#berakhah

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Challah cover, 19th century, metal-thread embroidery on silk

Inscribed in Hebrew: “Blessed are You, Lord, our God, King of the Universe who brings forth bread from the earth” (blessing over the bread)

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A richly illustrated miniature book of prayers, Seder Birkat ha-Mazon u-Birkhot ha-Nehenin (Grace after meals and occasional blessings), written and illustrated by Nathan ben Samson of Meseritch (Moravia), 1728

29 folios (70 x 50 mm) on parchment; written in Ashkenazic square and semi-cursive vaybertaytsh (Yiddish instructions)

The early decades of the eighteenth century witnessed a remarkable resurgence in the production of elaborately decorated Hebrew manuscripts when wealthy court Jews in Germany and Central Europe began to commission exquisitely illustrated handwritten Hebrew books as luxury items.

Miniature volumes such as this one, containing a variety of Hebrew prayers and blessings, were frequently commissioned by grooms and presented to their brides on the occasion of their marriage. An inscription penned at the top of the title page of this manuscript indicates that this book was a gift to the bride Sheynkha. The present volume comprises the texts for birkat ha-mazon (grace after meals), birkhot ha-nehenin (blessings over foods and scents), keri’at shema al ha-mittah (recitation of the Shema before retiring), and kiddush levanah (blessing for the New Moon).

The manuscript was created by Nathan ben Samson of Meseritsch, one of the most renowned scribe-artists of the eighteenth century.

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Seder Birkhot ha-Torah… Haftarah… (Order of Blessings of the Torah… Haftorah…[and occasional blessings]), Scribe: Elijah Bunimowitsch, Frankfurt on Main: 1892

This meticulously penned and beautifully decorated book of Torah blessings would have been kept on the Torah reader’s desk, or almemar, in a synagogue in Frankfurt at the end of the 19th century. The men honoured by being called up to the Torah were expected to recite certain of these blessings before and after the Torah portion was read. Variations appropriate to different festivals are included as are the blessings recited by an individual who has survived a dangerous journey or life-threatening illness, or by the father of a child attaining his Bar Mitzvah.               

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Seder Berakhot (Various blessings, liturgical texts, and halakhic texts), edited by Benjamin Senior Godines, translated by Rabbi Isaac Aboab, Amsterdam: Albertus Magnus, 1687

This is a liturgical and halakhic handbook for use throughout the year. It includes blessings and prayers (in Hebrew with Spanish translation) recited at home and in the synagogue, during the week and on Sabbaths and festivals, over food and over various rituals, as well as at lifecycle events (weddings, circumcisions, celebrations of a daughter’s birth, when visiting the sick, etc.). It even includes a full Passover Haggadah. Halakhic treatises in Hebrew and/or Portuguese discuss the laws of ritual slaughter, inspection of an animal’s organs, dough and ritual bath preparation, and the Jewish calendar. At the rear are several calendaric tables, as well as a chronology of important events in world/Jewish history from the Deluge through the 1648-1649 Chmielnicki Massacres.

The book’s editor, Benjamin Senior Godines, writes in the introduction that he found the manuscript on which the edition was based in the collection of the wealthy merchant Rabbi Isaac de Mattathias Aboab (1631-1707), who also served as the translator into Spanish. Some of the more unique texts included herein are a blessing recited when purchasing a slave, a prayer for those killed in autos-da-fé, and descriptions of ascetic practices (e.g., flogging) for the eve of Yom Kippur. A parallel Hebrew-only edition of the book was issued around the same time by the same publisher.

[barbh]

Habit - #Write28 Days - Day 15

Habit – #Write28 Days – Day 15

By now most of us have abandoned all or most of our New Years resolutions.  The abandonment happens because we fail to make our resolutions a priority. I’m sure that you’ve heard that it takes 21 days to create a habit, but my research found that number to be closer to 66 days. Yes, you read that right. It takes at least 66 days to create a new habit. I have been reading Sitting at the Feet of…

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[revelatorytruths]

Energy and Pattern

     Any and all things responding to the personality circuit of the Father, is called personal.  Any and all things responding to the spirit circuit of the Son, is called spirit.  Any and all that responds to the mind circuit of the Conjoint Actor, is called mind, mind as an attribute of the Infinite Spirit mind in all its phases.  Any and all that responds to the material—gravity circuit…

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