Or 17051

Liturgical items for various occasions, composed, adapted, translated, or collected by Hakham Ezra Reuben Dangoor.

Or 17051 (1). (Hebrew) A series of three penitential prayers. Hakham Ezra Reuben Dangoor (HED) adapted the first two and seems to have composed the third. His purpose was to elicit divine ‘healing from affliction’, stable settlement (see no. ii), and the complete Messianic redemption, under circumstances of ‘the great affliction … of this evil decree’ (on which see no. iii below). A preliminary, tentative assessment by Yaakov Zamir, head librarian of the Babylonian Jewry Heritage Center, relates these prayers to the Ottoman unrest of 1908-1909 in conjunction with the Young Turk Revolution.

[i] ‘Ezon teḥinah’ / אזון תחנה (Give ear to supplication!), which seems to consist of excerpts adapted from the well-known composition Ezon taḥan / אזון תחן.

[ii] The refrain ‘Bimete mispar ḥilinu panekha’ / במתי מספר חלינו פניך (Few in number we beseech Thy Face) from the traditional penitential poem for the Fast of Esther, with a new line added for healing from affliction and for stable settlement: You are enthroned upon the prayers of Israel, You give ear to their plea and hearken unto their song, You calculate and prepare the remedy before the affliction, bestowing good upon those acquired by You and causing their dwellings to be inhabited / תהלות ישראל אתה יושב, שועתם מאזין ורנתם קושב, רפאות למחץ מקדים ומחשב, קנוייך להיטיב ונויהם ליישב.

[iii] And an invocation beginning Ḳum ’Avraham ’Avinu /קום אברהם אבינו (Arise, Abraham our Patriarch!), calling on the 7 shepherds of Israel, ‘who made a covenant’ with God, to intercede with God on behalf of Israel. HED lists them in the Kabbalistic (rather than chronological) order, in which they correspond to the seven attributes of God mentioned in I Chronicles 29:11. This poem provides the following clues to the historical event that, in the liturgy, HED obliquely describes as great affliction, evil decree, and instability of settlement: in the stanza on Abraham, ‘we have no strength to stand in formation for battles; nor are we able to pay the tax that was imposed upon us in exchange for military service; for every penny is gone from the pocket’ / ואין בנו כח לעמוד בקשרי המלחמות גם אין אנחנו יכולים לשלם המס שהניחו עלינו חליפות הצבא כי כלתה פרוטה מן הכיס; in the stanza on Isaac, HED mentions the reconciliation of parents and children; in the stanza on Isaac, he asks that God should ‘redeemed us from the hands of our enemies, and save us from this difficult decree that the majority of the community cannot withstand’; in the stanza on Aaron, he ends with a prayer that God make peace in the government / ותן שלום במלכות; in the stanza on Joseph, he ends, ‘pray to your God that He dispose us towards grace, kindness, and compassion in the eyes of the kings and the ministers, so that they remove from upon us this evil decree / והתפלל בעדינו אל אלהיך שיתננו לחן ולחסד ולרחמים בעיני המלכים והשרים ויסירו מעלינו הגזירה הרעה הזאת; and in the stanza on David, he ends, ‘... and put compassion into the heart of the king and the ministers, to do good unto us, for we have become weary bearing the severe and evil decrees’. [The manuscript arrived at the British Library with slight water damage. It seems that the stanza on David should read as follows: קום דוד מלכא משיחא אחוז במלכות מלך ישראל שנלחמת מלחמות י???אל והפלת את אויביהם והצלתם מיד אויביהם מסביב והרמות את קרנם בכבוד קום עתה והתפלל ....]

Or 17051 (2). Side a. (Hebrew) ‘Blessing over the Sun’, including a brief introduction, accompanying liturgy, and the text of the blessing. As described in Babylonian Talmud, Berakhot 59b, this marks the return of the sun and other astral bodies, every 28 years, to the astral positions that they occupied at the time of Creation. On that basis, HED explains that this blessing is recited in the first year of the 28-year ‘Great Cycle’, at the spring equinox, 'which will occur on the eve of Wednesday (i.e Tuesday night going into Wednesday), in [the hour governed by] Saturn [viz. 6 PM]’. HED records this same blessing and accompanying liturgy in manuscript Or 17046 (his calendar monograph), folio 79b = his page 157, with small differences between the two records. Some of HED's glosses there bring the liturgy there closer to (but not into total identity with) the liturgy recorded here, implying that that was written earlier, then glossed in keeping with developments that were included here as part of the main text.

