Ḳiddush in the Home Service for the Festival of Passover, by Rabbi J. Leonard Levy (1896)

Source Link: https://opensiddur.org/?p=62251

Date: 2025-06-26

Last Updated: 2025-06-27

Categories: Ḳadesh

Tags: 19th century C.E., 57th century A.M., English vernacular prayer, particularism and universalism

Excerpt: This is the Ḳiddush the Passover seder by Rabbi J. Leonard Levy to his Haggadah or Home Service for the Festival of Passover (1896) pp. 4-5. The prayer does not appear in subsequent editions. The prayer threads the needle between the particularly Jewish communal focus of Passover and the universalist themes that animated Levy's Liberal Jewish mission. . . .

Content:

Contribute a translation	Source (English)
	(The Reader, taking a glass of wine in his hand shall then say:)
	We are gathered to-night within the home-sanctuary in honor of our holy religion and of our great and eventful history. We cannot help feeling grateful that although another cycle of seasons has passed, we are atill spared to one another. We are thankful to God for the goodness He has shown us, for the blessings of health and home, friends and country.
	Our religion is most elevating, our history is most ennobling. Both of them have claims upon us which demand our constant devotion. To our religion may we remain steadfast, to our history may we remain true, by carrying on the work for which our fathers so nobly struggled, suffering death in preference to desertion and torture rather than be traitors.
	Memories sad and sweet, tearful and joyful, does this evening awaken. But it likewise arouses hopes fair and bright, unsullied and unstained as the gladsome light of day in a morning without clouds. To these memories and hopes I pledge this glass of wine, and as it passes from lip to lip, may there go with it the loving promise to live for the faith of our fathers and to strive for it bravely and unfaltering!y, until victory crowns our efforts with success and all men unite with us in proclaiming the Unity of God, and the Unity of the Human Family. Amen.
	(The glass shall then be passed around as a loving-cup, and all having drunk therefrom the Parents should pronounce a benediction on the head of each of their children. After being again seated one of the younger members of the family shall ask…)[1] The 2nd and third edition have instead: “The glass of wine shall then be passed around to all present.” The sixth and seventh edition have instead: “The wine shall then be drunk.”

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This is the Ḳiddush the Passover seder by Rabbi J. Leonard Levy to his Haggadah or Home Service for the Festival of Passover (1896) pp. 4-5, reprinted with different page numbers in subsequent editions. The prayer threads the needle between the particularly Jewish communal focus of Passover and the universalist themes that animated Levy’s Liberal Jewish mission. –Aharon Varady

Source(s)

 

Notes

Notes

1	The 2nd and third edition have instead: “The glass of wine shall then be passed around to all present.” The sixth and seventh edition have instead: “The wine shall then be drunk.”

Contributor: Aharon N. Varady (transcription)

Co-authors:

• 
  Name: Aharon N. Varady (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-transcription
• 
  Name: J. Leonard Levy
  Bio: Rabbi Joseph Leonard Levy (1865-1917), born in London, was a Liberal/Reform movement rabbi in the United Kingdom and the United States. He was educated at Jews' College and University College (B.A.), London, at Bristol University, England, and at Western University of Pennsylvania (D.D.). Rabbi Levy was rabbi of the Bristol Hebrew Congregation (1885-1889) and of Bnai Israel Congregation, Sacramento, California (1889-1893); associate rabbi of the Keneseth Israel Congregation, Philadelphia (1893-1901); and, since 1901, has been rabbi of the Rodeph Shalom congregation, Pittsburg. In 1898 he was elected chaplain of "Keegan's Brigade," with which he served through the Spanish-American war. Levy was the organizer of a number of charitable and religious societies among the Jews of Philadelphia. He is the author of a translation of the tractate Rosh haShanah of the Babylonian Talmud (Philadelphia, 1895). He published also The Greater Lights (1895); Home Service for the Passover (1896); The Nineteenth Century (1901); A Book of Prayer (Pittsburg, 1902); The Jew's Beliefs (1903); The Children's Service and Hymnal (1903); Text-Book of Religion and Ethics for Jewish Children (1903); Sabbath Reading (1904); and eight volumes of Sunday lectures. Levy is the editor of the Jewish Criterion, published at Pittsburg.
  Website: https://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/9892-levy-joseph-leonard
  Profile Link: https://opensiddur.org/profile/joseph-leonard-levy

Featured Image:

Title: Qiddush in Haggadah for Passover (J. Leonard Levy, 1922) – 7th edition – page 6 cropped
Caption: Qiddush in Haggadah for Passover (J. Leonard Levy, 1922) - 7th edition - page 6 cropped