📁 During the Aliyot :: (Next Category) 🡆

Before the Aliyot

This is an archive of prayers for using during the Torah Reading service, before the Torah reading begins after the scrolls are removed from the ark.

Click here to contribute a prayer you have written, translated, or transcribed for this portion of the Torah Reading Service.

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על הכל יתגדל ויתקדש | An Alternative Mourner’s Ḳaddish, from a prayer offered during the removal of the Torah from the Arōn (Seder Rav Amram Gaon)

This Kaddish was first published online at Jewish Renewal Chassidus by Gabbai Seth Fishman. Rabbi Oren Steinitz translated the kaddish on the 3rd yahrzeit after Reb Zalman’s passing.

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English Translation, geonic period, Geonic prayers, Jewish Renewal, קדיש יתום Mourner's Ḳaddish, Nusaḥ Ha-Ari z"l, הוצאת ספר תורה Removal of the Torah from the Ark, Without a Minyan, תשלומים tashlumim

Contributor(s):

Oren Steinitz (translation) and Unknown

תשלום לקדושה דסידרא ליחיד (סדר רב עמרם) | Replacement for the Qədushah d-Sidra for an individual praying alone or without a minyan, from Seder Rav ȝAmram

In Jewish liturgy, some passages are dəvarim she-bi-qdushah, passages that require public communal prayer. Most famous among these are the Qaddish, Barkhu, and Qədushah. But people are not always able to pray in a community! In liturgical history both ancient and modern many different tashlumim (replacements) for these texts when praying individually have been suggested. The following is the Qədusha d-Sidra for an individual from Seder Rav ȝAmram, the oldest known full siddur. (The Qədusha d-Sidra is no longer considered dəvarim she-biqdushah, although Baladi-rite Yemenites replace “קדוש קדוש קודש” with one “קדושת.”) Much of the content is from the hekhalot literature or the Gemara, often demonstrating girsaot not otherwise known.

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Before the Aliyot

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English Translation, geonic period, Geonic prayers, קדושה Qedushah, Without a Minyan, Solo, תשלומים tashlumim

Contributor(s):

Isaac Gantwerk Mayer (transcription & naqdanut), Isaac Gantwerk Mayer (translation) and Amram ben Rav Sheshna

📄 סדר עתיק לקריאות מהתנ״ך לפי מסכת סופרים | A Service for Scriptural Readings from Antiquity, reconstructed from Masekhet Soferim by Isaac Gantwerk Mayer

The “minor tractate” Soferim is one of our best sources for early liturgical practice. It is the oldest known source for multiple practices still followed today, such as the blessing for the haftarah. Such luminaries as the Vilna Gaon considered it a vital work. But some of its practices are… well, odd. There are customs in Tractate Soferim which are found nowhere else in classical rabbinics — blessings for the recitation of books in Writings other than the scrolls, a three-year cycle of Torah readings, and a custom to divide the scrolls in half when reading them. This service is constructed based on the descriptions and passages of Tractate Soferim, mostly following the Gra’s edition. In some ways it may be very familiar, especially to Ashkenazim, but in others it is a fascinating glimpse into a heretofore lost practice of Judaism.

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Before the Aliyot

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46th century A.M., 8th century C.E., Geonic prayers, Masekhet Soferim, Nusaḥ Erets Yisrael, reconstructed text

Contributor(s):

Eliyahu ben Shlomo Zalman and Isaac Gantwerk Mayer (translation)

מַֽהֲרוּ כׇּל־שָׁרִים | Maharu Kol Sharim — a pizmon on the parting of the Sea of Reeds with stanzas added in the Shirei Yisrael b-Erets ha-Qedem

This pizmon, signed with the name Moshe but of otherwise unclear attribution, is recited in the Sephardic communities of Rhodes and Istanbul (and nowadays in Seattle) before the open ark on Shabbat Shirah and the seventh day of Pesaḥ. The main Hebrew text of the first and last two stanzas are as found in the Seattle Sephardic community’s 2002 Siddur Zehut Yosef (as well as the Gözlem Kitap press in Istanbul’s 2011 Şaloş Regalim), with footnotes marking differences in the Shirei Yisrael B’Erets HaḲedem (published in Istanbul in 1921) and the Yeshiva University Library diwan of Baruch Moshe Moreno, written by hand in the monastery neighborhood of Tiberias in 1867 (YU MS. 1126). In between are three additional non-rhyming stanzas found in substantially different form in the other two sources but not recited in modern Sephardic communities.

