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Yotzer Ohr
Yotzer ohr (''Creator of light''), also known as ''Birkat yotzer'' (the ''yotzer'' blessing) or ''Birkat Yotzer Or'', is the first of the two blessings recited before the Shema during Shacharit, the morning religious services of Judaism. Translation: Blessed are you, our God, King of the universe, who forms light and creates darkness, who makes peace and creates all things... Blessed are you, , who forms light. According to a Midrash, Adam and Eve were the first people to recite this blessing when they were in the Garden of Eden. Judaism recognizes that the sun is central to life. It is the sun that provides light that is needed for all life on earth, and Birkat Yotzer Or is a blessing thanking God for the sun. Themes The first verse comes from the Book of Isaiah 45:7. It is said to correspond with the first paragraph of the Shema. The blessing has two themes. The first is the spiritual one, in which God's Divine Wisdom expressing itself in a cosmic order. The second is that ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Shema
''Shema Yisrael'' (''Shema Israel'' or ''Sh'ma Yisrael''; he , שְׁמַע יִשְׂרָאֵל ''Šəmaʿ Yīsrāʾēl'', "Hear, O Israel") is a Jewish prayer (known as the Shema) that serves as a centerpiece of the morning and evening Jewish prayer services. Its first verse encapsulates the monotheistic essence of Judaism: "Hear, O Israel: YHWH is our God, YHWH is one" (), found in . The first part can be translated as either "The our God" or "The is our God", and the second part as either "the is one" or as "the one " (in the sense of "the alone"), since Hebrew does not normally use a copula in the present tense, so translators must decide by inference whether one is appropriate in English. The word used for "the " is the tetragrammaton YHWH. Observant Jews consider the ''Shema'' to be the most important part of the prayer service in Judaism, and its twice-daily recitation as a ''mitzvah'' (religious commandment). Also, it is traditional for Jews to say the ''Shema'' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Amidah
The ''Amidah Amuhduh'' ( he, תפילת העמידה, ''Tefilat HaAmidah'', 'The Standing Prayer'), also called the ''Shemoneh Esreh'' ( 'eighteen'), is the central prayer of the Jewish liturgy. Observant Jews recite the ''Amidah'' at each of three daily prayer services in a typical weekday: morning (''Shacharit''), afternoon (''Mincha''), and evening (''Ma'ariv''). On Shabbat, Rosh Chodesh, and Jewish festivals, a fourth ''Amidah'' (''Mussaf'') is recited after the morning Torah reading, and once per year a fifth ''Amidah'' (''Ne'ilah'') is recited, around sunset on Yom Kippur. Due to its importance, in rabbinic literature it is simply called ''hatefila'' (, 'the prayer'). According to legend, the prayer was composed by the Rabbis of the Anshei Knesset HaGedolah (c. 515-332 BCE). Accordingly, in Judaism, to recite the ''Amidah'' is a '' mitzvah de-rabbanan''. Although the name ''Shemoneh Esreh'' ("eighteen") refers to the original number of component blessings in the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Piyyut
A ''piyyut'' or ''piyut'' (plural piyyutim or piyutim, he, פִּיּוּטִים / פיוטים, פִּיּוּט / פיוט ; from Greek ποιητής ''poiētḗs'' "poet") is a Jewish liturgical poem, usually designated to be sung, chanted, or recited during Jewish services, religious services. ''Piyyutim'' have been written since Temple in Jerusalem, Temple times. Most ''piyyutim'' are in Hebrew language, Hebrew or Aramaic language, Aramaic, and most follow some poetic scheme, such as an acrostic following the order of the Hebrew alphabet or spelling out the name of the author. Many ''piyyutim'' are familiar to regular attendees of synagogue services. For example, the best-known ''piyyut'' may be ''Adon Olam'' ("Master of the World"). Its poetic form consists of a repeated rhythmic pattern of short-long-long-long (the so-called hazaj meter), and it is so beloved that it is often sung at the conclusion of many synagogue services, after the ritual nightly recitation of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
El Adon
