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🖖︎ Prayers & Praxes // 🌞︎ Prayers for the weekday, Shabbat, and season // Prayers for Seasons, Shmitah, and Solar Cycles // the Winter Solstice (21 December)
the Winter Solstice (21 December)
![]() ![]() “Tilt: A Prayer for the Winter Solstice” was first published by the author on her website (17 December 2015). . . . בָּאנוּ חׇשֵׁךְ לְקַדֵּשׁ | Banu Ḥoshekh l’Ḳadesh (We come to sanctify the dark), by rabbis David Seidenberg and Jill Hammer![]() ![]() ![]() This is a new version of the popular Ḥanukkah song, Banu Ḥoshekh. (The original by Sara Levi-Tanai can be found here.) Our new version does two things: 1) it avoids the association of darkness and blackness (shḥor) with evil and harm, which in our society gets tangled up with white supremacy, and 2) honors the darkness as something precious that we need, especially in our time of light pollution when so much of the time, so many people can’t even see the stars. . . . בָּאנוּ חֹשֶׁךְ לְגָרֵשׁ | Banu Ḥoshekh l’Garesh (We come to chase the dark away), by Sara Levi-Tanai (1960)![]() ![]() ![]() In 1960, the Publishing House of the Composers’ League in cooperation with the Center for Culture and Education (בית הוצאה של איגוד הקומפוזיטורים בשיתוף עם המרכז לתרבות ולחינוך), published the songbook זמר־חן (Zemer Ḥén), containing the now popular Ḥanukkah song and melody “Banu Ḥoshekh l’Garesh” (p. 49), originally simply titled “Ḥanukkah” by Sara Levi-Tanaiׁ (1910-2005). . . . 📄 מִדְרָשִׁים עַל אָדָם הָרִאשׁוֹן וּתְקוּפַת הַחֹרֶף | Midrashim on the Origin of Winter Solstice Festivals by the Primordial Adam![]() ![]() A sourcesheet shared by Dr. Devora Steinmetz to accompany a shiur on the Winter Solstice in Jewish thought. . . . תהלים קל״ט | Psalms 139, a mizmor by David with verses attributed to Adam haRishon for the Winter Solstice![]() ![]() A well-known midrash explaining the universality of the Kalends festival beginning after the Winter Solstice attributes this psalm to Adam haRishon, the primordial Adam, as they describe being knitted together within the Earth in Psalms 139:13-16. In the Roman calendar, the calends or kalends (Latin: kalendae) is the first day of every month. Named after Janus, the Roman god of beginnings, and derived from ianua, “door,” January began with the first crescent moon after the winter solstice, marking the natural beginning of the year. Marcus Terentius Varro, in his Res Rusticae (37 BCE) divided the agricultural year into eight parts. In the final part beginning on the winter solstice, no hard work was to be done outdoors. . . . |