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a community-grown, libre Open Access archive of Jewish prayer and liturgical resources
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 Contributor(s):A prayer for the United States of America in the wake of the terrible events in Butler, Pennsylvania on 13 July 2024. . . . Contributor(s):A prayerful expression of an essay written by the author “Gam Zu v’Gam Zu, Weeping with all who Grieve,” published in the online Reconstructionist journal, Evolve. . . . Contributor(s):A shiviti rendered in scalable vector graphic format (SVG) with each textual source linked. . . . כוונה לפני הדלקת נרות שבת – כוונת הלב לישימון | A Wilderness Kavvanah before lighting Shabbat candles, by Rabbi Gila Caine Contributor(s):A kavvanah written in preparation for an online class at the Green Sabbath Project, “Follow the Goat: using the scapegoat ritual in creating new kavvanot / sacred intentions for lighting Shabbat candles.” . . . תחינה לחזק ידינו במצוות ”כיבוד אב ואם“ ביחס לאמנו, האדמה | A prayer for strengthening our commitment to the commandment of “Honoring our Parents” in relation to Mother Earth, by Rabbi Gila Caine Contributor(s):This teḥinah calls us to remember that we are all personally, as well as communally, responsible for our relationship with the Earth. It also calls us to action, and to recall that even small actions realigning ourselves with the work of the Earth, can be seen as a mitsvah. . . . Contributor(s):A prayer for healing in Hebrew with English translation by the author. . . . Gebet für das Coming-Out (תְּפִלָּה לַיְּצִיאָה מֵהָאָרוֹן) | Prayer for Coming-Out, by Rabbi Lior Bar-Ami Contributor(s):“Gebet für das Coming-Out” was first offered by Rabbi Lior Bar-Ami on 19 March 2020. . . . Contributor(s):“Gebet für Pride (HaMaariw Arawim)” was first offered by Rabbi Lior Bar-Ami on 10 April 2023. . . . Contributor(s):“Gebet für den Pride Month” was first offered by Rabbi Lior Bar-Ami on 19 March 2020. . . . Gebet für Berlin Pride (תְּפִלָּה לְסוֹף הַשָּׁבוּעַ הַגַּאֲוָה בְּבֶרְלִין) | Prayer for Berlin Pride, by Rabbi Lior Bar-Ami Contributor(s):“Gebet für Berlin Pride” was first offered by Rabbi Lior Bar-Ami in 19 March 2020. . . . Contributor(s):The genre of B’raḥ Dodi piyyutim, a variety of geulah piyyut oriented around many Shir haShirim citations, is exclusively associated with Pesaḥ in Ashkenazi practice. Maḥzorim for Pesaḥ include B’raḥ Dodi piyyutim for the first two days and Shabbat Ḥol ha-Moed of Pesaḥ and nowhere else. So to reflect the themes of Pesaḥ Sheni, a B’raḥ Dodi piyyut is a great fit! . . . Contributor(s):A zulat for Pesaḥ Sheni. Each line begins with a word from Numbers 9:11 followed by a letter spelling out “Remember me for good, amen,” excepting the final five lines. The first of these concluding lines is the refrain from the ahavah for the same set, and the final four all begin with hei and transition into the berakhah. This zulat focuses largely on the Temple, where Pesaḥ Sheni offerings were held. . . . יִשְׂרָאֵל אִם־לֹא בְּשִׂמְחָה | Yisrael Im Lo b-Simḥah — an ahavah for Pesaḥ Sheni, by Isaac Gantwerk Mayer Contributor(s):An ahavah for Pesaḥ Sheni. An acrostic spelling out “Yitsḥaq son of Avraham, the priest, ḥazaq,” with a refrain derived from Mishnah Pesaḥim 9:1. . . . Contributor(s):An ofan for Pesaḥ Sheni in tripartite stanzas. Each stanza begins with a citation of Numbers 9:12-14, then an acrostic spelling out “the son of Avraham the priest, ḥazaq.” . . . Contributor(s):A yotser for Pesaḥ Sheni. Each stanza is written with a threefold acrostic — the first two lines in atbash, the third spelling “Yitsḥaq Har’el Ḥazaq,” and the fourth a verse from Numbers 9. . . . Contributor(s):This is an original Al haNissim paragraph for Yom ha-Atsma’ut, focusing on the actual reason for Zionism’s necessity — European antisemitism. As I put it when I wrote the first draft of this paragraph, “Zionism was necessary because of the Europeans. The original enemy of Israel’s independence was the European nations who wanted us assimilated or dead. Israel was not declared independent from the Arab world, it was declared independent from Britain, and I think we should remember that on Yom ha-Atsma’ut.” . . . Contributor(s):This prayer for peace was written on 29 April 2024, at the end of Passover, by Rabbi Shira Levine as part of an ecumenical assembly, the “Spirit of Galilee.” The Arabic