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a community-grown, libre Open Access archive of Jewish prayer and liturgical resources — for those crafting their own prayerbooks and sharing the content of their practice
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a community-grown, libre Open Access archive of Jewish prayer and liturgical resources — for those crafting their own prayerbooks and sharing the content of their practice
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acrostic —⟶ tag: acrostic Sorted Chronologically (old to new). Sort most recent first? A “praying translation” of the piyyut, Anim Zemirot. This is the shir ha-yiḥud l’yom revi’i (hymn of unity for the fourth day), as translated by Nina Salaman and published in the maḥzor for Rosh ha-Shanah by Arthur Davis and Herbert Adler (1907). This meorah, by R. Avraham bar Shmuel of Speyer (the elder brother of R. Yehuda heḤasid and a great scholar in his own right) is recited on Shabbat Naso. This is usually after Shavuot, but sometimes (in 2025, for instance) it is before. This meorah is a poetic interpretation of the Priestly Blessing, and a plea for vengeance against the antisemitic nations. As a meorah, it is recited prior to the final line of the guf and the ḥatima of the Yotser Or blessing. An ahava piyyut for Shabbat Vayera, recited in the old Nusaḥ Polin (Eastern Ashkenazi) rite, written (according to Davidson) by R. Shmuel bar Avraham haLevi. Shmuel bar Avraham haLevi (1165-1216, according to Graetz) was a poet and scholar of the ibn Ḥasdai family of Barcelona, and the father of the noted Maimonidean translator Avraham bar Shmuel ibn Ḥasdai. This piyyuṭ takes God’s fateful instruction to Abraham — “Take, please, your son, your only one, whom you love,” and, in a shocking bit of poetic ḥutzpah, reframes it a request that God takes back Israel! This seliḥah poem, written by R. Joseph of Chartres, commemorates the martyrdom of approximately 150 Jews in Clifford’s Tower, York, England, in the year 1190. A summary of the events of 1190, sometimes referred to as “the English Masada,” can be found here. Like many medieval Jewish poems about massacres, Elohim B’alunu carefully treads the line between assuming guilt and declaring innocence. This poem, interestingly enough, directly calls out the person seen by R. Joseph of Chartres as ultimately responsible — the crusader King Richard Ⅰ. Beloved in Christian memory, this radical zealot of a king has a much darker, more horrific reputation among Jewish and Muslim groups. Categories: Tags: 12th century C.E., 50th century A.M., acrostic, Alphabetic Acrostic, British Jewry, King Richard I, קינות Ḳinōt, סליחות səliḥot, York Massacre of 1190 Contributor(s): The text of the popular piyyut “Adir Bimlukhah” (a/k/a “Ki lo na’eh”) in Hebrew, with a Latin translation. Categories: Tags: 13th century C.E., 51st century A.M., acrostic, אדיר במלוכה Adir Bimlukhah, Alphabetic Acrostic, Latin translation, פיוטים piyyuṭim, זמירות zemirot Contributor(s): “Ar’a Raqda,” a piyyut read directly before the Ten Commandments in the Targum, uses wedding imagery and language from the Shir haShirim to paint Sinai as a ḥuppah. Ana is a poem for the first commandment, that discusses all that God did for the ancestors. Azharot are a genre of piyyut today associated almost exclusively with the grand lists of mitsvot recited on Shavuot, but this is not strictly accurate. An azharah is any poetic listing of mitsvot, and often would be recited on the Shabbat before a holiday as a reminder of the halakhot of the upcoming day. In Western Ashkenazi practice, for instance, an extensive azharah by Joseph Bonfils is recited for Shabbat haGadol before Pesaḥ. Presented here is an azharah and pizmon for the Shabbat before Rosh haShanah, by the 13th century Toledan payṭan Pinḥas ben Yosef ha-Levi. This text was published in the old Salonika Catalonian rite at the beginning of this maḥzor. Much of the translation is based on the work of Prof. Yaakov Shmuel Spiegel, published in Hebrew in 1985. Categories: Tags: 13th century C.E., 51st century A.M., acrostic, Acrostic signature, Alphabetic Acrostic, אזהרות azharot, Nusaḥ Catalunya, פיוטים piyyuṭim, פזמונים pizmonim, שופר shofar, shofar blowing Contributor(s): This rəshut, or introductory piyyuṭ, is recited in the Italian rite before Nishmat Kol Ḥai on (the first day) of Rosh haShanah. It was written by the fourteenth-century payṭan R. Yoav ben Yeḥiel of Rome. Also included is a rhyming acrostic translation. Categories: Tags: 14th century C.E., 52nd century A.M., acrostic, Acrostic signature, Italian Jewry, Nusaḥ Italḳi, phonetic acrostic translation, פיוטים piyyuṭim, רשויות reshuyot, rhyming translation, Roman minhag Contributor(s): A litany of angelic names recorded in Sefer haPeliah whose initial