[Prayer] for the Last Days of Passover, by Rabbi Moritz Mayer (1866)

Source Link: https://opensiddur.org/?p=32455

Date: 2020-06-22

Last Updated: 2020-06-22

Categories: 7th Day of Pesaḥ

Tags: 19th century C.E., 57th century A.M., English vernacular prayer, Jewish Women's Prayers, תחינות teḥinot

Excerpt: A prayer for a woman celebrating the final days of Passover yontef. . . .

Content:

Contribute a translation	Source (English)
	Almighty God! great and glorious were Thy works and miraculous Thy power wherewith Thou didst break the tyranny of Egypt and make our ancestors free; yet greater and more glorious was the help which Thou didst bestow upon them, when the mighty hosts of the pursuing enemy caused them again to tremble and despair on the shore of the Red Sea, where Thou didst deliver them from a twofold danger, that they could triumphantly exclaim: “The Lord is my strength and song, and He is become my salvation; He is my God, and I will prepare Him a habitation; my fathers’ God, and I will exalt Him”[1] Exodus 15:2.  Do Thou, my God! preserve within us the memory of these Thy glorious works, that we may never despair when dangers encompass, us;—fill us with the consoling conviction, that Thou, with Thine outsretched arm, wilt lead us also through all the perils of the stormy ocean of this life,—that Thou wilt ever struggle for us, as long as we trust in Thy grace and loving-kindness.
	Grant us, O God! strength and perseverance in our progress towards the promised land of light and truth; fill us with humility and forbearance in prosperity, and with confidence and resignation in adversity;—be Thou unto us a pillar of cloud in the days of happiness, that we may not become proud and overbearing and go astray, and a pillar of fire in the dark nights of misfortune, that we may never stumble or fall on our ways of life.
	Accept, Benign Father! our joyful thanks which on this festive day we offer up unto Thee for Thine infinite grace and goodness, wherewith Thou hast again removed from us reproach and ignominy, freed us from oppression and persecution, and caused us again to enjoy the blessings of a beloved home, where we may again live unto Thee and our holy religion, unmolested and unharmed.—Oh! implant in our hearts unshaken obedience to Thy holy Law, that we may ever listen to the doctrines of virtue and righteousness written therein; preserve within us faithful reveration for Thy sacred precepts, that we may ever well appreciate and worthily use our freedom, for the honor and glory of Thy holy name, and the name of Israel, for the welfare of all men, for our own benefit here on earth, and our salvation in life eternal. Amen.

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“[Prayer] for the Last Days of Passover” is one of thirty prayers appearing in Rabbi Moritz Mayer’s collection of tehinot, Hours of Devotion (1866), of uncertain provenance and which he may have written. –Aharon Varady

Source(s)

 

Notes[+]

Notes

1	Exodus 15:2.

Contributor: Aharon N. Varady (editing/transcription)

Co-authors:

• 
  Name: Aharon N. Varady (editing/transcription)
  Bio: Aharon Varady (M.A.J.Ed./JTSA Davidson) is a volunteer transcriber for the Open Siddur Project. If you find any mistakes in his transcriptions, please let him know. Shgiyot mi yavin; Ministarot naqeni שְׁגִיאוֹת מִי־יָבִין; מִנִּסְתָּרוֹת נַקֵּנִי "Who can know all one's flaws? From hidden errors, correct me" (Psalms 19:13). If you'd like to directly support his work, please consider donating via his Patreon account. (Varady also translates prayers and contributes his own original work besides serving as the primary shammes of the Open Siddur Project and its website, opensiddur.org.)
  Website: https://aharon.varady.net
  Profile Link: https://opensiddur.org/profile/aharon-varady
• 
  Name: Moritz Mayer
  Bio: Rabbi Moritz Mayer (originally Moses Maier, later Maurice Mayer; 1821-1867) born in Dürckheim-on-the-Haardt, Germany, fled to the United States and to New York as a political refugee of the 1848 revolution. In 1859, after seven years as the rabbi of Ḳ.Ḳ. Beth Elohim in Charleston, South Carolina, he returned in poor health to New York where he contributed frequently to the Jewish press, and translated various German works into English: Rabbi Samuel Adler's catechism, Abraham Geiger's lectures on Jewish history, and Ludwig Philipson's pamphlet, Haben die Juden Jesum Gekreuzigt? (the Crucifixion from the Jewish Point of View), et al. In 1866, a number of his English translations of Fanny Neuda's teḥinot in German (from her Stunden Der Andacht, 1855/1858) were published in a volume he titled Hours of Devotion. The work also included a number of his own prayers as well as those of Marcus Heinrich Bresslau. The following year, Moritz Mayer passed away. He was 45 years old. (We are indebted to Anton Hieke for his research on Mayer, "Rabbi Maurice Mayer: German Revolutionary, Charleston Reformer, and Anti-Abolitionist" published in Southern Jewish Life, 17 (2014), pp. 45-89.) For Mayer's translations of prayers by other authors, please visit here.
  Website:
  Profile Link: https://opensiddur.org/profile/moritz-mayer

Featured Image:

Title: prayer for the last days of passover (Moritz Mayer 1866)
Caption: Detail of Moritz Mayer's prayer for the last day's of passover (Moritz Mayer 1866).