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On the Yehi Raẓon Formula in the Blessing for the New Month in the Ashkenazic Rite

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 November 2021

Aaron Ahrend
Aaron Ahrend*
Affiliation:
Bar-Ilan University Ramat Gan, Israel
*
ayahrend@walla.co.il

Abstract

In the early custom of Ashkenaz, on the Shabbat preceding the beginning of the month, the coming of the new month (Rosh Ḥodesh) would be announced after the reading from the Torah and before the Torah scroll was returned to the synagogue's Holy Ark. The ritual included reciting the paragraph beginning with the words mi she-‘asah nissim (may He who performed miracles) and continuing with an announcement of the timing of Rosh Ḥodesh. In the second half of the eighteenth century, an addition to the liturgy appeared before the Mi She-‘asah Nissim section: a passage beginning yehi raẓon (may it be Your will) that the Babylonian Talmud relates was recited daily by the sage Rav following the Amidah prayer. This article suggests some reasons for the addition of the passage, traces the spread of the practice of its recitation among Ashkenazic communities, and concludes with an examination and explanation of two apparently erroneous additions to the Yehi Raẓon formula.

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Type
Research Article
Information
AJS Review , Volume 45 , Issue 2 , November 2021 , pp. 229 - 251
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Copyright
Copyright © Association for Jewish Studies 2021

Since the inception of the field of Jewish studies, the study of Jewish prayer has focused on two distinct areas of inquiry. One area is a phenomenological investigation of prayer, that is, the study of the essence of prayer and its impact on the consciousness and experience of the worshipper. The second area is a historical-philological examination of prayer formulae and their development throughout the generations and across the Diaspora, by means of a thorough analysis and comparison of the prayer books preserved in manuscript form and printed versions. Prayer formulae of the early rabbinic period and the Middle Ages have been accorded much scholarly attention, while relatively few studies have looked at the later period, from the invention of the printing press until the Haskalah.Footnote 1 The following article is a contribution to the study of the prayer formulae in this later period.

In Jewish communities, it is customary to declare the coming of the new month (Rosh Ḥodesh) and its mulad (the moment of the appearance of the new moon) on the Shabbat preceding the beginning of that month, each community according to its own prayer formula. The prayer books of Ashkenazic Jewry include the Yehi Raẓon prayer, which the Babylonian Talmud ascribes to the Amora Rav, before the declaration of the month. Examining a wide range of daily and festival prayer books, as well as works of Halakhah and customs, this article will shed light on the blessings of the month and the Yehi Raẓon: the considerations that may have guided those who incorporated the Yehi Raẓon into the blessing for the new month during the period in question and the spread of the practice of its recitation; it will also examine and offer an explanation of two apparently erroneous additions to it.

In the early custom of Ashkenaz, the announcement of the coming month on the Shabbat before Rosh Ḥodesh included reciting the paragraph starting mi she-ʿasah nissim (may He who made miracles) and noting the time the new month will begin.Footnote 2 Later, a section beginning yehi raẓon (may it be Your will) was added prior to Mi She-‘asah Nissim, consisting of the prayer that the Babylonian Talmud, tractate Berakhot 16b, relates that the Amora Rav recited daily after the Amidah:Footnote 3

רב בתר צלותיה אמ' הכי: יהי רצון מלפניך ה' אלהינו שתתן לנו חיים ארוכי', חיים של שלום, חיים של טובה, חיים של ברכה, חיים של פרנסה, חיים של חלוץ עצמות, וחיים שיש בהם יראת חטא, חיים שאין בהם בושה וכלימה, חיים של עושר וכבוד, חיים שתהא בנו אהבת תורה ויראת שמים, חיים שתמלא לנו את כל משאלות לבנו לטובה.

Rav, on concluding his prayer, added the following: May it be Your will, O Lord our God, to grant us long life, a life of peace, a life of good, a life of blessing, a life of sustenance, a life of bodily vigor, a life in which there is fear of sin, a life free from shame and confusion, a life of riches and honor, a life in which we may be filled with the love of Torah and the fear of Heaven, a life in which You shall fulfil all the desires of our heart for good.

Rav's prayer does not mention the new month at all. When Rav's prayer was combined with the prayer for the new month, an initial line was added to it to introduce the theme of the new month:

יהי רצון מלפניך ה' אלוהינו ואלוהי אבותינו שתחדש עלינו את החודש הזה לטובה ולברכה ותתן לנו חיים ארוכים וכו'.

May it be Your will, our God and God of our fathers, to bring on the coming new month for our good and blessing. Grant us long life, etc.

The addition, “bring on the coming new month for our good and blessing,” is a familiar phrase from the Kedushah prayer in the Musaf service for the new month, and is similar to the Rosh Ḥodesh addition recited in the Grace after Meals: “The Merciful will bring on the coming new month for good and blessing.”Footnote 4 Similar language is also found in the passage recited by Sephardic communities after Mi She-ʿasah Nissim:

ראש חודש … יחדשהו הקב"ה עלינו ועל כל עמו ישראל בכל מקום שהם לטובה ולברכה וכו'.

The new month . . . may the Holy One blessed be He bring it upon us and upon all His people Israel anywhere for good and for blessing.Footnote 5

The background to the addition

A systematic examination of many prayer books shows that the Yehi Raẓon's earliest appearance in the blessing of the new month is in a maḥzor (a festival prayer book) for use over the entire year printed in Prague in 1785/6.Footnote 6 Why was the Yehi Raẓon added to the blessing of the new month? There are two relevant factors that may have contributed to this addition, which will be discussed below; given the difficulty of determining which is more significant, we may reasonably conclude that the addition of the Yehi Raẓon is attributable to a combination of both.

Opposition to Kabbalah

In the sixteenth through the eighteenth centuries, various Jewish communities, both Ashkenazic and Sephardic, added passages to sections of prayer. Many of the additions were supplications beginning with the words yehi raẓon (may it be Your will). The greatest influence on the wording of these prayers came from the world of Kabbalah. One subject that was introduced into prayer texts due to kabbalistic influence was the prohibition against the deliberate destruction of sperm. The Zohar treated this prohibition with particular severity;Footnote 7 kabbalists of the sixteenth to eighteenth centuries perpetuated the Zohar's rigorous approach while conceptually developing the meaning of the prohibition and suggesting a variety of ways to rectify its transgression.Footnote 8 Their view was that the wasteful emission of seed creates souls which pass to the side of impurity, the sitraʾ ʾaḥraʾ, and that a man must act to restore these souls to the side of purity. The kabbalists instituted fixed times for the atonement and rectification of this sin, including, for example, the weeks in which the first Torah portions of the book of Exodus were read and the eve of Rosh Ḥodesh.Footnote 9

The kabbalists composed prayers on the subject during the recitation of which worshippers were to mindfully direct their atoning intentions. Students of R. Isaac Luria (known as the Ari) and their followers introduced this theme in the Amidah. They determined that one should direct his intentions to restoring the lost seed to the side of purity in the Kibbuẓ Galuyot blessing on the ingathering of the exiles. Thus, R. Moshe Zakhut wrote, “And we must have intention in the words of וקבצינו יחד מארבע כנפות [gather us in from the four corners] to the letters that precede the last letters in each word, which form the word חֲבֵוּ …Footnote 10 and their special virtue is to extricate the sparks of purity that are imprisoned within the exterior and restore them to holiness.”Footnote 11 Some kabbalists also composed a special Yehi Raẓon prayer in various versions, to be said close to the ending of the Kibbuẓ Galuyot blessing.Footnote 12 The most commonly used wording is that of R. Meir Paprash. Prior to citing the Yehi Raẓon, R. Meir explained the connection between the wasting of seed and this blessing:Footnote 13

בברכת תקע בשופר מסוגל להתפלל על פיזור טיפת הקרי בין הקליפות שיתקבצו יחד אל הקדושה על ידי שם הגדול חב"ו הנרמז בפסוק חיל בלע ויקיאנו [איוב כ, טו]. אף שבלע הסטרא אחרא חיל גדול של טיפות קרי מן בר ישראל, עם כל זה ויקיאנו, מוכרח הוא להקיא אותם בעל כרחו על ידי שם הנרמז בראשי תיבות כנ' [=כנזכר]. ומרמז כוונה זו באומר וקבצנו יח"ד מארב"ע כנפו"ת הארץ, אותיות הקודמות לאחרונות הם שם הנזכר שיקבץ ה' יתברך טיפות הנדחות בין הקליפות על ידי שם זה.

וכה יאמר אחר שיאמר וקבצנו יח"ד מארב"ע כנפו"ת הארץ בכיון הנזכר: יהי רצון מלפניך ה' אלהינו ואלהי אבותינו אלהי אברהם ואלהי יצחק ואלהי יעקב שכל טיפה וטיפה שיצא ממני שלא במקום מצוה, הן באונס הן ברצון, שתחזיר למקום הקדושה למען שמך הגדול והקדוש היוצא מפסוק חי"ל בל"ע ויקיאנו והטוב בעיניך עשה ברוך אתה ה' מקבץ נדחי עמו ישראל.

In the blessing Tekaʿ ba-Shofar the worshipper should direct his intentions to the dispersal of the drops of seed among the shells which will be gathered together to the side of holiness by the great name of חב"ו alluded to in the verse that begins “He has swallowed down riches and he shall vomit them up again” [חיל בלע ויקיאנו] [Job 20:15].Footnote 14 Although the sitraʾ ʾaḥraʾ swallowed a great host of drops of wasted seed from a Jew, it will yet vomit it out; it is forced to vomit it out by virtue of the name alluded to in the first letters as aforementioned. This intention is alluded to by the words “and gather us in from the four corners of the earth” [וקבצנו יח"ד מארב"ע כנפו"ת הארץ]. The letters preceding the last letters of each word form the word חב"ו, meaning that God will gather in the drops lost among the outer shells of impurity by means of this word.

And after saying וקבצנו יח"ד מארב"ע כנפו"ת הארץ the worshipper shall recite with that intention in mind: “May it be Your will, God and God of our fathers, that every single drop of seed emitted from me which is not in performance of a mitzvah, whether by coercion or willfully, that will You return it to a place of holiness for the sake of Your great and holy name found in the verse חי"ל בל"ע ויקיאנו. And may You do what is right in Your eyes, blessed are You God who gathers in the dispersed of His people, Israel.”

This Yehi Raẓon prayer was incorporated into the Kibbuẓ Galuyot blessing in Sephardic prayer books and those redacted according to the Ari,Footnote 15 while others also included it in the blessing of the new month (Birkat ha-Ḥodesh).Footnote 16 Still others only included it in Birkat ha-Ḥodesh and not in Kibbuẓ Galuyot. Thus, for example, Siddur mishnat ḥasidim: seder tefillot le-kol ha-shanah (Amsterdam, 1763/4) places the Yehi Raẓon in Birkat ha-Ḥodesh, with the instruction to recite it while the cantor recites Mi She-‘asah, as well as to recite it during the festival Musaf prayer during the cantor's recitation of U-mipnei Ḥataʾeinu.Footnote 17 The stipulation to pray for the restoration of the covenant while reciting Mi She-‘asah is due to the latter's mention of the ingathering of the dispersed: “And He shall gather our dispersed from the four corners of the earth.” This parallels the blessing, “Ingatherer of the dispersed of His people, Israel.” In kabbalistic interpretation the word “dispersed” refers to the drops of wasted seed.Footnote 18

And yet in many prayer books the Yehi Raẓon was not incorporated into the fixed order of prayers,Footnote 19 due to the objection to including kabbalistic prayers in the prayer book and growing opposition to the emphasis on the prohibition of wasting seed.Footnote 20 Towards the end of the eighteenth century, some redactors began incorporating another, nonkabbalistic prayer into the Birkat ha-Ḥodesh: Rav's prayer from the Babylonian Talmud. The chronological proximity of the incorporation of Rav's prayer and the kabbalistic Yehi Raẓon supports a cautious hypothesis that the former was inserted as a substitute for the kabbalists’ Yehi Raẓon.Footnote 21

As mentioned, the Yehi Raẓon first appears in the maḥzor printed in Prague in 1781/2. The target audience of this maḥzor was not only the residents of Prague and its environs but also worshippers throughout eastern Europe, since Prague was one of the main printing centers in eastern Europe in the sixteenth through the eighteenth centuries.Footnote 22 In 1755–93, the rabbi of Prague was R. Yeḥezkel Landau, the “Nodaʿ be-Yehudah,” one of the greatest decisors of his generation, who fought against the spread of Kabbalah and Sabbatianism at a time when Prague was a major Sabbatian center. As part of his anti-Sabbatian struggle, R. Landau spoke out against the kabbalistic prayers Le-shem Yiḥud and Yehi Raẓon and instead emphasized the status of the Talmud and halakhic works.Footnote 23 It is possible, therefore, that R. Landau was also behind the printing of Rav's Yehi Raẓon, which is of talmudic provenance and without any connection at all to Kabbalah. The maḥzor was published by the Falklash family printing house, which also published Landau's approbation to the book Sefer davar tov by R. Avigdor Segal in the following year, 1783. Thus, although R. Landau is not mentioned in the printers’ notes on the title page of the maḥzor, it is likely that it was he who contacted this printing house regarding the incorporation of the Yehi Raẓon.

Why was Rav's prayer in particular chosen? It is natural that as a new month approaches, worshippers would ask God to bless them in all areas of life, and Rav's prayer is replete with suitable supplications.Footnote 24 Moreover, the incorporation of Rav's prayer into Jewish liturgy predates the eighteenth century. In the Maḥzor Vitry and in certain twelfth- to fifteenth-century prayer books following the custom of France, Rav's prayer appears after the morning blessings, along with others from the Bavli tractate Berakhot (16b–17a).Footnote 25 There is also evidence that R. Judah he-Ḥasid used to recite the talmudic series of Yehi Raẓon prayers on weekdays at the end of the Amidah, two Yehi Raẓons of two sages per day.Footnote 26 However, it is highly doubtful that those who incorporated Rav's prayer into Birkat ha-Ḥodesh were familiar with and influenced by those early sources. Indeed, shortly before the period under discussion, in the early seventeenth century, R. Isaiah Horowitz wrote in his book Shnei luḥot ha-brit (Shelah), which subsequently became influential in eastern Europe, “And we found in the chapter beginning Hayah koreh [Berakhot 16b–17a] special prayers of Tannaim and Amoraim … therefore, it is appropriate to say them.”Footnote 27 Horowitz recommends reciting the series of Yehi Raẓon prayers with which the talmudic sages concluded their Amidah prayers. At Horowitz's advice, all the Yehi Raẓon prayers, including Rav's, were printed at the end of the weekday Amidah, after the ʾElohai Neẓor section.Footnote 28 Some prayer books also added “May it be Your will that You will not cause others to envy me etc.,” and Rav's prayer.Footnote 29 It is possible that the incorporation of Rav's prayer in the Birkat ha-Ḥodesh was also indirectly influenced by Shelah. Footnote 30

Adding a prayer to the Birkat ha-Ḥodesh has additional religious significance because the Birkat ha-Hodesh is commonly recited when the Torah scroll is present on the bima. The sacred scroll's presence confers greater gravity to requests for divine aid and to private blessings. In addition, at this central point in the prayer service, entreaties could be inserted without interrupting the course of prayer.Footnote 31 In contrast, no prayer came to replace the kabbalistic Yehi Raẓon in the Kibbuẓ Galuyot blessing, likely because additions to the Amidah were not warranted.

Sephardic Influence

Sephardic prayer formulae may also have influenced the addition of the Yehi Raẓon to the Birkat ha-Ḥodesh. In the manuscripts of Seder Rav Amram Gaon, it is written that on Mondays and Thursdays after reading the Torah, “he would roll up the Torah scroll and as he rolled, he would recite” six short passages of prayer: four Yehi Raẓons—“to establish the House of our life,” “to have mercy on our remnant,” “to sustain among us the sages of Israel,” “that we may hear and be informed of good tidings”—and a special blessing [Mi She-berakh] for those who attend synagogues and study halls, as well as a request for “our brethren Israel who are in distress and captivity” [ʾAḥeinu].Footnote 32 We do not have information on prayer formulae in Spain at the beginning of the period of the Rishonim, but in the fourteenth century (and perhaps even before) Sephardic practice differed from Seder Rav Amram Gaon. Unlike Seder Rav Amram Gaon, which directed that the four Yehi Raẓon passages and ʾAḥeinu should be recited on weekdays,Footnote 33 Sephardim recited them in Birkat ha-Ḥodesh.Footnote 34 In Italy, worshippers said only ʾAḥeinu in Birkat ha-Ḥodesh, after the declaration of the mulad. As for Mondays and Thursdays and Shabbat at Minḥah after the Torah reading, customs differed on whether to say four Yehi Raẓons and ʾAḥeinu.Footnote 35 The special blessing for those who came to the synagogue was not recited at all in these countries.

For a long time, the Ashkenazim, too, did not adopt the practice outlined in Seder Rav Amram precisely, nor did they practice as the Sephardim did and incorporate the four Yehi Raẓons and ʾAḥeinu into Birkat ha-Ḥodesh. These passages do not appear in prayer books following the Ashkenazic custom from the thirteenth to fifteenth centuries,Footnote 36 nor in many of the books of customs and prayer books of the sixteenth to eighteenth centuries.Footnote 37 On the other hand, according to the Maḥzor Vitry (the early custom of France), the worshipper rolling up the Torah scroll on Shabbat at Minḥah should recite four Yehi Raẓons and ʾAḥeinu.Footnote 38 Seder Rav Amram's ruling that these passages should be recited on Mondays and Thursdays started to spread in the countries of Ashkenaz only in the seventeenth century.Footnote 39 A prayer book according to Ashkenazic and Polish custom (Amsterdam 1645/6) includes four Yehi Raẓon passages and ʾAḥeinu and instructs: “In Poland, they recite this on Mondays and Thursdays after the Torah reading.”Footnote 40 Indeed, from the middle of the seventeenth century, these passages designated for recitation on Mondays and Thursdays appear in many Ashkenazic prayer booksFootnote 41 and they were sometimes copied even in the handwritten kuntresim (pamphlets) of short prayers composed for Ashkenazic synagogues.Footnote 42 Thus, it appears that Ashkenazic Jewry did not follow the Sephardic custom to incorporate these passages in Birkat ha-Ḥodesh, and by the middle of the eighteenth century, they only recited Mi She-‘asah Nissim and announced the month by saying, “May such-and-such month be renewed, etc.”Footnote 43

In the late fifteenth century, Spanish exiles settled in western and eastern Europe, among other regions. The physical proximity between these exiles and their descendants and their Ashkenazic coreligionists meant that the Ashkenazim were exposed to Sephardic customs and prayer books printed beginning in the sixteenth century, and subsequently adopted some of the Sephardic prayer formulae.Footnote 44 It is reasonable to speculate that this had implications for the incorporation of Rav's prayer: the rabbis of Ashkenaz were introduced to the Sephardic custom to say a longer Birkat ha-Ḥodesh that includes four Yehi Raẓon passages and ʾAḥeinu; consequently, they sought to expand their own version. They did not adopt the Sephardic custom to formally insert the four Yehi Raẓon passages and ʾAḥeinu in the Birkat ha-Ḥodesh, because these passages were already being recited in some of the Ashkenazic communities on Mondays and Thursdays, as detailed above. Instead, one may hypothesize that they incorporated Rav's prayer because of its aforementioned attributes and established it as part of the Birkat ha-Ḥodesh.

The Dissemination of the Custom

As mentioned, I found the earliest instance of Rav's prayer in a maḥzor for the entire year printed in Prague in 1781/2. This maḥzor was printed by Bezalel Falklash and his brother-in-law Samuel Beḥor, and they noted on the inside page of the cover that it is based on the maḥzor for the whole year printed in Prague in the year 1756/7 by the brothers Yehudah and Lippman Bak. To make their work easier, Falklash and his brother-in-law printed the maḥzor according to their predecessors’ print layout, so that the first and last word of the prayers and the accompanying commentary would appear as they do in the 1756/7 maḥzor.Footnote 45 But they improved on the earlier maḥzor by correcting printing mistakes, also often rearranging the lines and changing the size of the letters. In a few places they even added sections; in these cases, they reduced the size of the letters in the adjacent sections to preserve the pagination of the 1756/7 maḥzor.Footnote 46 And so they did regarding the Yehi Raẓon: they added the Yehi Raẓon and ʾAv ha-Raḥamim prayers on one page (33) and reduced the size of the letters in other sections of the page so that the next page (34) would begin with the same word as in the earlier edition.