translation was made by Malek Hujerat. . . . תפילת אל מלא רחמים לנרצחי התקפות החמאס והנופלים בקרבות | El Malé Raḥamim prayer for the victims of the HAMA”S attacks and those fallen in battle afterward (IDF 2024) Contributor(s):An adaptation of El Malei Raḥamim for victims of the 7 October massacres, and for the soldiers and other security personnel fallen in its aftermath was prepared for the Yizkor services held on the 7th day of Passover 5754 (2024) by Lt. Col. Shai Abramson, Chief Cantor of the IDF. The English translation was made by Ematai and published on their website and on social media. . . . מוריד הטל | Morid Hatal — to the One who settles the dew, post-October 7 — by Rabbi David Mevorach Seidenberg (neohasid.org 2024) Contributor(s):On Passover we end the prayers for rain that began on October 7, and begin the prayers for dew. The prayers end, but the war that began with the October 7 attack does not. Here is a reflection on that. . . . Contributor(s):This is an updated version of a chart that I have been creating and sharing for ten years. This grid for counting the omer includes the secular date for 2024 as well as Hebrew dates and the sefirot associated with each day of the omer. More information can be found on my website. . . . זָכוֹר אֵת אֲשֶׁר־עָשָׂה לְךָ חָמָאס | Remember That Which Hamas Did, an adaptation on the liturgical reminder to obliterate Amaleq by Aryeh Barukh (2024) Contributor(s):A riff on the mitsvah to obliterate Amaleq in Parashat Zakhor, adapted to the horrors committed by HAMA”S and its allies on 7 October 2023. . . . Contributor(s):This “Blessing upon Observing a Solar Eclipse” was offered by Rabbi Colman Reabo on 8 April 2024, a day in which a total solar eclipse was witnessed across a wide swath of North America. . . . תְּפִלָּה לַהֲשָׁבַת הַחֲטוּפִים | Prayer for the Return of the Captives, by Rabbi David Lau (Office of the Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi of Israel 2024) Contributor(s):This prayer for the well-being of the captives taken hostage by ḤAMA”S and its allies on 7 October 2023 was written by the Ashkenazi chief rabbi of the State of Israel, David Lau, and shared by his office in the month preceding Pesaḥ 2024. The prayer is intended to be read at the Passover seder in the Maggid section before והיא שעמדה (v’hi she’amda). . . . Contributor(s):This variation on the discourse of the four children in the Haggadah was (barring minor edits) first composed for my family’s experimental small-scale seder in 2019, my second time ever leading a seder. I had come to the conclusion that for a text whose entire ikkar is for the children to learn, the Four Children narrative shows some shockingly bad pedagogy. So I decided to write a subversive take on it, where I applied its framework to some of the most serious problems facing the Jewish community today, and the mainline Jewish community’s failings in dealing with them. . . . שָּׁבוּעַ שֶׁל אַחְוָה לְאֻמִּית | National Brotherhood Week (in Israel), an adaptation of Tom Lehrer’s song by Isaac Gantwerk Mayer Contributor(s):A satirical look at contemporary Israeli civil society in Hebrew and English, as adapted from Tom Lehrer’s sardonic “National Brotherhood Week” (1965). . . . Contributor(s):“All Four (Are One),” riffing on the story in the haggadah of the four children, is a prayer-poem on the theme of intracommunal discord six months after October 7th (possibly reflected in the family dynamics at the seder table itself). Written by Rabbi Rachel Barenblat, it was first published on the website of Bayit: Building Jewish on 2 April 2024. . . . Contributor(s):This prayer was offered by Rabbi Andy Vogel and Rabbi Seth Goldstein and published at each of their websites on 3 April 2024. On Rabbi Vogel’s site, the prayer included the statement, “We encourage you to use the words of this prayer as you see fit; no attribution is needed.” . . . תפילה ליום הבחירות מאת הרבה | A Prayer for Municipal Election Day [in the State of Israel], by Rabbi Noa Mazor Contributor(s):This prayer for election day in the State of Israel (27 February 2024) was written and shared by Rabbi Noa Mazor, and shared in Hebrew and English via her Facebook page. . . . Contributor(s):A kavvanah for the month of Adar in the pivotal US presidential election year of 2024 (the Jewish leap year of 5784). . . . Contributor(s):The Opening Prayer given in the U.S. Senate on 25 January 2024. . . . כִּי־לְךָ תֻּקְרָא כׇּל־בְּרָכָה | Ki Lᵊkha Tuqra Kol Bᵊrakhah, a macaronic poem for Yom Meturgeman by Isaac Gantwerk Mayer Contributor(s):This is a macaronic poem for Yom Meturgeman. Macaronic poetry is poetry in multiple languages at once. In this case, the languages reflected are Hebrew, Aramaic, Judeo-Arabic, Yiddish, Ladino, and English, with a repeated Hebrew refrain. Each language is meant to rhyme with the colloquial Hebrew as it would be read — i.e. though the Yiddish doesn’t rhyme with the modern Hebrew pronunciation, it rhymes with the traditional Ashkenazi one. . . . Contributor(s):The Opening Prayer given in the U.S. Senate on 12 December 2023 . . . Kavvanah and prayer for Zōt Ḥanukkah, the last night and day of Ḥanukkah 5784, by Rabbi David Seidenberg (neohasid.org) Contributor(s):Four things to pray and learn for the last night and day of Ḥanukkah. . . . Contributor(s):In the midst of terrible violence and war in Israel and Gaza, these words came in response to the questions: how to engage meaningfully with Ḥanukkah in 5784 with integrity. How can it still be a source of wisdom and liberation? . . . תוספת בית למעוז צור לְמִלְחֶמֶת ”חַרְבוֹת בַּרְזֶל“ | Supplemental stanza to Maoz Tsur for the Ḥarvot Barzel War by Dana Pearl Contributor(s):A supplemental stanza to the popular 13th century piyyut, Maoz Tsur, for the Ḥanukkah occurring in the aftermath of the horrors on 7 October, as written and shared by דנה פרל. . . . איידי! סיליבראמוס | Айде! Селебрамос | Ayde! Selebramos — a Ladino adaptation of Mordkhe Rivesman’s “Oy Khanike” by Isaac Gantwerk Mayer Contributor(s):An original Ladino adaptation of the song “Oy Khanike” (derived from the Yiddish poem of the same name by Mordkhe Rivesman) also known in English as “Oh Chanukah” or in Hebrew as “Y’mei ha-Ḥanukka.” I’m aware that the custom of spinning tops was not originally a Sefaradi one. So sue me, I was looking for something to rhyme with “libertaḏ.” I’ve included the Rashi script, the Aki Yerushalaim orthography, and (as an added bonus) the Cyrillic transcription used by the Jews of the Balkans. . . . Yā Ḥanukka[t] | יָא חַנוּכָּה | يَا حَنُكَّة — a Judeo-Arabic adaptation of Mordkhe Rivesman’s “Oy Khanike” by Isaac Gantwerk Mayer Contributor(s):An original Judeo-Arabic adaptation of the song “Oy Khanike” (derived from the Yiddish poem of the same name by Mordkhe Rivesman) also known in English as “Oh Ḥanukkah” or in Hebrew as “Y’mei ha-Ḥanukka.” With thanks to Mazen Haddad for his help with the Arabic! Some notes: 1) Case endings and nunation, which would (in colloquial dialects) often be skipped or dropped, are transcribed in brackets. 2) The word “sufnāj” is a Moroccan Arabic dialectal word which is the agent noun for sfenj, a traditional type of North African doughnut. . . . Contributor(s):A supplemental stanza to the popular 13th century piyyut, Maoz Tsur, for the Ḥanukkah occurring in the aftermath of the horrors on 7 October. . . . Contributor(s):This prayer was written on Friday, November 24th 2023, 11th of Kislev 5784, early afternoon (Israel Time), when we were all waiting to witness the first group of hostages come back home from captivity in the hands of Hamas. Having close friends who have relatives kidnapped who do not fit into the criteria of being released now, I was looking for words to pray at this moment. Referring to the words of Israeli poet Yehuda Amichai z”l, and his “remarks” on Kohelet’s “For everything there is a season”, I tried to describe how all feelings are mixed in these awful hours, and in the days since. I am thankful to Rabbi Ayelet Cohen for her translation of this prayer into English. –Rabbi Oded Mazor . . . Contributor(s):“Upon My Heart” was offered by Rabbi Menachem Creditor and shared via the Open Siddur Project discussion group on 20 November 2023. The added hashtag “#bringthemhomenow” helps to contextualize the prayer-poem, as written to express the yearning for the return of the captives taken hostage during the 7 October massacres by HAMA”S and its allies. . . . תפילה לחיילי צהל ולשבויים חרבות ברזל | Prayers for the welfare of the IDF soldiers and the captives of the Ḥarvot Barzel War, by Ze’ev Kainan (16 October 2023) Contributor(s):This prayer for the welfare of IDF soldiers and the captives of HAMA”S in Gaza was written by Ze’ev Kainan on 16 October 2023 in the days following the terrible events of 7 October 2023. . . . “An important