El Adon or El Adon al kol ha-ma'asim ( he, אל אדון or , English: God is the Lord or God is the Lord of all creation) is a well-known Jewish liturgical poem, a so-called ''piyyut'' that was probably written in the Land of Israel during the Middle Ages but could be as old as the 2nd century, making it possibly one of the oldest Jewish prayers in continuous use. Like many other liturgical poems, it is written without rhyme and as an alphabetical poem - meaning that the first line starts with the first letter of the Hebrew alphabet, the second line starts with the second letter thereof, and so on. Text Text below is Nusach Sefard; Nusach Ashkenaz Nusach Ashkenaz is a style of Jewish liturgy conducted by Ashkenazi Jews. It is primarily a way to order and include prayers, and differs from Nusach Sefard (as used by the Hasidim) and Baladi-rite prayer, and still more from the Sephardic rite p ... wording differs slightly. The first Hebrew letter of each line is made bold as to ind ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sephardic Judaism
Sephardic law and customs are the practice of Judaism by the Sephardim, the descendants of the historic Jewish community of the Iberian Peninsula. Some definitions of "Sephardic" inaccurately include Mizrahi Jews, many of whom follow the same traditions of worship but have different ethno-cultural traditions. Sephardi Rite is not a denomination or movement like Orthodox, Reform, and other Ashkenazi Rite worship traditions. Sephardim thus comprise a community with distinct cultural, juridical and philosophical traditions. Sephardim are, primarily, the descendants of Jews from the Iberian Peninsula. They may be divided into the families that left in the Expulsion of 1492 and those that remained in Spain as crypto-Jews, fleeing in the following few centuries. In religious parlance, and by many in modern Israel, the term is used in a broader sense to include all Jews of Ottoman or other Asian or North African backgrounds, whether or not they have any historic link to Spain, thou ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hebrew Alphabet
The Hebrew alphabet ( he, wikt:אלפבית, אָלֶף־בֵּית עִבְרִי, ), known variously by scholars as the Ktav Ashuri, Jewish script, square script and block script, is an abjad script used in the writing of the Hebrew language and other Jewish languages, most notably Yiddish, Judaeo-Spanish, Ladino, Judeo-Arabic languages, Judeo-Arabic, and Judeo-Persian. It is also used informally in Israel to write Levantine Arabic, especially among Druze in Israel, Druze. It is an offshoot of the Aramaic alphabet, Imperial Aramaic alphabet, which flourished during the Achaemenid Empire and which itself derives from the Phoenician alphabet. Historically, two separate abjad scripts have been used to write Hebrew. The original, old Hebrew script, known as the paleo-Hebrew alphabet, has been largely preserved in a variant form as the Samaritan alphabet. The present "Jewish script" or "square script", on the contrary, is a stylized form of the Aramaic alphabet and was technicall ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Acrostic
An acrostic is a poem or other word composition in which the ''first'' letter (or syllable, or word) of each new line (or paragraph, or other recurring feature in the text) spells out a word, message or the alphabet. The term comes from the French from post-classical Latin , from Koine Greek , from Ancient Greek "highest, topmost" and "verse". As a form of constrained writing, an acrostic can be used as a mnemonic device to aid memory retrieval. When the ''last'' letter of each new line (or other recurring feature) forms a word it is called a telestich; the combination of an acrostic and a telestich in the same composition is called a double acrostic (e.g. the first-century Latin Sator Square). Acrostics are common in medieval literature, where they usually serve to highlight the name of the poet or his patron, or to make a prayer to a saint. They are most frequent in verse works but can also appear in prose. The Middle High German poet Rudolf von Ems for example opens all h ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jewish Holidays
Jewish holidays, also known as Jewish festivals or ''Yamim Tovim'' ( he, ימים טובים, , Good Days, or singular , in transliterated Hebrew []), are holidays observed in Judaism and by JewsThis article focuses on practices of mainstream Rabbinic Judaism. Karaite Judaism#The calendar, Karaite Jews and Samaritans#Samaritanism, Samaritans also observe the biblical festivals, but not in an identical fashion and not always at exactly the same time. throughout the Hebrew calendar. They include religious, cultural and national elements, derived from three sources: biblical '' mitzvot'' ("commandments"), rabbinic mandates, and the history of Judaism and the State of Israel. Jewish holidays occur on the same dates every year in the Hebrew calendar, but the dates vary in the Gregorian. This is because the Hebrew calendar is a lunisolar calendar (based on the cycles of both the sun and moon), whereas the Gregorian is a solar calendar. General concepts Groupings Certain term ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Book Of Genesis