The maḥzor of 1781/2, like its predecessor, contained prayers according to the eastern Ashkenazic custom. At the end, customs for the whole year are detailed for the states of Böhmen, Poland, and Mähren, copied from R. Isaac Tyrnau's Sefer ha-minhagim le-kol ha-shanah, which summarizes the customs of Austria.Footnote 47 This shows that the Yehi Raẓon was apparently first incorporated in eastern Ashkenaz. In some places it was recited from a manuscript without being printed in the prayer books, as we see from the kuntresim of nineteenth-century synagogues, in which this Yehi Raẓon was hand-copied before Mi She-‘asah Nissim.Footnote 48 It is therefore possible that the Yehi Raẓon was recited from a handwritten text as a first step and printed in the prayer books at a later point. While the possibility that it may have been printed in an earlier, nonextant prayer book cannot be entirely discounted, I have not found it in any prayer book or synagogue kuntres dating before the year 1781/2.Footnote 49 A similar finding emerges from a study of the documentation of synagogue walls. In eastern Europe, from the seventeenth century onward, synagogue walls were covered with artistic writing of a variety of liturgical passages, some found in the prayer book and some not. The practice of writing liturgical passages on synagogue walls spread to Moravia and southern Germany. The Yeḥadshehu section of the Birkat ha-Ḥodesh was written on the decorated walls of some of the synagogues in the seventeenth to eighteenth centuries, and some also copied the Mi She-‘asah.Footnote 50 But the Yehi Raẓon was copied only later; the first case known to us is in the wooden synagogue in Zidichov in eastern Galicia, where it was written in 1809.Footnote 51 Printers of the Prague maḥzor apparently added the Yehi Raẓon to the maḥzor following the practice that began in their region a little before 1781/2 (or by the instruction of Rabbi Y. I. Landau), and did not initiate the custom themselves.

A trace of the older custom persists in the maḥzor's failure to update an instruction to the cantor that appears out of place in light of the addition of the Yehi Raẓon. In this maḥzor, before the Yehi Raẓon, it is written: “Before blessing the new month, say this prayer,” and before the Mi She-‘asah that follows, it says: “On the Shabbat before Rosh Ḥodesh, the cantor begins to chant Mi She-‘asah, etc.” The printers did not update the second instruction and left the original wording, instead of deleting the words “the Shabbat before Rosh Ḥodesh,” or moving these words to the first instruction.Footnote 52

The custom of saying the Yehi Raẓon began to spread in the early nineteenth century in Ashkenazic communities in eastern and western Europe, as can be cautiously concluded from the many prayer books in which it was printed at the time.Footnote 53 The variety of requests that the prayer contains may have made it popular among worshippers. In addition, its very presence in printed prayer books reinforced its status, as editors of new prayer books reprinted it after seeing it in earlier prayer books.

There are instances in which one can reasonably speculate about the date of the introduction of the custom of reciting the Yehi Raẓon in a particular place. Thus, for example, the Yehi Raẓon is not found in a kuntres from the Pinḥas synagogue in Prague in 1800, but it does appear in the kuntres of the same synagogue from the year 1822. The practice thus probably took hold within those years. In other cases, prayer-book editors interpolated a note before the Yehi Raẓon that “it is customary to say this,”Footnote 54 suggesting that not everyone did. In Amsterdam, there were indeed those who did not.Footnote 55 In one case the cantor was described as starting the Yehi Raẓon but not saying it aloud, and the congregation recited it “in a whisper as though slurring the words.” This form of utterance represents a kind of compromise between those who said the Yehi Raẓon and those who refrained from saying it.Footnote 56

There were also prayer books in which it was not printed at all. Of course, some prayer books were printed near the beginning of the spread of the new custom when it was not yet common.Footnote 57 But even later, it was not incorporated in all the prayer books. It was notably missing from kabbalistic prayer books, as well as Chabad hasidic prayer books based on the prayer book of Rabbi Shneur Zalman of Liady,Footnote 58 who established his liturgy according to Lurianic Kabbalah. In addition, some communities in western Ashkenaz did not say it, such as those of Frankfurt and Bechhofen.Footnote 59 Anthologies of late nineteenth-century cantorial music also indicate the precarious status of the Yehi Raẓon.Footnote 60

Why did some communities not adopt the custom of saying the Yehi Raẓon? Clearly, conservative communities would not be inclined to adopt a new practice. To the extent that the Amora Rav's prayer was seen as a replacement for the Yehi Raẓon for the “repair of the covenant,” kabbalists surely would not have made the switch. Finally, there were halakhic decisors who raised halakhic arguments against it: that it contradicts the halakhah that is taught in the Yerushalmi (Shabbat 15:3) that one must not make requests for one's personal needs on Shabbat. For example, Rabbi Yeḥiel Mikhel Epstein wrote in his book ʿArukh ha-shulḥan (ʾoraḥ ḥayim 417:9):Footnote 61

תמיהני האיך מותר להתפלל בשבת תפלה חדשה מה שאינה בטופס ברכות אלא תפלה בפני עצמה, ומבקשים על פרנסה ושארי צרכים, ואיך מותר בשבת … ואי איישר חילי אבטלינה.

I am surprised it is permitted to recite a new prayer on Shabbat that is not in the printed prayers but a prayer unto itself, where one asks for a livelihood and other needs, and how is this permitted on Shabbat. … And if I had the power, I would put an end to this.

Notes on the Prayer Formula of the Yehi Raẓon

The Yehi Raẓon in the Birkat ha-Ḥodesh was copied from tractate Berakhot with slight modifications. Below we will dwell on two significant changes as compared to the original wording in the Talmud.

Fear of Heaven and Fear of Sin

In the vast majority of the prayer books in which Yehi Raẓon appears from the end of the eighteenth century to the present day, it is copied with a change from the talmudic language: instead of the Talmud's “life in which there is fear of sin” חיים [או: וחיים] שיש בהם יראת חטא, the wording is “life in which there is fear of Heaven and fear of sin” חיים שיש בהם יראת שמים ויראת חטא. Few prayer books have the same wording as in the Talmud.Footnote 62 One that does is Seder ʿavodas Yisraʾel (Rödelheim 1867/8), where the editor-in-chief Yiẓḥak Seligman Ber notes the talmudic wording and observes that the wording in the printed edition of the prayer book (“fear of Heaven and fear of sin”) is erroneous because the phrase “a life in which there is love of Torah and fear of Heaven” is mentioned later in the talmudic passage. Indeed, this changed wording may be attributable to error, whether the error is that of the printer who made a mistake in copying the text available to him, or an error found in a manuscript on which the printer relied. There are in fact several discernible mistakes in some Yehi Raẓon versions preserved in hand-copied manuscripts.Footnote 63 It is therefore possible that the first printer of the Yehi Raẓon in a prayer book worked from a faulty manuscript.

If we assume that adding “fear of Heaven” before “fear of sin” is an error—how did this error come about? The error may be linked to the fact that the word יראת (fear of) appears twice in the Yehi Raẓon. The copyist may have accidentally copied the words “fear of Heaven” (יראת שמים) from the end of the Yehi Raẓon. Upon noticing his error, he added “fear of sin” (יראת חטא) without deleting “fear of Heaven.” This hypothesized course of action yielded the reading “fear of Heaven fear of sin.” A later copyist added the letter ו (and), to render the sentence intelligible.Footnote 64

A few prayer book editors did not presume to omit the extra words, instead enclosing them in parentheses: “life that has fear of (Heaven and fear of) sin,” or “life that has (fear of Heaven and) fear of sin.”Footnote 65 As mentioned, in most of the prayer books, the wording is given as “fear of Heaven and fear of sin.” Some included this formulation because they did not want to diverge from what was already accepted.Footnote 66 It may be that some did not want to correct the double reference to “fear of Heaven” because this would reinforce the aspiration for a life lived in “fear,” while others thought it was not a mistake at all. Among the latter, some offered interpretations to explain the repetition of language. One example is R. Aharon Yehudah Leib Steinman, who described “fear of Heaven and fear of sin” thus: “Sometimes there are those who fear God and do not fear violating Torah law, while there are those who fear to violate Torah law, but do not perceive that God has commanded and warned against committing transgressions. And we request that we may merit both.” And to explain the request for “love of Torah and fear of Heaven,” he wrote, “We ask that the love of the Torah come from fear of Heaven. Because there are people who have a love of Torah that does not come from the fear of Heaven (there were people who desecrated the Shabbat in order to come to hear words of Torah) but they enjoy study and reasoning, which is actually a love of wisdom and not a love of Torah.”Footnote 67

Through the Merit of Rav's Prayers

The first version that we found of Rav's prayer in the Birkat ha-Ḥodesh (the Prague maḥzor of 1781/2), reads at the end: “A life in which the prayers of our heart shall be fulfilled for the good through the merit of Rav's prayers, Amen Selah.” The ending “through the merit of Rav's prayers” (בזכות תפילות רב) is an addition not found in the Talmud, and is one of several very similar versions printed in the prayer books. Other than this version, which is rarely found in prayer books,Footnote 68 some have a version using the singular form: בזכות תפילת רב (through the merit of Rav's prayer),Footnote 69 while some read “Rav” in the plural: בזכות תפילת רבים (through the merit of the prayer of many)Footnote 70 or use similar language בזכות תפילות רבים (through the merit of the prayers of many).Footnote 71 Still others enclosed the words in parentheses (בזכות תפילות רבים).Footnote 72 But already at a relatively early stage, there were prayer books that did not include these three words at all,Footnote 73 and this was true later for most prayer books. At times one sees changes in a prayer book over the years from one printing to the next,Footnote 74 and, most recently, some prayer book editors have printed the two versions side by side in different ways.Footnote 75

The language “through the merit of the prayer of many” refers to the advantage of communal prayer, as mentioned in the Talmud (B. Berakhot 8a): “R. Nathan says: How do we know that the Holy One, blessed be He, does not despise the prayer of the congregation? etc.” The language “through the merit of the prayer of Rav” is a supplication that the prayer be accepted by virtue of being the prayer of the Amora Rav. The act of erasure or enclosing the three words within parentheses stemmed from the difficulty raised by each of the two versions. Why is there mention of the prayer of the congregation specifically in this prayer, or alternatively, why is it significant to mention specifically that it was composed by Rav?Footnote 76

Scholars were already attempting to grapple with these questions in the middle of the nineteenth century. R. Ẓvi Elimelekh Shapira of Dinov wrote that prayer books printed “through the merit of the prayer of many,” which he considered to be meaningless. He suggested that someone had written into the prayer book “Berakhot, the prayer of Rav” (ברכות תפילת רב) at the bottom of the page to identify this as the Amora Rav's prayer that appears in tractate Berakhot and that an ignoramus “corrected” it to read בזכות תפילת רבים (through the merit of the prayer of many).Footnote 77 This seems to indicate that that R. Ẓvi Elimelekh of Dinov did not see prayer books with the formula בזכות תפילת רב. Eliezer Landshot, in his commentary on the prayer book, explained the phenomenon slightly differently: “There are prayer formulae which conclude with בזכות תפילת רב and uneducated printers who did not know the meaning thought to correct the wording and inserted בזכות תפלת רבים.”Footnote 78 Landshot apparently saw a version without these words and thought it correct, and so established the text in the prayer book he edited. He also saw prayer books with the formula בזכות תפילת רב, and thought that this wording was misunderstood and consequently erroneously revised to בזכות תפילת רבים. But he did not explain why בזכות תפילת רב had been written in the prayer books to begin with.

