Birkat Kohanim • the Open Siddur Project ✍ פְּרוֺיֶקְט הַסִּדּוּר הַפָּתוּחַ

Adventures in Ancient Jewish Liturgy: the Birkat Kohanim

Contributor(s):

The earliest artifacts recording Jewish liturgy (or for that matter any Hebrew formulation found in the Torah) are two small silver amulets, discovered in 1979 by Israeli archaeologist Gabriel Barkay. He discovered the amulets in a burial chamber while excavating in Ketef Hinnom, a section of the Hinnom Valley south of Jerusalem’s Old City. The inscriptions on these amulets conclude with parts of the Birkat Kohanim (Priestly Blessing), the three-part blessing in which the Kohanim are instructed to bless the people of Israel in Numbers 6:22-27. The script in the amulets dates them approximately to the reign of King Yoshiyahu (late 7th or early 6th century BCE) predating the Nash papyrus, and the earliest of the Dead Sea Scrolls by four centuries. . . .

Gebet während des Priestersegens (Ribbaunau schel aulom) | Prayer during the priestly blessing, by Lise Tarlau (1907)

Contributor(s):

Lise Tarlau and Aharon N. Varady (editing/transcription)

This paraliturgical prayer-poem, “Gebet während des Priestersegens (Ribbaunau schel aulom)” by Lise Tarlau, can be found in Rabbi Max Grunwald’s anthology of Jewish women’s prayer, Beruria: Gebet- und Andachtsbuch für jüdische Frauen und Mädchen (1907), pages 318-319. . . .

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Hands Blessing, (photo credit: Leonard Nimoy) in the Magnes collection

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ויהי נעם אדני אלהינו עלינו ומעשה ידינו כוננה עלינו ומעשה ידינו כוננהו "May the pleasantness of אדֹני our elo’ah be upon us; may our handiwork be established for us — our handiwork, may it be established." –Psalms 90:17