Yom Kippur shaḥarit amidah, published in Adler and Davis’s Maḥzor for Yom Kippur, Avodat Yom ha-Kippurim vol. 2 (1904), p. 68. Categories: Tags: Contributor(s):
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The zulat piyyuṭ for Shabbat Shuva, minhag Polin, by the great payṭan Menaḥem ben Rabbi Makhir. Categories: Tags: Contributor(s):
The ofan piyyuṭ for Shabbat Shuva, minhag Polin, by the great payṭan Menaḥem ben Rabbi Makhir. A half-acrostic, each stanza begins with a word from parashat Ha’azinu, usually read on Shabbat Shuva, and ends with a verse that includes the word “holy” or “sanctify” in it. Categories: Tags: 11th century C.E., 49th century A.M., Acrostic signature, phonetic alphabetic acrostic translation, Alphabetic Acrostic, German translation, Minhag Polin, ofanim, פיוטים piyyuṭim, שבת תשובה Shabbat Teshuvah, יוצר אור yotser ohr Contributor(s):
The yotser for Shabbat Shuva, minhag Polin, by the great payṭan Menaḥem ben Rabbi Makhir. Each line ends with a verse from either Hosea or Joel, the two books from which Ashkenazim read as the haftara on Shabbat Shuva. Also included is a German translation by Isaac Seligman Baer. Categories: Tags: 11th century C.E., 49th century A.M., Acrostic signature, phonetic alphabetic acrostic translation, Alphabetic Acrostic, German translation, Minhag Polin, פיוטים piyyuṭim, שבת תשובה Shabbat Teshuvah, יוצר אור yotser ohr, יוצרות yotsrot Contributor(s):
“Zweites Gebet vor Neïla” is an abridged, adapted translation by Yehoshua Heshil Miro of the piyyut by Yehudah haLevi “Barkhi Nafshi et Adonai.” There are seven stanzas missing near the end including the final stanza and a portion of the penultimate stanza. The translation was published in Miro’s anthology of teḥinot, בית יעקב (Beit Yaaqov) Allgemeines Gebetbuch für gebildete Frauen mosaicher Religion. It first appears in the 1835 edition, as teḥinah №48 pp. 83-85. In the 1842 edition, it appears as teḥinah №50 on pp. 86-90. Categories: Tags: 12th century C.E., 19th century C.E., 49th century A.M., 56th century A.M., Acrostic signature, Alphabetic Acrostic, German Jewry, German vernacular prayer, Jewish Women's Prayers, paraliturgical neïlah, תחינות teḥinot Contributor(s):
Israel Zangwill’s translation of Omnam Kén by Rabbi Yom Tov of York (Joigny), was first published albeit incomplete, as “Atonement Hymn” in Blind Children: Poems (1903), pp. 134-135. Introducing the piyyut, Zangwill notes, “The translation of this curiosity of literature preserves, without adding or subtracting a single word, the precise metre, rhyme-scheme, and alphabetical acrostic of the twelfth-century Hebrew original.” A year later, it was published complete, opposite Hebrew verse, in Arthur Davis and Herbert Adler’s Maḥzor Avodat Ohel Moed: Avodat Yom haKippurim (Evening Service) (1904), p. 38. Categories: Tags: Contributor(s):
This is the Shir haKavod (“Hymn of Glory,” also known by its incipit “An’im Zemirot”) attributed to Rabbi Yehudah he-Ḥasid of Regensburg, included at the conclusion of the Shir haYiḥud (first attested in print in Thiengen 1560). This translation by Israel Zangwill, was first published in Arthur Davis and Herbert Adler’s Maḥzor Avodat Ohel Moed: Avodat Yom haKippurim (Evening Service) (1904), pp. 73-74. Categories: Tags: Contributor(s):
A complementary (positive vidui) to supplement the harsh communal and personal vidu’im (confessions) being offered during the Zman Teshuvah. Categories: Tags: 21st century C.E., 58th century A.M., acknowledgment, acrostic, Alphabetic Acrostic, Aseret Yemei Tshuvah, complementary vidui, confession, Maale Gilboa, positive self-recognition, supplemental vidui, וידוי vidui, ישראל Yisrael, זמן תשובה Zman teshuvah Contributor(s):
Melissa Scholten-Gutierrez writes, “Rav Avi spoke to us a few times as he was working through [composing] this [vidui] and I am truly moved by it. Let us not only remember and confess our wrong doings, but also what we did right this year.” Categories: Tags: 21st century C.E., 58th century A.M., acrostic, Alphabetic Acrostic, complementary vidui, confession, New York, North America, Open Orthodoxy, positive self-recognition, supplemental vidui, וידוי vidui, זמן תשובה Zman teshuvah Contributor(s):
Vidui means acknowledgment. It is not about self-flagellation or blame, but about honesty, coming into contact with our lives, our patterns and experiences, and ultimately about teshuva and learning. In contacting the pain and suffering which our modes of being have given rise to, our regret can help us to willfully divest ourselves of them and awaken the yearning for those modes of being which are life-affirming, supportive of wholeness, connection, integrity, and flourishing. With each one we tap on our heart, touching the pain and closed-heartedness we have caused, and simultaneously knocking on the door that it may open again. Categories: Tags: Contributor(s):
The Al Cheyt (literally meaning “For the sin…”) is a confessional litany recited on Yom Kippur. It is an alphabetical acrostic; each one of its verses starting with a successive letter of the aleph-beit, to represent not only the moral failings that are specifically enumerated there, but the fullness of every way in which we missed the mark in the previous year. Categories: Tags: Contributor(s):
This acrostic poetic form of Birkat haMazon was written for the se’udah mafseqet (pre-fast meal) before Yom Kippur, in the manner of the poetic Birkat haMazon variants recorded in the Cairo Geniza. Categories: Tags: Contributor(s):
“Ashamnu” was written by the author in response to the conflict in Gaza on 30 December 2023 and first published on 1 October 2024 on their Substack account. Categories: Tags: Contributor(s):
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