It turns out that R. Ẓvi Elimelekh of Dinov's explanation was closer to the truth, and here, too, it involves an error in the text of the Yehi Raẓon. In the original version, someone copied Rav's prayer and cited its source either at the beginning or at the end: “Berakhot the prayer (or prayers) of Rav” (ברכות תפילת [או: תפילות] רב). The printer did not understand that this was solely meant as a heading or reference and thought it was a part of the prayer which had become garbled. To “fix” this he inserted these words, thereby changing the prayer formula to “by the merit of the prayer [or prayers] of Rav” (בזכות תפילת [או: תפילות] רב). It is a short step from here to the reading בזכות תפילת רבים, based on the mistaken idea that רב is an abbreviation of רבים. But I have not found any prayer book with the reading ברכות תפילת רב.

I mentioned above that perhaps the addition of the Yehi Raẓon may have been influenced by the suggestion of R. I. Horowitz (author of Shnei luḥot ha-brit [Shelah]) to recite the prayers of the talmudic sages. And indeed, Shelah copies the sages' prayers and names each one's composer at the end of his prayer. Horowitz did the same with Rav's prayer, which he concluded with the quotation: “where the prayers of our heart shall be fulfilled for the good and this is Rav's prayer,”Footnote 79 without the words “Amen Selah” which appear in the prayer books. The ending “and this is Rav's prayer” is written in Rashi script to indicate that it is not part of the prayer, and it is placed where the words בזכות תפילת רב appear in the prayer books. Horowitz, then, both copied Rav's prayer and noted its author. One may hypothesize that a later copyist took the prayer from Shelah and also accidentally included its clarification: וזו היא תפילת של רב, “and this is Rav's prayer.” At a certain stage someone thought that this was part of the prayer and therefore changed it to בזכות תפילת רב.

On the Yehi Raẓon in the Reform Movement's Prayer Books

The Reform Movement's prayer books often differed in the prayers they included, including changes even in the wording of a particular prayer from one prayer book to another.Footnote 80 The same happened with the Yehi Raẓon of Birkat ha-Ḥodesh. In prayer books from the second half of the nineteenth century, edited by Abraham Geiger, one of the founders of the Reform Movement, the Yehi Raẓon is missing.Footnote 81 There seemed to be no principled reason for this, and the omission might have stemmed from the fact that this prayer was not widespread at that time in Germany, where Geiger lived.

Other Reform Movement prayer books incorporated this passage. In two of them, the prayer begins with the usual formula and later the prayer is shorter. This is the wording in Siddur ha-tefillot le-shabbat:Footnote 82

ותתן לנו חיים ארוכים ובריאים, חיים של שלום, חיים של פרנסה, חיים שאין בהם בושה וכלימה, חיים שיש בהם אהבת תורה ויראת שמים, חיים שיש בהם מעשים טובים, חיים שיש בהם יושר ותבונה, השכל ודעת, חיים שימלאו משאלות לבנו לטובה ונאמר אמן.

And give us a long and healthy life, a life of peace, a life of sustenance, a life free of shame and humiliation, a life of love of Torah and fear of Heaven, a life of good deeds, a life of honesty and reason, intellect and knowledge, a life in which the prayers of our heart will be fulfilled for the good. And let us say Amen.

And this is the wording in Siddur seder ha-tefillot:Footnote 83

ותתן לנו חיים ארוכים, חיים של שלום, חיים של טובה, חיים של ברכה, חיים שיש בהם יראת שמים ויראת חטא, חיים שאין בהם בושה וכלימה, חיים של אהבת תורה, חיים שימלאו משאלות לבנו לטובה אמן.

And give us a long life, a life of peace, a life of goodness, a life of blessing, a life of fear of Heaven and fear of sin, a life free of shame and humiliation, a life of love of Torah, a life in which the prayers of our heart will be fulfilled for the good. Amen.

Both formulae are slightly different from the one discussed above. In the first version, a number of requests found in Rav's prayer are missing, and several new requests not found in his original prayer are added. The second version also lacks a number of Rav's requests, but no new ones have been added. In both versions, “fear of Heaven” was not repeated: in the first version, “fear of Heaven and fear of sin” were omitted, and in the second version, “fear of Heaven” linked to love of Torah was omitted. In contrast to these, in the Siddur tefillot har-ʾel the Yehi Raẓon is worded exactly as in most Orthodox prayer books, including the doubling of “fear of Heaven.”Footnote 84

* * * * *

Certain insights gleaned from the study of the evolution of the Yehi Raẓon can also be applied to other prayers. This case study shows that the structure of Jewish prayer is dynamic and has changed over the ages, with additions and omissions. The introduction of the Yehi Raẓon into the Birkat ha-Ḥodesh among Ashkenazic Jewry took place as a gradual process from the end of the eighteenth century, as it was slowly adopted in various regions of Ashkenaz and became part of the regular order of prayer. In other places, however, worshippers refrained from including it for various reasons. The initiative to add the prayer came from the influence of other prayer formulae; it may have been introduced as a substitute for a kabbalistic formula and it may have evolved as a substitute for the Sephardic version. When the prayer first began to be printed, it was printed with a number of errors, and over the generations, there were printers who noted the error and changed the wording, while some commentators tried to explain the wording as they found it.

Appendix

Synagogue Kuntresim (Pamphlets) Cited in the Article

  1. 1. Amsterdam (1847), MS Prague, The Jewish Museum 222

  2. 2. Biel/Buchel (Mannheim) (1747), MS Amsterdam, Bibliotheca Rosenthaliana 65

  3. 3. Bielitz (Germany) (1868), MS Cincinnati, Hebrew Union College Acc. 195

  4. 4. Breznitz (Czech Republic) (1825), MS Prague, The Jewish Museum 352

  5. 5. Człuchów (Poland) (1793), MS Prague, The Jewish Museum 68

  6. 6. Goitein (= Kojetin, Czech Republic) (1740), MS Prague, The Jewish Museum 56

  7. 7. Hainsfarth (Germany) (1757), MS Cincinnati, Hebrew Union College 790

  8. 8. Kalin (Czech Republic) (1672), MS Prague, The Jewish Museum 64

  9. 9. Kempna (in Breslau) (1765), MS New York, Yeshiva University Library 85

  10. 10. Kittsee (Austria) (1776), MS Prague, The Jewish Museum 16

  11. 11. Lieser (Breslau) (1837), MS Cincinnati, Hebrew Union College 780

  12. 12. Meisel (Prague) (1781), MS Prague, The Jewish Museum 83

  13. 13. Nikolsburg (1877), MS Jerusalem, National Library of Israel Heb. 40508

  14. 14. Nöttingen (Germany) (1800), MS Jerusalem, National Library of Israel Heb. 40704

  15. 15. Pinkas (Prague) (1801), MS Prague, The Jewish Museum 82

  16. 16. Pinkas (Prague) (1822), MS Prague, The Jewish Museum 74

  17. 17. Prague (1731), MS Cincinnati, Hebrew Union College 453

  18. 18. Reckingen (Switzerland) (1773), MS Tel Aviv, William L. Gross Collection 210

  19. 19. Świnoujście (Poland) (1825), MS Tel Aviv, William L. Gross Collection 258

  20. 20. Walsdorf (Germany) (1810), MS New York, Jewish Theological Seminary of America 854.1

  21. 21. Zalatow [Jastrowo] (Poland) (1806), MS Cincinnati, Hebrew Union College 833

Footnotes

My thanks to Dr. Eliezer Brodt, Prof. Moshe Halamish, and Prof. Yosef Tabory for their comments.

References

1. See, e.g., Reif, Stefan C., Judaism and Hebrew Prayer: New Perspectives on Jewish Liturgical History (Tel Aviv: Dvir, 2009/10), 235–64Google Scholar [in Hebrew]; Langer, Ruth, Cursing the Christians? A History of the Birkat Ha-Minim (New York: Oxford University Press, 2012), 102–38Google Scholar.

2. See, e.g., Maḥzor Vitry, ed. Aryeh Goldshmidt (Jerusalem: ʾOẓar Ha-poskim, 2009), 287; R. Eleazar b. Isaac of Worms (1165–1230), Perushei siddur ha-tefillah le-Rokeaḥ, ed. Moshe and Yehudah Hershler (Jerusalem: Mekhon Ha-Rav Hershler, 1981/2), 561–62.

3. Soncino 1884. There are differences in the manuscripts of the Talmud in this passage, but these are not presented here since this article concerns a custom that began when the printed text already spread around the world.

4. R. Eliyahu David Rabinovitz-Teomim (ADeReT) thought it was inappropriate to say החודש הזה on the Shabbat preceding Rosh Ḥodesh because the new month had not yet arrived, and so he instituted החודש הבא. See his statement quoted in Yeḥiel Mikhel Tokachinsky, Luaḥ le-ʾEreẓ Yisraʾel on the Shabbat before the month of Marḥeshvan. There were few prayer books that changed the wording. For example, Dov Natan Brinker, in Luaḥ Yerushalayim (Jerusalem, 1940/1) decided on החודש הבא while Daniel Goldschmidt in Siddur tefillat Yisraʾel (Ramat Gan: Masada, 1968/9) chose: “הזה [different version, הבא].” I would suggest that there is no need for revision, because the word הזה identifies not only something that is close at hand but occasionally also something more remote.

5. The Ashkenazic practice is to say: יחדשהו … לחיים ולשלום לששון ולשמחה לישועה ולנחמה ונאמר אמן. This is the custom of some Ashkenazic communities in Israel, such as the Belz Hasidim and those who follow the Ḥatam Sofer and Ḥazon Ish. Most Ashkenazim in Israel adopted the longer formula of the Sephardim, as can be seen in the most popular prayer books in use.

6. Following is a selection of siddurim (daily prayer books) and kuntresim (pamphlets) of Ashkenazic synagogues earlier than 1785/6 where the Yehi Raẓon does not appear in the prayer for the new month. Siddurim: Me-reshit ha-shanah ve-ʿad ʾaḥarit ha-shanah (Prague, 1756/7); Siddur siftei renanot (Fürth, 1763/4); Maḥzor ve-zeh shaʿar ha-shamayim (Altona, 1771/2); Seder tefillot ke-minhag ʾAshkenaz ve-Polin (Amsterdam, 1777/8); and Siddur tefillah ke-minhag k”k Amsterdam (Mantova, 1779/80). Synagogue kuntresim: Cologne, 1671/2; Prague, 1730/1; Goitein, 1739/40; Biehl, 1746/7; Heinsfarth, 1756/7; Kempne, 1764/5; Rekingen, 1772/3; Kittsee, 1775/6; and Meisel, 1780/1.