The Book of Genesis (from Greek ; Hebrew: בְּרֵאשִׁית ''Bəreʾšīt'', "In hebeginning") is the first book of the Hebrew Bible and the Christian Old Testament. Its Hebrew name is the same as its first word, ( "In the beginning"). Genesis is an account of the creation of the world, the early history of humanity, and of Israel's ancestors and the origins of the Jewish people. Tradition credits Moses as the author of Genesis, as well as the books of Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and most of Deuteronomy; however, modern scholars, especially from the 19th century onward, place the books' authorship in the 6th and 5th centuries BC, hundreds of years after Moses is supposed to have lived.Davies (1998), p. 37 Based on scientific interpretation of archaeological, genetic, and linguistic evidence, most scholars consider Genesis to be primarily mythological rather than historical. It is divisible into two parts, the primeval history (chapters 1–11) and the ancestr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Light
Light or visible light is electromagnetic radiation that can be perceived by the human eye. Visible light is usually defined as having wavelengths in the range of 400–700 nanometres (nm), corresponding to frequencies of 750–420 terahertz, between the infrared (with longer wavelengths) and the ultraviolet (with shorter wavelengths). In physics, the term "light" may refer more broadly to electromagnetic radiation of any wavelength, whether visible or not. In this sense, gamma rays, X-rays, microwaves and radio waves are also light. The primary properties of light are intensity, propagation direction, frequency or wavelength spectrum and polarization. Its speed in a vacuum, 299 792 458 metres a second (m/s), is one of the fundamental constants of nature. Like all types of electromagnetic radiation, visible light propagates by massless elementary particles called photons that represents the quanta of electromagnetic field, and can be analyzed as both waves and par ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Minyan
In Judaism, a ''minyan'' ( he, מניין \ מִנְיָן ''mīnyān'' , lit. (noun) ''count, number''; pl. ''mīnyānīm'' ) is the quorum of ten Jewish adults required for certain religious obligations. In more traditional streams of Judaism, only males 13 and older may constitute a minyan; in more liberal (non-Orthodox) streams women are also counted. The most common activity requiring a ''minyan'' is public prayer. Accordingly, the term ''minyan'' in contemporary Judaism has taken on the secondary meaning of referring to a prayer service. Sources The source for the requirement of ''minyan'' is recorded in the Talmud. The word ''minyan'' itself comes from the Hebrew root meaning to count or to number. The word is related to the Aramaic word ''mene'', numbered, appearing in the writing on the wall in . Babylonian Talmud The Babylonian Talmud ( Megillah 23b) derives the requirement of a ''minyan'' of ten shomer Shabbat for Kiddush HashemSanhedrin 74b and ''Devarim ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kedushah (prayer)
''Kedushah'' (Holiness) is the name of several prayers recited during Jewish prayer services. They have in common the recitation of two Biblical verses - and . These verses come from prophetic visions in which angels sing the verses, "Holy, Holy, Holy" as praises to God. There exist several variations of the ''Kedushah'', which appear in different contexts and have different laws. The best-known Kedushah is recited in the Amidah. Another is recited in the ''Yotzer ohr'' blessing, and a third (known as ''Kedushah d'sidra'') is recited on various occasions including the conclusion of weekday ''Shacharit''. In some versions of the ''kedushah'', additional Biblical verses are added in the same format as the verses from Isaiah and Ezekiel. ''Kedushah'' in the Amidah The ''Kedushah'' is traditionally the third section of all Amidah recitations. In the silent Amidah it is a short prayer, but in the repetition, which requires a ''minyan'', it is considerably lengthier. The recitatio ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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