This is an archive of prayers, prayer-poems, and songs for the pilgrimage festival of סֻכּוֹת Sukkot. (In some older English translations, Sukkot is referred to as the Festival of "Tabernacles"). The seven day festival culminates with Hoshanah Rabba, the last of the three high holy days of atonement preceding Shemini Atseret upon which the Tefilat Geshem (prayer for rain) is offered for the fertility of all life on Earth and the resulting health of all peoples. The origin of Ḥanukkah underscores the significance of these festivals. During the Seleucid Greek occupation of Jerusalem in the 160s BCE, Sukkot and Shemini Atseret could not properly be celebrated in the second Temple. As a result, when the Temple was retaken by the Maccabees after the rainy season had already begun, the festival of Ḥanukkah was born with many of Sukkot and Shemini Atseret's rain and temple-offering oriented symbolism transformed to that of light and the temple illumination. Click here to contribute a prayer or a transcription or translation of a historic prayer. Filter resources by Name Filter resources by Tag Filter resources by Category Filter resources by Language Filter resources by Date Range
Psalms 67 is a priestly blessing for all the peoples of the earth to be sustained by the earth’s harvest (yevulah), and it is a petition that all humanity recognize the divine nature (Elohim) illuminating the world. Composed of seven verses, the psalm is often visually depicted as a seven branched menorah. There are 49 words in the entire psalm, and in the Nusaḥ ha-ARI z”l there is one word for each day of the Sefirat haOmer. Similarly, the fifth verse has 49 letters and each letter can be used as a focal point for meditating on the meaning of the day in its week in the journey to Shavuot, the festival of weeks (the culmination of the barley harvest), and the festival of oaths (shevuot) in celebration of receiving the Torah. Many of the themes of Psalms 67 are repeated in the prayer Ana b’Koaḥ, which also has 49 words, and which are also used to focus on the meaning of each day on the cyclical and labyrinthine journey towards Shavuot. Categories: Tags: 42 letter divine name, a red ribbon, acrostic, אנא בכח Ana b'Khoaḥ, anxiety, barley, captives, cyclical, Divine name acrostic, first fruits, labyrinth, Psalms 67, Raḥav, shalmah, walled cities, wheat Contributor(s): A supplemental Hoshanot liturgy for Sukkot confessing a selection of humanity’s crimes against creation. Categories: Tags: Contributor(s): This is the piyyut, “Aamir Otekha Selah” by Elazar ben Qallir for Sukkot, as translated into rhyming English verse by Alice Montefiore Lucas, first published in her anthology of versified translations Songs of Zion by Hebrew Singers of Mediæval Times (1894). Her translation was later set opposite Qallir’s Hebrew text in Maḥzor Avodat Ohel Moed: Avodat Ḥag haSukkot (ed. Arthur Davis & Herbert Adler, 1908). Categories: Tags: Contributor(s): This is the piyyut “Az K’einei Avadim (As slaves, with eyes beseeching,…)” by an unknown paytan for the seventh circuit of the Hoshana Rabba service (on the seventh and final day of Sukkot), published in Adler and Davis’s Maḥzor for Sukkot, Avodat Ḥag ha-Sukkot (1908), pp. 183. Categories: Tags: Contributor(s): A supplemental hoshana (prayer for salvation) for healing and consolation for the sake of true love, needed blessings, rainfall in a timely fashion, paths and their repair, mountains and their crossing, goals and objectives, lasting memories, good dreams, cosmic goodness, etc. Categories: Tags: Contributor(s): |
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