7. See Isaiah Tishby, The Wisdom of the Zohar, vol. 2 (Jerusalem: Mosad Bialik, 1960/1), 618–21 [in Hebrew]; Shiloh Pakhter, “Shmirat Ha-brit: The History of the Prohibition of Wasting Seed” (PhD diss., Hebrew University of Jerusalem, 2007), 139–68 [in Hebrew].

8. See Meir Benayahu, Maʿamadot ve-moshavot (Jerusalem: Yad HaRav Nissim, 1985), 77–87; Moshe Halamish, Ha-kabbalah be-tefillah be-halakhah u-ve-minhag (Ramat Gan: Bar-Ilan University, 2000), 571–75; Pakhter, “Shmirat Ha-brit,” 172–207.

9. On the reading of the first Torah portions of Exodus and the “restoration of the covenant” (tikkun ha-brit) see Ḥalamish, Maʿamadot, 571–75, 580–81, 589. For more on the eve of Rosh Ḥodesh and tikkun ha-brit, see 549, 563–64. On Tu bi-Shevat and tikkun ha-brit, see Boaz Huss, “The Sabbatean Origins of Seder Tu bi-Shevat” [in Hebrew], in Meir Benayahu Memorial Volume, ed. Moshe Bar-Asher et al. (Jerusalem: Carmel, 2019), 914–15.

10. The word חב"ו is formed from seventy-two words composed of three letters, each word composed of one letter from each of three verses in the book of Exodus 14, 19–21, each of these comprised of seventy-two letters. See Rashi, Sukkah 45a, s.v. ʾani ve-huʾ. The phrase is created according to a fixed order: the first and last verse are read normally while the middle verse is read backwards. The word חב"ו is formed from the sixty-eighth letters of the verses: the first (the ח from מאחריהם), the second (the ב from ןיב—reversed), and the third (the last ו of ויבקעו). The word חב"ו is found in the three letters before the last letters in the words יחד מארבע כנפות.

11. See Siddur ha-ReMeZ (Bitḥa: Mekhon Kol Bitḥa, 2016), 206.

12. On intentions in prayer regarding this subject, see Benayahu, Maʿamadot, 92, 95–104; Pakhter, “Shmirat Ha-brit,” 223–25. Benayahu, Maʿamadot, 95–96, copied the formula of the Yehi Raẓon of R. Yisraʾel Saruk and a longer version by R. Yisraʾel Yeshayahu Norẓi.

13. R. Meir Paprash, ʾOr ẓaddikim (Krotoschin, 1639/40), tikkun ha-tefillah, section 41. Following that section, the publisher, R. Yehudah Leib, wrote a commentary on the connection between the blessing of Kibbuẓ Galuyot and the wasting of seed. See also R. Meir Paprash, ʾOr ha-yashar, ed. R. Zvi Hirsch Ḥazan (Amsterdam, 1708/9), before Kibbuẓ Galuyot.

14. The word חב"ו is formed by the initial letters of the words חיל בלע ויקיאנו.

15. Such as in Tefillah mi-kol ha-shanah (Amsterdam, 1764/5); Tikkun Shlomo (Amsterdam, 1774/5); Tefillah mi-kol ha-shanah (Zoltzbach, 1778/9); and Seder tefillah (Zalkava, 1780/1). This is also mentioned by R. Yeḥiel Mikhel Epstein, Kiẓur shnei luḥot ha-brit (Fiorde, 1692/3), Ḥullin, laws of the Amidah prayer.

16. Such as the prayer books Shaʿarei raḥamim (Salonica, 1740/1); Seder tefillah mi-kol ha-shanah ke-minhag Polin (Amsterdam, 1778/9); Siddur kol Yaʿakov (Slavita, 1803/4); Tefillah yesharah (Radvil, 1819/20); and Seder tefillah mi-kol ha-shanah (Lemburg, 1865/6). In the prayer book Shaʿarei raḥamim, near Mi She-‘asah Nissim was written: “And my teacher once instructed a newly repentant Jew to rectify the sin of wasted seed … to direct his intentions as they bless the new month, when the cantor says Mi she-‘asah nissim the first letters of מי שעשה ניסים are שמן and using the א"ת ב"ש reversed alphabet, forms the word בי"ט, the holy name which can eject the sparks of holiness from the shells, and this is derived from the verse בי חשק ואפלטהו [Psalms 91:14] and later he should say Yehi Raẓon … that every drop of wasted seed spilled in vain. … Do this for the Holy Name בי"ט and with the Holy Name חב"ו and banish the shell and restore them to the place of holiness, and fulfill in us the verse ‘the Lord your God will restore your captivity … and return and gather you’ [Deut 30:3].”

17. See Seder tefillah mi-kol ha-shanah ki-minhag Polin (Amsterdam, 1768/9); Tefillah yesharah (Radvil, 1819/20); and Siddur tefillat Yisraʾel (Ostrog, 1832/3). In Seder maḥzor mi-kol ha-shanah (Dyhernfurth, 1771/2) there is no Birkat ha-Ḥodesh and prayer for weekdays, but this prayer appears on the reverse side of the title page, and there, too, the decision was to say it on holidays when the cantor reads U-mipnei Ḥata'einu. See Benayahu, Maʿamadot, 96.

18. See, e.g., R. Meir Paprash cited above. The word נידח was used frequently by the kabbalists when they cited the verse לבלתי ידח ממנו נדח (that none of us be banished) (2 Samuel 14:14) as an allusion to the transmigration of souls. See Gershom Scholem, Elements of the Kabbalah and Its Symbolism (Jerusalem: Mosad Bialik, 1981), 317 [in Hebrew]. Another way to rectify the sin of wasted seed related to Mi She-‘asah was suggested by R. Eliyahu Saliman Mani, Karnot ẓaddik (Baghdad: Raḥamim Ḥakham Reuven Press, 1866/7), 70a, in the name of the kabbalists: “When saying Mi She-‘asah Nissim, he should mention the hour of the first appearance of the new moon [mulad], which day, which hour, which part of the hour it will be.”

19. Thus, for example, in Maḥzor le-kol ha-shanah (Prague, 1781/2), where we found Rav's prayer in the Birkat ha-Ḥodesh for the first time.

20. On restricting the prohibition on wasting seed, see Pakhter, “Shmirat Ha-brit,” 244–75. There was a similar trend in Hasidism of minimizing stringencies in relation to the Ari's strict observance of cleanliness of the body. See Iris Brown (Hoizman), “Between ‘Rectification of Evil’ and ‘Plain Nonsense’: The Strict Requirement of ‘A Clean Body’ as a Case Study of the Relationship between Hasidism and Halakhah” [in Hebrew], Jerusalem Studies in Jewish Thought 24 (2014/5): 255–72.

21. In Tefillah yesharah (Radvil, 1820), the Yehi Raẓon about wasted seed was also printed in Birkat ha-Ḥodesh, as well as Rav's prayer. It appears that the printers wished to show worshippers both customs, as was a common practice. But if the background for incorporating Rav's prayer was to serve as a replacement for the Yehi Raẓon on wasting seed, then there is no reason to say both.

22. See Zeev Gries, The Hebrew Book: An Outline of Its History (Jerusalem: Mosad Bialik, 2015/6), 54–56 [in Hebrew].

23. On the struggle against Sabbatianism in Prague, see Maoz Kahana, From the Noda beYehudah to the Chatam Sofer: Halakhah and Thought in Their Historical Moment (Jerusalem: Merkaz Zalman Shazar, 2016), 104–10 [in Hebrew]. On Landau's opposition to kabbalistic prayers, see 67–68, 89–91, 119–22. On his opposition to praying using the intentions of the Ari, see 85–86. On the importance of the Talmud, see, e.g., 103. It should be noted that Landau did not eschew composing prayers himself when there was a need. It is known that in 1756, he composed a prayer for the welfare of Queen of Austria, Maria Theresa, and another prayer in 1787 for the success of her son, Joseph II, the emperor of Germany and the king of Hungary, before the emperor's journey, which was printed and distributed in the synagogues of Prague and the state of Böhmen, to be recited every day. See Aaron Ahrend, Israel's Independence Day—Research Studies (Jerusalem: Office of the Campus Rabbi of Bar-Ilan University, 1997/8), 188 [in Hebrew].

24. R. Shabtai Lifshitz, Shaʿarei raḥamim ʿal sefer shaʿarei Efraim (New York: Ḥevra Mefiẓei Torah, 1975), X, 49, wrote that in the Yehi Raẓon, the word ḥayim (life) appears eleven times, corresponding to eleven times a year that the new month is blessed on Shabbat, since on the Shabbat before Rosh Ḥodesh Tishrei, the blessing is not recited. This idea might have been influenced by the words of Baʿal ha-Rokeaḥ, who wrote that in the word יחדשהו there are twelve letters, corresponding to the twelve months; see Perushei siddur ha-tefillah le-Rokeaḥ, 562. Lifshitz's explanation is an allusion only, because Rav's prayer had never been associated with Rosh Ḥodesh.

25. See Maḥzor Vitry, 101; siddurim following French custom: MS Oxford, Corpus Christi College, 133 (1189); MS Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, Heb. 632 (thirteenth century); MS Paris, BnF Heb. 642 (fifteenth century).

26. See the prayer book of R. Shabtai Sofer, ed. Isaac Setz and David Yitzhaki, part 2 (Baltimore: Ner Yisrael Yeshiva, 1995), 170.

27. R. Isaiah Horowitz, Shnei luḥot ha-brit (Amsterdam, 1648/9), on the Torah scroll and on the synagogue, 251a.

28. See Siddur tefillah yesharah (Radvil, 1829/30); Siddur beis Yaʿakov (Zhitomir, 1881); and Siddur tefillas yesharim (Warsaw, 1897/8).

29. For example, Siddur tefillas ha-ḥodesh ke-minhag kehilat kodesh Sephardim (Vienna, 1892). R. Ḥayim Yosef David Azulay (Ḥida) also incorporated Rav's prayer when saying Tashlikh on Rosh ha-Shanah; see ʿAvodat ha-kodesh (Warsaw, 1873/4), Ẓiporan Shamir, par. 12. R. Yosef Ḥayim also incorporated Rav's prayer in several prayers that he composed, see his work Leshon ḥakhamim (Jerusalem, 1904/5), par. 57, 77.

30. On Shelah's influence on Hasidism, see references in Yaakov Elboim, Repentance and Self-Flagellation in the Writings of the Sages of Germany and Poland, 1348–1648 (Jerusalem: Magnes, 1992/3), 190n37 [in Hebrew].

