![the Open Siddur Project [logo]](https://opensiddur.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/Open-Siddur-Project-Logo-2016.svg){kind=logo}
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
|
|
|
|
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
| ||
⤷ You are here:
Alphabetic Acrostic —⟶ tag: Alphabetic Acrostic Sorted Chronologically (old to new). Sort most recent first? “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 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): 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 full alphabetical acrostic version of the Barukh shèAmar prayer, part of the uniquely complex old Romaniote-rite Psuqei d-Zimra liturgy as found in as found in the 1523 Venice printing of the Maḥzor Romaniote. Categories: Tags: 16th century C.E., 53rd century A.M., acrostic, Alphabetic Acrostic, ברוך שאמר barukh she'amar, Byzantine, Nusaḥ Romaniote Contributor(s): This translation of the piyyut for Shabbat by Shlomo Al-Qabets can be found in HaAvodah SheBaLev – the Service of the Heart (Kehilat Kol HaNeshama, Jerusalem, 2007). Categories: Tags: 16th century C.E., 54th century A.M., acrostic, Alphabetic Acrostic, לכה דודי Lekhah Dodi, פיוטים piyyuṭim, שבת shabbat Contributor(s): According to Joseph Judah Chorny’s On the Caucasian Jews, this acrostic piyyuṭ was customarily used as an epithalion before a wedding. He writes, “Before morning light, the bride is led to the groom’s house accompanied by many women and men, all carrying lit wax candles in their hands, and singing this song along the way.” Variants of this piyyut are found throughout the greater Sephardic world, generally in an abbreviated and slightly altered form. In Syria it is sung during the haqafot for Simḥat Torah, while in Livorno Sephardic practice (and subsequently in most Eastern Sephardic maḥzorim) it is a Shavu’ot piyyut. Categories: Tags: phonetic alphabetic acrostic translation, Alphabetic Acrostic, anti-soporific, epithalamion, Kavkazi Jewry, פיוטים piyyuṭim, stimulant, זמירות zemirot Contributor(s): This is a Mi Khamokha piyyut by Yisrael Najara for Shabbat Ḥanukkah retelling Megilat Antiokhos in a lengthy fourfold acrostic with each stanza ending in בוֹ. This seliḥah, “Moshel ba-Elyonim Atah Yadata,” was written by Rabbi Mosheh ben Yeshayah Menaḥem Bachrach during an epidemic. It is included in the Seliḥot of Posen, Krakow, Prague, Worms, and Alsace. The text here was transcribed from the Siddur Kol Bo, vol. 3 (1923), p. 33. This is a variation of Mipi El in Hebrew with a Judeo-Arabic translation found in the Seder al-Tawḥid for Rosh Ḥodesh Nissan, compiled by Mosheh Asher ibn Shmuel in 1887 in Alexandria. Categories: Tags: 17th century C.E., 54th century A.M., acrostic, Alphabetic Acrostic, אין אדיר Ayn Adir, הקפה ד׳ fourth haḳafah, Judeo-Arabic, פיוטים piyyuṭim, via negativa, זמירות zemirot Contributor(s): A popular piyyut for Simḥat Torah (4th hakkafah) originally composed as a piyyut for Shavuot and often referred to by its incipit, “Mipi El.” Categories: Tags: 17th century C.E., 54th century A.M., acrostic, Alphabetic Acrostic, אין אדיר Ayn Adir, הקפה ד׳ fourth haḳafah, פיוטים piyyuṭim, via negativa, זמירות zemirot Contributor(s): One of the most prominent martyrs in the Chmielnicki massacres of 1648–1649 was the kabbalist and sage Yəḥiel Mikhel ben Eliezer ha-Kohen, known to posterity as the Martyr of Nemiryv. This unique poetic El Malei Raḥamim was said in his honor, and communities that fast on 20 Sivan still recite it to this day. Categories: Tags: 17th century C.E., 55th century A.M., acrostic, Alphabetic Acrostic, Chmielnicki massacres of 1648–1649, אל מלא רחמים El Malé Raḥamim, סליחות səliḥot Contributor(s): In North Africa, a unique custom developed of reciting a Mi Khamokha v-Ein Kamokha piyyut, inspired by the famed Shabbat Zakhor work of Yehuda haLevi, on the Shabbat before a local Purim (a celebration of community’s deliverance from destruction). This piyyut, written by R. Avraham ben Rafael Khalfon, was recited on the Shabbat before 29 Tevet in the community of Tripoli, to celebrate the victory of the Karamanlid dynasty over the despotic usurper Ali Burghul (after events transpiring from 1793-1804). This is the Ne’ilah for Purim (a parody of the last two paragraphs of the Ne’ilah confession) by Avraham Menaḥem Mendel Mohr from his Kol Bo l’Purim (1855) transcribed and translated from Aramaic into English by Isaac Gantwerk Mayer. This is the Hosha’not for Purim by Avraham Menaḥem Mendel Mohr from his Kol Bo l’Purim (1855) transcribed and translated from Aramaic into English by Isaac Gantwerk Mayer. Categories: Tags: 19th century C.E., 57th century A.M., acrostic, Alphabetic Acrostic, English Translation, הושענות hoshanot, parody, פיוטים piyyuṭim, Purim parody, purimspiel Contributor(s): This is the Haqafot for Purim by Avraham Menaḥem Mendel Mohr from his Kol Bo l’Purim (1855) transcribed and translated from Hebrew into English by Isaac Gantwerk Mayer. This is the Aqdamut for Purim by Avraham Menaḥem Mendel Mohr from his Kol Bo l’Purim (1855) transcribed and translated from Aramaic into English by Isaac Gantwerk Mayer. Categories: Tags: 19th century C.E., 57th century A.M., acrostic, Alphabetic Acrostic, Aramaic, English Translation, parody, פיוטים piyyuṭim, Purim parody, purimspiel Contributor(s): The Masoretic Hebrew text of Proverbs 30:10-31, the alphabetic acrostic “Eshet Ḥayil,” with a German translation by Franz Rosenzweig. | ||
Sign up for a summary of new resources shared by contributors each week
  |
