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הפטרות haftarot —⟶ tag: הפטרות haftarot Sorted Chronologically (old to new). Sort most recent first? The ancient Land of Israel rite was most well-known for its three-and-a-half-year Torah-reading cycle, but until recently very little was known about the haftarot recited alongside this cycle. Through studies of piyyuṭim and midrashim lists of opening verses to the hafṭarot were reconstructed, but an opening verse does not a full hafṭara make. All that changed when the St. Petersburg Manuscript, MS. EVR II B 42, was rediscovered by Prof. Ezra Shevat and publicized in this blog post. This manuscript, which had been lumped in as just another of the many codices haphazardly gathered by Abraham Firkovich, actually records what may be our most complete record of the hafṭarot of the ancient Land of Israel rite, at least as kept in one community. Categories: Tags: Contributor(s): The haftarah for the second day of Shavuot, Ḥabakkuk 2:20-3:19, interspersed with a cantillated text of the Targum Yonatan ben Uzziel. Since Targum Yonatan is a bit more drash-heavy than Targum Onkelos, it is translated separately as well. The haftarah reading includes the piyyut Yetsiv Pitgam, with an acrostic rhyming translation of the poem, with the second-to-last verse restored to its rightful place, as well as a concluding paragraph for the meturgeman to recite, as found in the Maḥzor Vitry. Categories: Tags: 12th century C.E., 50th century A.M., acrostic, Acrostic signature, phonetic alphabetic acrostic translation, Aramaic, הפטרות haftarot, פיוטים piyyuṭim, rhyming translation, תרגום targum, transtropilation, יציב פתגם Yetsiv Pitgam Contributor(s): All Jews around the world today follow some variant of the annual cycle of Torah readings, developed in the Babylonian diaspora in the talmudic era. In this cycle, the entire Torah is read once a year. (Some Reform communities recite a selection from each parasha, while many Conservative communities follow an ersatz triennial system where a third of each parashah is read every week, but the parashiyot still follow the annual cycle.) The old Erets Yisrael rite had a triennial, or technically semiseptennial, cycle, going through the entire Torah once every three and a half years. But there is a third cycle that has otherwise been completely forgotten about: the semiannual cycle. This cycle was developed by ‘Anan ben David, the legendary founder (or if you ask the Ḳaraites, reviver) of the Ḳaraite movement, in his (only fragmentarily preserved) Sefer ha-Mitsvot. In it, the entire Torah is read twice a year, concluding on the intermediate sabbath of both Pesaḥ and Sukkot before starting anew the next week. This idea did not catch on, even among the Ḳaraites, who to this day use an adaptation of the rabbinic annual cycle instead. But it has largely been preserved. Here it is restored and reconstructed for those whose main complaint with the Torah reading is it isn’t long enough. Categories: Tags: 46th century A.M., 8th century C.E., הפטרות haftarot, Nusaḥ haKaraim, לוח lu'aḥ, תהלים Psalms, semiannual Torah reading cycle, Torah Reading Contributor(s): A schedule for hafṯaroṯ for the weekly portions and festivals, as well as psalms for the weekly portions, according to a Damascus Karaite siddur from approximately 1700. According to the work of Jacob Mann’s The Bible as Read and Preached in the Old Synagogue (1940), the Ḳaraite hafṭaroṯ schedule was probably adapted from the practice of the Byzantine Romaniotes, whose practice was in many ways much closer to the one attested here than to rabbinic norms practiced today. Both ultimately derive from the old Western Rite hafṭaroṯ, albeit adapted to the annual cycle originating from the east. Categories: Tags: Contributor(s): In all modern communities, the standard practice is that on the three Shabbatot before the Ninth of Av and the seven after it the standard haftarah is replaced. Before the Ninth of Av they are replaced with haftarot of rebuke, from Jeremiah and the opening of Isaiah, and after they are replaced with haftarot of consolation from the later parts of Isaiah. Rambam’s Mishneh Torah, though, preserves a very different custom, one where each one of those Torah portions has an associated haftarah, related not to the calendar but to the parashah itself. Here the editor has compiled a list of these haftarah readings, along with brief notes to explain their connection with the parashah. Categories: Tags: Contributor(s): A new introductory piyyut-meturgeman serving as a reshut for the targum of the haftarah. This genre used to be very popular, especially among the old French paytanim, but nowadays the only one still recited is Yetsiv Pitgam, said in some communities on the second day of Shavuot — although the targum is no longer. I think that’s a shame, so I wrote a new one. I’m probably one of the first people to write one of these since the expulsion of 1394. So of course, it’s meta as all get-out, being a reshut not just for the targum of the haftarah but for the custom of reading the targum of the haftarah with a reshut at all. Categories: Tags: 21st century C.E., 58th century A.M., acrostic, Acrostic signature, Aramaic, הפטרות haftarot, פיוטים piyyuṭim, רשויות reshuyot, תרגום targum Contributor(s): | ||
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