31. See Ruth Langer, “Shelavim kedumim be-hitpatḥutah shel hoẓa'at sefer ha-torah ve-hakhnasatah be-beit ha-knesset bimei ha-beinayim,” Kenista 2 (2002/3): 102. On the Ashkenazic custom of reciting verses when taking out and returning the Torah scroll, see Langer, “Sinai, Zion, and God in the Synagogue: Celebrating Torah in Ashkenaz,” in Liturgy and the Life of the Synagogue, ed. Steven Fine and Ruth Langer (Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 2005), 121–59.

32. Seder Rav Amram Gaon bar Sheshna, ed. Yizḥak Akiva Satz (Jerusalem: Mekhon Jerusalem, 2012/3), s.v. tefillat ḥol, 226. These passages appear in three manuscripts of the treatise. This is the wording of the Mi She-berakh: “May He who blessed Abraham, Isaac, and Israel our forefathers bless all our brothers and sisters of Israel who come to the places of worship and study for prayer and charity. May the Holy One blessed be He hear their prayer and do their will and fulfill their wishes for good, and let us say Amen.”

33. Regarding its mention on Rosh Ḥodesh in Seder Rav Amram Gaon, ed. Daniel Goldschmidt (Jerusalem: Mosad ha-Rav Kook, 1971/2), 88, the editor wrote there that this was a later addition influenced by the Sephardim.

34. Thus, in Sefer kolbo, ed. David Abraham, part 2 (Jerusalem: n.p., 1989/90), 217. Also R. David Abudharam, Abudharam ha-shalem (Jerusalem: Usha, 1959), 193; R. Israel Alnekaveh, Menorat ha-maʾor (New York: Bloch, 1929/30), 187. Also the following Sephardic prayer books: Parma-Platina 1780, from the fourteenth century; Parma-Platina 1911, from the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries (without the ʾAḥeinu); Parma-Platina 1791, from the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries (without the ʾAḥeinu). Also later, but without ʾAḥeinu, such as in the Seder tefillot ke-minhag kehilot kodesh Sephardim (Amsterdam, 1647/8); Seder tefillot ke-minhag kehilot kodesh Sephardim (Livorno, 1740); Siddur shaʿarei raḥamim (Salonica, 1741); and Siddur beit menuḥah (Livorno, 1843). The custom of Yemen to announce the new month on the preceding Shabbat only began in the seventeenth century, and entailed saying four Yehi Raẓon passages only on Shabbat Mevarkhin, and was influenced by the arrival in Yemen of Sephardic prayer books. See Moshe Gavra, Meḥkarim be-siddurei teiman (Bnei Brak: Makhon le-ḥeker ḥakhme Teiman ve-Khitvehem, 1999/2000), 471–73.

35. In the Maḥzor minhag Roma, MS Parma-Platina 3008 (fourteenth century), there are four Yehi Raẓon passages only at Minḥah on Shabbat. In Maḥzor Roma MS Parma-Platina 3132 (1403) there are four Yehi Raẓon passages only in Mondays and Thursdays. The Rome maḥzor, MS Oxford, Or. 27, Bodleian (1481) does not have four Yehi Raẓons and ʾAḥeinu on Monday and Thursday and Shabbat at Minḥah. Later, the four Yehi Raẓons and ʾAḥeinu were said on Monday and Thursday and on Shabbat at Minḥah, as well, see the Maḥzor Roma, MS Parma-Platina 2738 (1489); Maḥzor ke-minhag Roma (Soncino-Casal Maggiore) (1485–1486) (Jerusalem: Magnes, 2011/2) (photocopy); Maḥzor ke-minhag kehillat kodesh Roma (Bologna, 1540/1); Maḥzor kol ha-shanah ke-fi minhag kehillat kodesh ʾitaliani (Livorno, 1855/6).

36. As in the following prayer books: MS London, Add. 27556, British Library (thirteenth and fourteenth centuries); MS London, 27086, British Library (fourteenth century); MS London, Add. 27208, British Library (fourteenth century); MS Jerusalem National Library, Heb. 804199 (fourteenth to fifteenth centuries); MS Cincinnati 436, Hebrew Union College (1435); MS Parma-Platina 3144 (1449); MS Parma-Platina 2895 (1449–53); MS Budapest 369, Kaufmann (1456). Jonah Frankel, “The Study of the Ashkenaz Siddur: 200 Years after the Heidenheim Siddur” [in Hebrew], Jewish Studies 41 (2001/2): 32, stated that they are not in the western Ashkenazic prayer books of the thirteenth century. His son, Abraham Frankel, told me that his father's investigation showed that they do not appear in the prayer books of Ashkenaz in the Middle Ages.

37. They do not appear in Sefer MaHRiL and in Sefer ha-minhagim of Worms. Following are a few of the prayer books where they are not found: Seder tefillot ke-minhag ha-ʾashkenazim (Venice, 1547/8); Siddur Rav Herẓ Shaẓ (Tihingen, 1559/60); Seder tefillot me-kol ha-shanah ke-fi minhag kehillat kodesh ha-ʾashkenazim (Venice, 1586/7); Tefillot me-kol ha-shanah (Krakow, 1596/7); Siddur tefillot ke-minhag ha-ʾashkenazim ve-Polin (Hanover, 1615/6); Seder tefillot (Frankfurt-on-Oder, 1749/50); Seder tefillot me-kol ha-shanah (Amsterdam, 1750/1); Siddur tefillot ke-minhag kehillot kodesh ʾashkenazim (Mantova, 1779/80); Seder tefillot (Amsterdam, 1779/80); Maḥzor le-kol ha-shanah (Prague, 1781/2); and Tefillah mesudarah, mehudarah, u-meʿutarah (Piorda, 1805/6). R. Josef Josefa Segal, Noheg ka-ẓon Yosef, ed. Amiḥai Kinarti (Sha'alvim: Mekhon Shlomo Oman, 2018), 56, attests that they were not said in Frankfurt. Yiẓḥak Ber, ʿAvodat Yisraʾel (Redelheim, 1867/8), 124, also attests regarding the four Yehi Raẓons and ʾAḥeinu on weekdays: “In some communities, they are not said.” R. Eliezer ben Samuel Ẓvi, Siaḥ ha-sadeh (Lublin, 1644/5), 3a, proposed when rolling the Torah scroll to say another Yehi Raẓon: ‘שיגולו רחמיך על מידותיך ויכבשו רחמיך את כעסך וכו. His words were cited by R. Judah Leib Poḥvitsher, Divrei ḥakhamim, vol. 2 (Hamburg, 1692/3), par. 147.

38. On Mi She-berakh for synagogue attenders: it is mentioned as being said at Minḥah on Shabbat only in some versions of the treatise: in the ancient MS Paris 535, Kalgsblad Sassoon (twelfth century) and in MS Moscow 841, Russian State Library, Ginzberg Collection. But it does not appear in MS London 655, British Museum Margaliot, MS Parma-Platina 2574, and MS New York 8092, Jewish Theological Seminary. See Maḥzor Vitry, 2:299. It may have been deleted from some of the manuscripts because it was superfluous, since beginning in the twelfth century, a Mi She-berakh would be said for the congregation on Shabbat morning. See Avraham Yaʿari, “Tefillot mi she-berakh: Hishtalshelutan, minhageihen, ve-nusḥaoteihen,” Kiryat sefer 33 (1958/9): 119–20. Later it was no longer said.

39. There are a few earlier accounts. R. Menaḥem ben R. Josef, Seder Troyes (Frankfurt, 1904/5), par. 6, noted that one should say Yehi Raẓon (without specifying which) on Mondays and Thursdays and Shabbat at Minḥah when rolling up the Torah. And Abraham Frankel told me that in some French manuscripts which are not early the Yehi Raẓon and Mi She-berakh appear for Mondays and Thursdays (personal communication, May 6, 2019).

40. A gloss dated to ca. the sixteenth-seventeenth century, on Sefer ha-minhagim of R. Eisik Tirna [Isaac Tyrnau], ed. Shlomo Spitzer (Jerusalem: Mekhon Jerusalem, 1978/9), 32, mentions that the Yehi Raẓon is said after the Torah reading, but does not specify which Torah reading is meant.

41. Below are examples of prayer books where they appear: Tefillot me-kol ha-shanah (Lublin, 1647/8); Shaʿar ha-shamayim (Amsterdam, 1741/2); ʿAmudei shamayim (Altona, 1744/5); Siddur siftei renanot (Piorda, 1764); Tefillah me-kol ha-shanah (Amsterdam, 1805/6); Seder tefillah me-kol ha-shanah (Amsterdam, 1768/9); Maḥzor le-kol ha-shanah (Prague, 1781/2); Seder ha-tefillah (Offenbach, 1805/6); Tefillah mesudarah, mehudarah, u-meʿutarah (Piorda, 1806/7); Seder ha-tefillot me-kol ha-shanah (Amsterdam, 1818/9); and Siddur tefillot Yisraʾel (Piorda, 1822/3).

42. Such as the following synagogue kuntresim: Prague, 1730/1; Goitein, 1739/40; Reckingen, 1772/3; Kittsee, 1775/6; Meisel, 1780/1; Człuchów, 1792/3; Nottingen, 1799/1800; Walsdorf, 1809/10; and Świnoujście, 1824/5. The short prayers that were not printed in the prayer book, or were said from the bima, include, e.g., Kabbalat Shabbat, Yakum Purkan, Birkat ha-Ḥodesh, Mi She-berakh, Yizkor, and yahrzeit dates. In the Institute of Microfilmed Hebrew Manuscripts at the National Library of Israel there are photocopies of some 130 kuntresim, some from the seventeenth century and most from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.

43. Four Yehi Raẓons and ʾAḥeinu were added to be said when the Torah scroll was taken out of the Ark, apparently because of the desire to take advantage of the presence of the Torah to express requests. The Ashkenazim, whose custom it was to say these passages when rolling up the Torah scroll, also wished to add content to the time spent waiting for the Torah to be rolled up and reclad in its mantle. See Ismar Elbogen, Jewish Liturgy: A Comprehensive History (Tel Aviv: Dvir, 1987/8), 150–51 [in Hebrew], who explains the difference between Ashkenazic and Sephardic custom in this matter.

44. See Leopold Zunz, Rites of Synagogue Liturgy (Jerusalem: World Union of Jewish Studies, 2015/6), 150 [in Hebrew]; Reif, Judaism and Hebrew Prayer, 235–64; Josef Tabory, “Hashpaʿat geirush Sefarad ʿal nusaḥ ha-tefillah,” in Tiferet le-Yisraʾel: Jubilee Volume in Honor of Israel Francus, ed. Joel Roth, Menahem Schmelzer, and Yaacov Francus (New York: The Jewish Theological Seminary, 2009/10), 289–307.

