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a community-grown, libre Open Access archive of Jewish prayer and liturgical resources
This project is sustained through reciprocity for those sharing prayers and crafting their own prayerbooks.
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אֵל לִבִּי פְּתַח | El Libbi Păthaḥ — a Prayer of Yemenite Jewish Children Before Study, translated by Isaac Gantwerk Mayer  Contributor(s): Categories: Tags:In Yemenite Jewish children’s schools, this prayer of unknown authorship is said before the lesson in unison. The teacher conducts and the children sing together to a melody. The prayer is printed in tajjim (Yemenite trilingual Pentateuch codices) before the book of Leviticus, traditionally the starting point for a child’s education. The first twenty-two lines of the prayer are an alphabetical acrostic wherein each line spells out the entire letter in which it starts. For instance, the first line spells out Alef, Lamed, and Pe, which spells out the full name of the letter Alef. This is followed by three Biblical verses all starting with the word “Good,” a brief poem in Hebrew, and a concluding passage largely in Judeo-Arabic. Here the editor has included the original text, along with a non-gendered English translation and a transcription of the Judeo-Arabic text into Arabic script. . . .  Contributor(s): Tags:The pedagogical song “Hashem is Everywhere!” by Rabbi Yosef Goldstein (1928-2013) can be found in the context of his story, “Where is Hashem?,” the second track on his album מדות טובות Jewish Ethics Through Story and Song (Menorah Records 1972). In the instructions to reciting the lyrics, the singer points first to the six cardinal directions and lastly, by pointing inward towards one’s self. In so doing, one explicitly affirms the idea of the divine within ourselves and implicitly, in each other. . . . “Just Walk Beside Me” (לֵךְ פָּשׁוּט לְצִדִּי | امشي بجانبي | נאָר גיין לעבן מיר), lines from an unknown author circulating in 1971; Jewish adaptation with translations in Aramaic, Hebrew, Yiddish, and Arabic Contributor(s): Tags:Variations of the original three lines culminating with “Just walk beside me” first began to appear in print in 1971. Early on misattributed to the French writer Albert Camus (1913–1960), the lines circulated by newspaper and other periodicals before migrating to yearbook quotes. In the Jewish world of the early to mid-1970s, a young Moshe Tanenbaum began transmitting the lines at Jewish summer camps. In 1979, as Uncle Moishy, Tanenbaum published a recording of the song under the title “v’Ohavta” (track A4 on The Adventures of Uncle Moishy and the Mitzvah Men, volume 2). . . . צער בעלי־חיים | Tsaar Baalei Ḥayyim [It is forbidden to cause] suffering to a living creature, a song in Yiddish Contributor(s): Categories: Tags:“Tsaar Balei Ḥayyim” ([It is forbidden to cause] suffering to a living creature), source unknown. Many thanks to Tiferet Zimmern-Kahan for recording the niggun for the song and to Naftali Ejdelman and The Jewish Daily Forward for providing the lyrics. . . . לְהַדְלִיק נֵר שֶׁל־שַׁבָּת | Blessing the Sabbath Candles, a rhyming translation and explanation by Jessie Ethel Sampter (1919) Contributor(s): Categories: Tags:This paraliturgical supplement to the blessing over kindling the Shabbat candles was written by Jessie Ethel Sampter and published in her Around the Year in Rhymes for the Jewish Child (1920), p. 80. . . . בִּרְכָּת הַזָּן אֶת הַכֹּל | Grace After Meals (for Children), a rhyming translation by Jessie Ethel Sampter (1919) Contributor(s): Categories: Tags:This rhyming translation for the Birkat haMazon (blessing after eating a meal with bread) was written by Jessie Ethel Sampter and published in her Around the Year in Rhymes for the Jewish Child (1920), p. 86. . . . הַמוֹצִיא לֶֽחֶם מִן הָאֲרֶץ | Blessing on Breaking Bread, a rhyming translation and explanation by Jessie Ethel Sampter (1919) Contributor(s): Categories:This paraliturgical supplement to the blessing before eating bread was written by Jessie Ethel Sampter and published in her Around the Year in Rhymes for the Jewish Child (1920), p. 82. . . . בּוֹרֵא פְּרִי הָאֲדָמָה | Blessing Over Vegetables, a rhyming translation and explanation by Jessie Ethel Sampter (1919) Contributor(s): Categories: Tags:This paraliturgical supplement to the blessing before eating vegetation, vegetables, and fruit of the earth was written by Jessie Ethel Sampter and published in her Around the Year in Rhymes for the Jewish Child (1920), p. 84. . . . שֶׁהַכֹּל נִהְיָה בִּדְבָרוֹ | Blessing on Partaking [all other] Food, a rhyming translation and explanation by Jessie Ethel Sampter (1919) Contributor(s): Categories:This paraliturgical supplement to the blessing before eating all other foods (besides bread, fruits, vegetation and vegetables) was written by Jessie Ethel Sampter and published in her Around the Year in Rhymes for the Jewish Child (1920), p. 85. . . . בּוֹרֵא פְּרִי הָאֵץ | Blessing Over Fruit, a rhyming translation and explanation by Jessie Ethel Sampter (1919) Contributor(s): Categories: Tags:This paraliturgical supplement to the blessing before eating fruit of trees was written by Jessie Ethel Sampter and published in her Around the Year in Rhymes for the Jewish Child (1920), p. 83. . . . עַל נְטִילַת יָדָֽיִם | Blessing on Washing the Hands, a rhyming translation and explanation by Jessie Ethel Sampter (1919) Contributor(s): Categories: Tags:This paraliturgical supplement to the blessing over hand washing was written by Jessie Ethel Sampter and published in her Around the Year in Rhymes for the Jewish Child (1920), p. 81. . . . |