Side b. Calculations, which seem to be relevant to the calendar.

Or 17051 (3). (Hebrew) Liturgy for Circumcision; Liturgy for naming a Girl. (Some of the prayers recorded here by HED are traditional, with unknown authorship. They have circulated with many small variants.)

[i] ‘Prayer for the sandaḳ (alt.: sandeḳ, = the person who sits and holds the baby on his thighs / knees during the circumcision), prior to the circumcision’: ‘For the sake of the unification of the Holy Blessed One and His Shekina – I hereby come to be sandaḳ: I shall be a throne and altar for the circumcision to be performed on my thighs …' / ליקבה”ו - הנה אנכי בא להיות סנדק ואהיה כסא ומזבח לעשות על ירכי המילה .... (Modified from the text composed by Rabbi Ḥayyim Joesph David Azulai, known as the ḤIDA (1724 – 1806).)

[ii] ‘Prayer for the circumciser, before the circumcision’: ‘Master of the world, I hereby thank, praise, and laud Your Great Name, for You created us out of nothing, not as an obligatory need, but rather [due to] benevolence and volition …' / רבש”ע (הנני מודה ומשבח ומהלל לשמך הגדול שבראתנו יש מאין לא לצורך חובה כי אם נדבה ורצון …. (Traditional).

[iii] ‘There are those who have the custom to recite these rhymes before the grace after the meal [as an embellishment to the responsive recitation introducing the grace after the festive meal celebrating the circumcision]: ‘We thank Your Name amongst those of my faith: Blessed are you to the Lord …’ / יש נוהגים לומר חרוזים אלו לפני בהמ”ז, נודה לשמך בתוך אמוני: ברוכים אתם לה’ …. (Traditional).

[iv] The traditional six supplications added towards the end of the grace after the festive meal celebrating the circumcision, beginning with, ‘May the Merciful One bless the father of the child and his mother, and may they merit to raise him and educate him …' / הרחמן, הוא יברך אבי הילד ואמו, ויזכו לגדלו ולחנכו ולחכמו … (Traditional).

[v] Naming a Girl: Rhymed liturgy including supplication: May the One Who blessed our Matriarchs Sarah, Rebecca, Rachel, and Leah, Miriam the Prophetess and Abigail, and Queen Esther daughter of Aviḥail, bless this delightful girl, and may her name be called …' / מי שבירך אמותנו שרה רבקה רחל ולאה, ומרים הנביאה ואביגיל, ואסתר המלכה בת אביחיל, הוא יברך את הילדה הנעימה הזאת ויקרא שמה …. (This may be HED’s own composition.)

[vi] ‘Poem for the occasion of a circumcision; acrostic: Judah ha-Levi': ‘The day on which the watery depths were transformed into dry ground’ / יום ליבשה נהפכו מצולים. (Composed by Judah ha-Levi.)

[vii] ‘Another poem for the occasion of a circumcision’: ‘Let me sing unto the Lord, Who dwells upon the ark of the covenant …' / אשירה לה’ שוכן ארון הברית …. (Traditional.)

Or 17051 (4). (Hebrew) ‘Before the [‘sheheḥiyyanu’] blessing [recited upon special, joyous occasions], one recites this text: For the sake of the unification of the Holy Blessed One and His Shekinah, with awe and love, and with love and awe, to unify the Name YH with ṾH in a complete unity, in the name of all Israel. I hereby come to bless and praise He who formed me, for His having done good with me, purchasing a home for me. …’ / וקודם הברכה או' נוסח זה ליקבה"ו בדו"ר ורו"ד ליחדא שם י"ה בו"ה ביחודא שלים בשם כל יש' הנה אנכי בא לברך ולשבח ליוצרי על אשר הטיב עמדי לקנות לי בית. (This may be HED’s own composition.)

Or 17051 (5). Side a. Judeo-Arabic adaptation of Psalm 20 (‘May the Lord answer you on the day of distress’); side b. Judeo-Arabic prayer for the well-being of the sultan.

Or 17051 (6). (Hebrew) Prayer for healing, and prayer of thanksgiving for having been healed. From Sefer Asaf, volume 2, chapter 24.

Or 17051 (7). (Hebrew) 1 leaf (pages 25 - 26) from an unidentified printed prayer book. Liturgy for Sabbath and Festival mornings, fragment of the beginning section, containing the following sections from Psalms: Psalm 122, mid verse 5 – end Psalm 124; Psalm 135 – Psalm 136, verse 22.

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