message, November 2023,” a prayer-poem in the form of a shipping notice by Kohenet Ilana Joy Streit Contributor(s):“An important message, November 2023” is a shipping notice from God and a meditation on parochial empathy. . . . Contributor(s):Qinat Be’eri was written by Yagel Haroush in the month of Marḥeshban after the massacres on 7 October and disseminated on social media. . . . Qedushta Additions for the Public Repetition of the Amidah on Sigd, adapted from the original liturgical texts by Isaac Gantwerk Mayer Contributor(s):This is a Hebrew adaptation of the poems traditionally recited by the Beta Israel community for the festival of Sigd, altered and adapted to fit the traditional qedushta form of poetic Amidah additions. The texts of the first few prayers were rewritten substantially and combined with relevant verses so as to fit in the strict form of the magen, mehaye, meshalesh, and El Na. After this, the qiqlar is slightly edited to fit a couplet rhyme scheme, while the silluq (the freest of the genres of qedusha piyyut) is almost entirely preserved — the only change being several verses whose placement is postponed so as to better lead into the qedusha as a silluq should. Regarding translations, the silluq largely uses my original translation with slight alterations (replacing the clunky use of ‘God’ as a pronoun with a gender-neutral THEIR, translating the Agaw passages into Latin rather than English to preserve general comprehensibility while clarifying that this is a different language), while the rest of the poems are different enough for their translation to largely be from scratch. These would be recited with the Ark open for all the piyyutim, as one would on the Yamim Noraim, ideally using melodies from the Sigd liturgy. . . . Contributor(s):“An infinity of amens” was written by Hanna Yerushalmi on 15 October 2023 in the aftermath of the massacres on Shemini Atseret 5784. . . . Contributor(s):Rabbi Dr. Reuven Kimelman notes his prayer for Israel in wartime is “refashioned from material online, especially that of Rabbi Ahud Sela.” The English version previously appeared in the article “For this unprecedented time of war and grief, new prayers for those held captive by Hamas” by Aviya Kushner (The Forward, 3 November 2023). The article notes the prayer “[acknowledges] that men, women and children are all among the abducted” and that it “expressly asks [God to] ‘comfort the families of all those murdered.'” . . . תפילה מונגשת לזמן מלחמה | A Prayer for Israel in Wartime, in simplified Hebrew (Masorti Movement in Israel 2023) Contributor(s):The Masorti Movement in Israel, in cooperation with the Israeli Institute on Cognitive Accessibility and Ami: The Association for People with Cognitive Developmental Challenges, produced this “accessible” Prayer in Times of War in simplified Hebrew with communications symbols. The prayer was offered in the spirit of the Masorti Movement’s Siddur b’khol Darkhekha (2018), designed primarily for special needs Bar/Bat Mitzvah programs. . . . תפילה לשלומם ולחזרתם של הנעדרים והשבויים בין אחינו ואחיותינו | Prayer for the Welfare and the Return of Israel’s Captured and Missing from Among our Sisters and Brothers (Masorti Movement in Israel 2023) Contributor(s):This prayer for the captives was prepared for the Masorti Movement in Israel by the Knesset haRabanim b’Yisrael and disseminated in Hebrew, English, French, and Spanish. These were published online for the Masorti Solidarity Shabbat (27-28 October 2023). . . . בָּתֵּי תּוֹסֶפֶת לְ”אָבִינוּ מַלְכֵּנוּ“ לְמִלְחֶמֶת ”חַרְבוֹת בַּרְזֶל“ | Additional Stanzas of ‘Avinu Malkeinu’ for the Ḥarvot Barzel War, by Yael Levine Contributor(s):An addendum to “Avinu Malkeinu”, which is intended for recitation following the traditional version, which is said in many synagogues now during the Ḥarvot Barzel war (“War of Iron Swords,” i.e., the 2023 Israel–Hamas war). . . . תפלת מי שברך לעת מלחמה מרחשוון תשפ״ד | Mi sheBerakh prayer for Israel at a time of War (Marḥeshvan 5784), by the Masorti Movement in Israel (2023) Contributor(s):“Prayer at a time of war (Marḥeshvan 5784)” was offered by The Masorti Movement In Israel-התנועה המסורתית בישראל and the כנסת הרבנים בישראל for use by congregations worldwide. Originally written by Rabbi Simcha Roth ז״ל, it was adapted by Ze’ev Kainan to suit the current horrors committed by Hamas. . . . |
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