letters spells out the 42 letter divine name as also found (in variation) in Sefer HaQanah. Categories: Tags: 42 letter divine name, acrostic, angelology, Angels, Divine name acrostic, ספר הפליאה Sefer haPeliah Contributor(s): A litany of angelic names recorded in Sefer HaQanah, whose initial letters spells out the 42 letter divine name as also found in Sefer haPeliah. Categories: Tags: Contributor(s): The earliest recorded prayer or piyyut providing an acrostic for the 42 letter divine name. Categories: Tags: 14th century C.E., 42 letter divine name, 52nd century A.M., acrostic, apotropaic prayers of protection, Byzantium, Divine name acrostic, פיוטים piyyuṭim, Prayers of redress, protection, ספר הפליאה Sefer haPeliah Contributor(s): This is a גוף יוצר (guf yotser) piyut from Nusaḥ Candia (Crete) for Shabbat Rosh Ḥodesh Ḥanukkah. The author of the piyut is unknown. It is presented here on the basis of the edition published by Dr. Gabriel Wasserman in his work Liturgical poems of Ḥanukka from Europe (2016), where it appears in Volume 2, as piyut number 23. While the translation below heavily utilizes Dr. Wasserman’s commentary on the piyut, the translation itself is original to me. I found this piyut when looking through Dr. Wasserman’s aforementioned work, and it struck me as very beautiful and particularly relevant to modern events. Categories: Tags: 14th century C.E., 52nd century A.M., acrostic, Alphabetic Acrostic, Cretan Jewry, Nusaḥ Candia, יוצרות yotsrot Contributor(s): This is the piyyut “Eyumah Nikhtrah (Lo, the Mighty Nation…)” by Isaac ben Meshulam for maariv (after the shema) on the second night of Shavuot, was first published in Adler and Davis’s Maḥzor for Shavuot, Avodat Ḥag ha-Shavuot (1909), pp. 178-179. Categories: Tags: 15th century C.E., 52nd century A.M., acrostic, Alphabetic Acrostic, מערבות maaravot, פיוטים piyyuṭim, rhyming translation Contributor(s): The most well-known 42 letter divine name acrostic piyyut. Categories: Tags: 42 letter divine name, acrostic, אנא בכח Ana b'Khoaḥ, devotional interpretation, Divine name acrostic, interpretive translation, Jewish Renewal, Philadelphia, פיוטים piyyuṭim, singing translation Contributor(s): An early printing of the 42 divine name letter acrostic piyyut, Ana b’Khoaḥ. The Italian rite, unique among Jewish rites, has preserved up until very recently the custom recorded in the Talmud, Masekhet Tagnanith, for communally declared fast days. In this rite, sometimes referred to as the Twenty-Four Blessings, six more blessings are added to the liturgy — the Zikhronot and Shofrot portions more commonly recited on Rosh haShanah, and four different psalms, all interspaced with a poetic litany on behalf of the ancestors’ merit and shofar blasts. I had previously transcribed the version of this liturgy as found in the Goldschmidt Mahzor Roma. But this version below is different, including a more complex variation in the ancestors’ merit passages, as well as relevant Biblical passages for each one. It is found in Vat. Ross. 499, a 1446 manuscript of the Italian rite with a lot of very interesting liturgical content in it. Categories: Tags: 15th century C.E., 53rd century A.M., acrostic, Alphabetic Acrostic, ascetic practice, fasting, in the merit of our ancestors, Italian Jewry, Nusaḥ Italḳi, Public Amidah, שופר shofar, shofar blowing Contributor(s): Barukh shèAmar for Shabbat and festivals, in the Old Persian rite, as recorded in MS Adler 23 ENA in the JTS Library. The Old Persian rite shows some fascinating unique linguistic features. The first thing that immediately strikes one is its tendency towards poetic extensions and doublings, even in texts (such as the Avot blessing) where most other rites are almost completely uniform. It also shows some nonstandard vocalizations that appear to be influenced by the Babylonian system of vocalization. In modern Persian communities the standard rite is a variation of the Sephardic rite used throught the Mizraḥi world, but this older rite with its unique facets deserves to be preserved as well. This Barukh shèAmar is an intricate rhyming acrostic chock full of Biblical references. Categories: Tags: acrostic, Alphabetic Acrostic, ברוך שאמר barukh she'amar, Geonic prayers, Needing Vocalization, Nusaḥ Farsi, פיוטים piyyuṭim Contributor(s): A pizmon (a seliḥah with a refrain, to be recited aloud) recited in the Sephardic rite for the seventeenth of Tammuz, Elohei Yeshuatenu, like most seliḥot for that day, features stanzas for each of the five tragedies that occurred on the day. But what’s unique about it is the legend of its author. This piyyuṭ is signed with the name Andreas, the signature of the legendary Jewish Pope Andreas, whose popular story can be found throughout the Jewish world. | ||
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