45. For more on this custom, see Yaakov Shmuel Spiegel, Chapters in the History of the Jewish Book: Hadar ha-meḥaber (Jerusalem: n.p., 2017/18), 446–47 [in Hebrew]; Simcha Emanuel, Hidden Treasures from Europe, vol. 2 (Jerusalem: Mekiẓei Nirdamim, 2019), 318 [in Hebrew].

46. Thus, for example, on page 23 they added to the Monday and Thursday Torah readings, Ve-yehi Bi-neo'a, Brikh Shmei, and Le-David Mizmor, and reduced the size of the letters in other passages on pages 23–24 so they could use the next page (24) of the maḥzor printed in 1756/7.

47. On the circulation of this book in eastern Europe and Poland, see Meir Raffeld, “Prayer Customs between Poland and Ashkenaz: Initial Considerations of the Influence of the Customs of Rabbi Isaac Tyrnau” [in Hebrew], in The Paths of Daniel: Studies in Judaism and Jewish Culture in Honor of Rabbi Professor Daniel Sperber, ed. Adam S. Ferziger (Jerusalem: Bar-Ilan University, 2006/7), 337–56.

48. Such as the following kuntresim: Zalatow [Jastrowo], 1805/6; Pinḥas in Prague, 1821/2; Breznitz, 1824/5. And later, such as: Bialitz, 1867/8; Nikolsberg, 1876/7. In addition, a fragment of parchment was preserved with only this Yehi Raẓon handwritten on it, see MS Heb. 3357.4, Jerusalem, HNL (eighteenth–nineteenth centuries). See also below about the writing on the synagogue in Zidichov.

49. For that reason, Idelsohn's statement is a bit premature that this prayer entered the Polish prayer formula in the first half of the eighteenth century (and according to him, reached Ashkenaz ca. 1830). See Abraham Ẓvi Idelsohn, Jewish Liturgy and Its Development (New York: Schocken, 1960), 141. This process whereby a new prayer is first read from a page or a kuntres and later included in the prayer book also occurred with the Prayer for the State of Israel and the Prayer for the Welfare of IDF Soldiers. See Aaron Ahrend, “Prayers for the Welfare of Soldiers in the Modern Era” [in Hebrew], ʿAlei sefer 24–25 (2014/5): 303–4, 309–10.

50. Tamar Shadmi, “Wall Inscriptions in East European Synagogues: Their Sources, Meanings, and Role in Shaping the Concept of Space and Worship” (PhD diss., Bar-Ilan University, 2010/11) [in Hebrew], describes twenty-six synagogues in Poland, four in Moravia, and four in southern Germany from the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. She found in three of them Mi She-‘asah and Yeḥadshehu, and in seven, only Yeḥadshehu; see 70–71. The synagogue in Traenheim in Alsace was also decorated with Mi She-‘asah and Yeḥadshehu. See Zvi Orgad, “Eliezer-Zusman: An Eighteenth-Century Synagogue Painter at Work” (PhD diss. Bar-Ilan University, 2007/8), 521 [in Hebrew].

51. See Shadmi, “Wall Inscriptions,” 156–57. A photocopy of the section is brought at the end of the work. In this synagogue, only the Yehi Raẓon was copied from Birkat ha-Ḥodesh. The section was dated according to Alois Breyer, “Die holzernen Synagogen in Galizien und Russisch-Polen aus dem 16., 17. und 18. Jahrhundert” (Wien, 1913), S. 28. Some dated it earlier, to 1792–1809; see Maria and Kazimierz Piechotka, Heaven's Gates: Wooden Synagogues in the Territories of the Former Polish Lithuanian Commonwealth (Warsaw: Wydawnictwo Krupski i S-ka, 2004), 381. The wall of the synagogue in Łańcut, Poland, has the three sections: Yehi Raẓon, Mi She-ʿasah, and Yeḥadshehu, but the inscription is from 1910, as attested by Michael Waltzer, “The Synagogue—Reality and Legend,” in Łańcut: The Life and Destruction of a Jewish Community, ed. Michael Waltzer and Nathan Kudish (Tel Aviv: Association of Former Residents of Łańcut in Israel and the USA, 1963), 33.

52. The word “begins” also seems inappropriate if the Yehi Raẓon comes first. These two instructions in similar language are also found in later prayer books, even though the custom of saying the Yehi Raẓon had already been accepted. This indicates the phenomenon prevalent among printers to copy from an older prayer book without making any change. Incidentally, a list of customs appearing at the end of the maḥzor includes that on the Shabbat before Rosh Ḥodesh “the month is blessed by saying Mi She-‘asah Nissim.” There, too, the printers did not update it to note that the Yehi Raẓon is also said.

53. Such as Seder tefillot (Offenbach, 1805/6); Tefillah mesudarah, mehudarah, u-meʿutarah (Piorda, 1806/7); Siddur tikkun Shlomo (Amsterdam, 1808/9); Siddur safah berurah (Rödelheim, 1819/20); Siddur tefillot Yisraʾel ke-minhag ʾAshkenaz ve-Polin (Piorda, 1822/3); Siddur tefillat yesharim (Vienna, 1831/2); and Siddur tefillat Yisraʾel (Ostrog, 1822/3).

54. Thus, for example, Siddur tefillah yesharah (Radvil, 1819/20); Siddur higayon lev (Koenigsberg, 1845); and Siddur ʾor ha-yashar shel ḥasidei Koidinov (Vilna, 1927/8). Similar language is found in a book which had a strong influence concerning the laws of reading the Torah, see R. Efraim Zalman Margaliot, Shaʿarei Efraim (Dubna, 1819/29), 10, 36.

55. In a synagogue kuntres from Amsterdam (1846/7), there is no Yehi Raẓon before Mi She-‘asah. It is possible that later, they did say it there.

56. The quote is from Yehudah Brillman, Sefer minhagei Amsterdam (Jerusalem: Mekhon Yerushalayim, 2001/2), 29. This is the custom in Amsterdam to this day, in order to avoid uttering supplications on Shabbat; see below. Also the Karlin Hasidim would say the Yehi Raẓon in a whisper; see Joshua Heschel Shor, “Minhagei Karlin rabbeini ha-kadosh me-Stolin Karlin be-‘inyanei ha-ḥodesh u-moʿadav,” Koveẓ beit Aharon ve-Yisrael 88 (1999/2000): 117. On saying it in a whisper as a compromise, see Daniel Sperber, Minhagei Yisraʾel, vol. 2 (Jerusalem: Mosad HaRav Kook, 1990/1), 37–38, 162, 167. On its gradual acceptance in London in the mid-nineteenth century, see Yiẓḥak Shabtai Lerner, Torat ha-minhagim: The Minhag of the United Synagogue London (Gateshead, UK: G.J.B.S., 1993/4), 14 [in Hebrew].

57. Such as Siddur ve-yeʿatar Yiẓḥak (Berlin, 1784/5); Seder tefillah derekh yesharah (Offenbach, 1792/3); Seder maḥzor (Zoltzbach, 1793/4); Seder he-tefillot ke-minhag ʾAshkenaz (Amsterdam, 1818/9); and Seder tefillot ke-fi-minhag ʾAshkenaz (Verona, 1825/6). Also, it does not appear in many synagogue kuntresim that were copied by hand, e.g., Człuchów, 1792/3; Walsdorf, 1809/10; Świnoujście, 1824/5.

58. Such as Kol Yaʿakov (Slavita, 1803/4); Seder tefillot me-kol ha-shanah (Kapost, 1815/6; based on R. Shlomo Zalman of Liady); Seder tefillah me-kol ha-shanah (Lemberg, 1865/6); Siddur tehillat ha-Shem (Brooklyn: Merkos Le-ʿInyonei Chinuch, 1985/6); Siddur ha-Ari (Bnei Brak, 2010/11).

59. See R. Solomon Zalman Geiger, Divrei kehillot (Frankfurt am Main: J. Kaufmann, 1865/6), 89–90; Mordekhai Halevi Horowitz, SHUT mateh Levi, vol. 2 (Frankfurt, 1932/3), par. 24; Shlomo Katanka, ed. Makom she-nahagu: Minhag Bechofen (London: Mekhon Moreshet Ashkenaz, 2010/11), 10. Also R. Moshe Ḥatam Sofer did not say it, see Akiva Menaḥem Sofer, Minhagei Ḥatam Sofer (Jerusalem: Mekhon Ḥatam Sofer, 2015/6), 83.

60. There is no musical arrangement for this segment in Louis Lewandowski, Kol rinah u-tefillah (Berlin: Bote und Bock, 1882). In Baer's important work there is a musical composition but it is a relatively simple chant and does not involve cantorial singing or a choir, and the prayer formula is a local one (Alte Weise). See Abraham Baer, Baal T'fillah oder der practische Vorbeter (Gothenburg: the author, 1877), 142. Baer also notes that some of the communities do not recite this passage. In the twentieth century, cantorial renditions were composed for this prayer. My thanks to Dr. Amalia Kedem for her assistance.

61. See also R. Moshe Ḥayim Litsch-Rosenbaum, Matah de-Yerushalayim (Pressburg, 1874/5), on Y. Shabbat 15:3, who recommends not saying Yehi Raẓon because it is forbidden to make a request for one's livelihood on Shabbat. R. Solomon Ẓvi Shick, SHUT Rashban (Munkacs, 1899/1900), ʾoraḥ ḥayim, par. 175, was opposed for this reason to saying the passage, “a life of sustenance.” See R. Ḥayim of Brisk, quoted in R. Moshe Sternbuch, SHUT teshuvot ve-hanhagot, vol. 3 (Jerusalem, 1996/7), 95. On saying supplications on Shabbat, see Gedalyah Oberlander, “ʾIssur ʾamirat teḥinot u-bakashat ẓerakhav be-Shabbat lefi shitat ʾadmor ha-zaken be-sidduro,” in Ha-siddur: Mivneh ve-nusaḥ sidduro shel ʾadmor ha-zaken baʿal ha-tanya, ed. Gedlayah Oberlander (Monsey, NY: Heikhal Menaḥem, 2002/3), 396–426; Binyamin Shlomo Hamburger, “Mi she-beirakh le-ḥoleh be-Shabbat,” Ḥiẓei giborim 7 (2003/4): 167–229.

62. E.g.: Siddur tikkun Shlomo (Metz, 1819/20); Siddur tefillat Yisraʾel (Metz, 1826/7); Siddur tikkun Shabbat (Amsterdam, 1827/8); Siddur tefillah le-kol ha-shanah (Paris, 1877); and Siddur tefillot Yisraʾel (Frankfurt, 1895).