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Before the Aliyot, Parashat b'Shalaḥ, 7th Day of Pesaḥ

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Acrostic signature, phonetic alphabetic acrostic translation, Eastern Sefaradim, Nusaḥ Sefaradi, פיוטים piyyuṭim, פזמונים pizmonim, שבת שירה shabbat shirah, שירת הים Shirat haYam, Turkish translation

Contributor(s):

Isaac Gantwerk Mayer (translation), Isaac Gantwerk Mayer (transcription & naqdanut) and Unknown

מַֽהֲרוּ כׇּל־שָׁרִים | Maharu Kol Sharim — a pizmon on the parting of the Sea of Reeds with stanzas added in YU MS 1126

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Before the Aliyot, Parashat b'Shalaḥ, 7th Day of Pesaḥ

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Acrostic signature, phonetic alphabetic acrostic translation, Eastern Sefaradim, מהרו כל שרים Maharu Kol Sharim, Nusaḥ Sefaradi, פיוטים piyyuṭim, פזמונים pizmonim, שבת שירה shabbat shirah, שירת הים Shirat haYam, Turkish translation

Contributor(s):

Isaac Gantwerk Mayer (translation), Isaac Gantwerk Mayer (transcription & naqdanut) and Unknown

כתובה לחג השבועות | Ketubah for Shavuot, by Yisrael Najara (ca. 16th c.)

In many eastern Sephardic and Mizraḥi communities, there is a custom that a poetic “ketubah,” or marriage-contract, is recited before the Torah service on Shavuot. This custom, based on the midrashic idea that the Torah is the ketubah for the marriage between the bride Israel and the groom God, is beloved by the ḳabbalists. By far the most commonly used Shavuot ketubah is that of the great paytan and meḳubal Yisrael ben Moshe Najara, who wrote the following some time in the sixteenth century. This is a new translation of Najara’s poem.

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Before the Aliyot, Shavuot

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16th century C.E., 54th century A.M., Har Sinai, כתובה ketubah, Mizraḥi Jewry, פיוטים piyyuṭim, הוצאת ספר תורה Removal of the Torah from the Ark, theophany, wedding

Contributor(s):

Yisrael Najara, Isaac Gantwerk Mayer (transcription & naqdanut) and Isaac Gantwerk Mayer (translation)

אַשְׁרֵי הָעָם רָאֲתָה שְׁכִינָה עֵינֵֽימוֹ | Ashrei ha-Am Ra’ata Shekhinah Eineimo — a ketubah-piyyuṭ for Shavuot by Saadiyah ben Yosef ha-Levi (ca. 16th c.)

While the most famous ketubah-poem for Shavuot, still recited in Sephardic communities the world over, is by R. Yisrael Najara, many others have been written over the years. This one was written in the 16th century by Saadia ben Yosef ha-Levi. It is a marriage contract between the groom (Israel) and the bride (Torah).

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Before the Aliyot, Shavuot

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16th century C.E., 54th century A.M., Har Sinai, כתובה ketubah, פיוטים piyyuṭim, הוצאת ספר תורה Removal of the Torah from the Ark, theophany, wedding

Contributor(s):

Isaac Gantwerk Mayer (transcription & naqdanut), Isaac Gantwerk Mayer (translation) and Saadiyah ben Yosef ha-Levi

תפילה קודם קריאת פרשת אחרי מות | Prayer to be Recited Before the Reading of Parashat Aḥarei Mōt, by Rabbi Steven Greenberg

A prayer to recognize lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer-identifying folk before reading Parshat Aḥarei Mot (Leviticus 16:1–18:30) in the synagogue.

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Before the Aliyot, Parashat Aḥarei Mōt

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21st century C.E., 58th century A.M., inclusion, LGBTQIA+, North America, Prayers of redress, same-sex relationships, sexual attraction, פרשת אחרי מות parashat Aḥarei Mot

Contributor(s):

Steven Greenberg

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ויהי נעם אדני אלהינו עלינו ומעשה ידינו כוננה עלינו ומעשה ידינו כוננהו׃ (תהלים צ:יז) · "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)

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