63. In the Lieser synagogue kuntres of 1836/7, there are mistakes, some of which were corrected in notes. Following is part of the prayer formula with corrections:

יהי רצון מלפניך י'י אלהי ואלוהי אבותי שתתחדש עלינו את החודש הזה ... ותתן לנו חיים ארוכים [חיים של שלום] חיים של טובה ... חיים שיש בהם יראת שמים [ויראת חטא] חיים שאין [בהן] בושה וכלימה ... חיים שיש בו משאלות לבנו לטובה [בזכות תפילת הרבים] אמן סלה

Also in MS Jerusalem, Heb. 3357.4, from the eighteenth–nineteenth century, a parchment with only this Yehi Raẓon contains errors, as follows: (1) אלהי ואלהי אבותי in the singular form while the following instance of the phrase is in the plural; (2) a life with יראת שמים and no mention of חיים שימלא משאלות (3) ;יראת חטא without specifying who is the agent; (4) the garbled phrasing: משאלות לבנו לטובה רב בזכות תפילת רבים.

64. Some prayer books have another error, which reads: חיים שיש בהם יראת שמים (life which has fear of Heaven) without יראת חטא (fear of sin). This mistake may have been caused when a copyist mistakenly wrote “fear of Heaven” according to what he saw later in the prayer and did not correct his error.

See also in the Lieser synagogue kuntres of 1836/7 and in MS Jerusalem, Heb. 3357.4; prayer book with commentary of Ra'aven (R. Eliezer ben Nathan) (Ostrog, 1826/7); and Siddur ʾor la-yesharim (Zhitomir, 1863/4).

65. Like the first possibility in Siddur beit Yaʿakov (Warsaw, 1880/1) and in Siddur tefillat Yisraʾel (Ramat Gan: Masada, 1963/4); like the second possibility in Siddur David ha-melekh (Jerusalem: Kollel Tiferet Binyamin, 2011/12), and Siddur kimḥa de-Avishuna (Toronto: Mekhon Yerushalayim, 2013/14).

66. That is the reason for it in Siddur rinat Yisraʾel. See R. Shlomo Tal, Ha-siddur be-hishtalsheluto (Jerusalem: Natan Tal, 1984/5), 77.

67. R. Aryeh Yehudah Leib Steinman, Yemalei pi tehillatekha (Bnei Brak, 2014/15), 355. See more in this direction in R. Baruch Epstein, Barukh she-ʾamar (Tel Aviv: ʿAm ʿOlam, 1967/8), 266. For additional commentaries, see R. Moses Sternbuch, Taʿam ve-daʿat, Breishit (Jerusalem, 1961/2), 200; R. Ẓvi Elimelekh Waxman, Tiferet Elimelekh (Monsey, NY: Ḥad ve-Ḥalak, 1993/4), 210; R. Yaʿakov Goldberg, Dvir kodsho—Moʿadim I (Jerusalem: Ha-mishpaḥah, 2007/8), 536.

68. It appears in Siddur kol Yaʿakov (Jerusalem, 1934/5).

69. Synagogue kuntres in Nikolsburg, 1877; Siddur beit Yehudah (New York: Der Morgen Journal, 1914). That was also the Berlin custom, see Ḥayim Biberfeld, Minhagei beit ha-midrash ha-yashan de-kehilat kodesh Berlin (Berlin, 1936), 2. Also in Bobov Hasidism, see Siddur ẓeloteh di-Shlomoh (Brooklyn, NY: Makhon Ḥen David, 2001). Further, on the Vizhnitz custom, see Mordekhai Genut, Luaḥ davar be-ʿito, 5771 (Kiryat Arba, [2011]), 263. The variant forms תפילת/תפילות could have been caused by the fact that תפילות was printed without the ו. And in Siddur Ḥemdat Yisraʿel (Munkacs, 1901), the words were enclosed in parentheses: (בזכות תפילת רב).

70. Synagogue kuntres from Zalatow [Jastrowo], 1805/6; Seder ha-tefillah (Offenbach, 1805/6); Tefillah mesudarah, mehudarah, u-meʿutarah (Piorda, 1806/7); Tefillah yesharah (Radvil, 1819/20); ʿAvodas Yisraʾel (Vienna, 1855). The same is true of the synagogue wall in Zidichov. R. Tzvi Elimelekh Shapira of Dinov, who died in 1841, reported such wording in his book Magid taʿalumah (Premishla, 1875/6), see on B. Berakhot 16b. This was the practice of the Rebbe of Spinka, see Minhaegi Spinka (Bnei Brak: Spinka Hasidic Association, 1981), 36, and R. Shimshon Altman, Naḥal sorek (Bnei Brak, 2015/6), 103. And so, too, the custom of the Boyan Hasidism, see Avraham Schreiber, Luaḥ halikhot yom: Bayan (Brooklyn, NY: Halikhot Yom Institute, 2017), 327.

71. Kuntres of the Pinḥas Synagogue (Prague, 1821/2); synagogue kuntres of Breznitz, 1824/5; Seder ʿiyyun tefillah (Prague: M. Landa, 1839/40); Siddur beit Yaʿakov (Petrikov, 1891/2).

72. Siddur tefillah yesharah (Radvil, 1829/30); Kos yeshuʿot (Prague, 1867); Siddur ‘atirat Yiẓḥak (Vienna, 1911/12); Tefillot yesharim (Vienna, 1935).

73. E.g., Tikkun Shlomoh (Metz, 1819/20); Tefillat Yisraʾel (Metz, 1826/7); Safah berurah (Rödelheim, 1834/5); Siddur tefillat Yisrael (Berlin, 1859); Siddur le-sivlonot (Hanover, 1839/40); and Seder ha-tefillot (Paris, 1885).

74. For example, when Siddur tikkun Shlomoh was printed in Amsterdam in 1808/9, the formula was fixed as: בזכות תפילת (רב). This means that the editor had a previous version: בזכות תפילת רב. When the prayer book was printed there in 1814/5, it was fixed as: בזכות תפלת רבים and when the prayer book was printed in Metz in 1819/20, these three words were omitted.

75. Siddur tefillah yesharah he-ḥadash (Jerusalem, 1990/1) is the prayer book of R. Levi Isaac Halevi Horowitz, the Bostoner Rebbe, which had this version: בזכות תפילת רב ותפילת רבים. A Belz custom is brought by Meir Weiss, Luaḥ temidim ke-sidram (Bnei Brak: Mekhon Halakhot u-Minhagim she-‘al yad Hasidei Belz Makhnovka, 2004/5), 407, and it includes a linguistically erroneous formula: בזכות תפילת רב רבים. But the Belzer Rebbe used to say בזכות תפילת רב, see R. Yiẓḥak Yeshayahu Weiss, “Me-rishumei mekhon Ẓefunot ʾodot kitvei yad,” Ẓefunot 1 (1988/9): 92. Siddur Maharal me-Prag (Jerusalem: Mekhon Yerushalayim, 2005/6), put in brackets [בזכות תפלת רב\רבים], and thus allowed the worshipper to choose a version. Siddur ha-Shelah ha-shalem shaʿar ha-shamayim (Jerusalem: ʾAhavat Shalom, 1987/8), added double parentheses ((בזכות תפילת רב (רבים); apparently the intention was to erase the two options.

76. This led to various explanations. For explanations of Rav's prayer, see: Shapiro, R. Ḥayim Elazar, Divrei Torah, 4th ed. (Jerusalem: ʾEmet-ʾOr Torah Muncacs, 2006/7)Google Scholar, par. 107; Dinar, R. Zev, Minhagei morenu ha-Rav Yosef Zvi Halevi (Bnei Brak: Mekhon Le-hoẓa'at Sifrei Masoret Ashkenaz, 2015–16), 3Google Scholar. For explanations on תפלת רבים, see Zilberstein, R. Yiẓḥak and Rothschild, R. Moshe, Torat ha-yoledet (Bnei Brak: Tefuẓah, 1985/6), 117Google Scholar; Ba-Gad, Yosef, Ba Gad le-fninei ha-gaon R. Avraham Krol, vol. 1 (Petaḥ Tikvah: Mekhon Ha-sugiyot Shas be-Shas she-le-yad Yeshivat Neḥalim, 2002/3), 143Google Scholar.

77. Magid taʿalumah. See also ʿArukh ha-shulḥan, ʿorah ḥayim 417:9; Barukh She-ʾamar, 269–70; R. Aryeh Leib Gordon, “Tikkun tefillah,” in Siddur ʾoẓar tefillot (New York: Sefer, 1945/6), for an explanation of Yehi Raẓon.

78. Siddur higayon lev, ed. Eliezer Landshot, notes by Hirsch Edelmann (Koenigsberg, 1845).

79. Shnei luḥot ha-brit (Amsterdam, 1649), 258a. Also in Shnei luḥot ha-brit (Frankfurt, 1716/7), but instead of תפילת, it is written as the plural תפילות.

80. On the differences in prayer formulae in the Reform Movement, see Elbogen, Jewish Liturgy, 292–327; Marx, Dalia Sarah, “Ha-tefillah ha-reformit le-doroteha u-le-merkazeha,” in Reform Judaism: Thought, Culture and Sociology, ed. Rosenak, Avinoam (Jerusalem: Van Leer Institute, 2014), 307–46Google Scholar; Nurit Eliyasaf, “The Intra-Lingual and Inter-Lingual Translation of the Siddur by the American Reform Movement as an Expression of the Movement's Ideological Changes and in Light of the Historical Events and Social Transformations That Took Place from the Middle of the Nineteenth Century until 2007” (master's thesis, Bar-Ilan University, 2016) [in Hebrew].

81. See Seder tefillah dvar yom be-yomo. Israelitisches Gebetbuch für den öeffentlichen Gottesdienst im ganzen Jahre, mit Einschluss der Sabbathe und säemmtlicher Feier-Und Festtage, ed. Abraham Geiger (Breslau: J. Hainauer, 1854); Seder tefillah dvar yom b-yomo: Israelitisches Gebetbuch für den öffentlichen Gottesdienst im ganzen Jahre, im Einverständnisse mit der Gemeinde-Verwaltung in Frankfurt a. M. bearb, ed. Abraham Geiger (Berlin: Gerschel, 1870).

82. Siddur ha-tefillot le-shabbat (Jerusalem: The Israel Movement for Reform and Progressive Judaism, 1961/2).

83. Seder ha-tefillot: Forms of Prayer for Jewish Worship (Oxford: The Reform Synagogues of Great Britain, 1977).

84. Siddur tefillot harʾel (Jerusalem: The Israel Movement for Reform and Progressive Judaism, 1974/5).