Blessing of the Sun

Birkat ha-hammah (Blessing of the Sun)

On the morning of April 8 (Nisan 14) Jews will gather around the world to observe something which happens only once every twenty eight years. Just as it is customary to mark the new moon with blessings, so it has been customary to mark the return of the sun to the place in its cycle Jewish tradition says it occupied during the week of creation. According to the rabbis of the Talmud (Berakhot 59b), every twenty eight years this happens “on the evening of Tuesday, going into Wednesday”. Tractate Berakhot instructs that the blessing appropriate to be recited on the anniversary of this event is: Barukh oseh Vereshit, or in English: Blessed is the One who (continually) creates.

Since Talmudical times this simple blessing has grown into a more complex liturgical order. The earliest printed order of blessing for Birkat ha-hammah of which I am aware comes to us from the Sephardic world. It was published in Leghorn (Livorno), Italy, in a prayerbook entitled, “Tefilah zakah”, compiled by Rabbi Abraham Isaac Castello (Castilho), in 1789. That order was reprinted in 1841 as a separate booklet entitled, “Boker Yizrakh” by R. David Meldola of the Sephardic community in London.

All of this is of special interest to the Library of the Hebrew Union College because among the manuscripts (ms.) held in our rare book collections, we are privileged to possess an attractive hand colored illustrated pamphlet that offers an order of blessing for “Birkat ha-hammah” as it was, according to the ms., observed in the time of R. Hayyim Yosef David Azulai (1724-1806) in the city of Leghorn, Italy (Ms. 795). As Azulai’s name is followed by the acronym z.ts.ve-k.l. (May the memory of the righteous and the holy be for a blessing), we may infer that the unnamed scribe wrote his manuscript only after Azulai’s death in 1806. The text of the ms. is written in two different Hebrew hands. The first part which begins with the information just noted not surprisingly offers essentially the same ritual as that published in the Castello prayer book of 1789. The second adds the text of the Birkat ha-levanah (Blessing of the (new) moon). The manuscript also includes material related to the Akedah (attempted sacrifice of Isaac), and to Hanukkah.

The staff of the Hebrew Union College Library is proud to present photos of the manuscript.

Daniel J. Rettberg, Ph.D.
Rare Book and Manuscript Bibliographer
Klau Library

For more information on the customs of Birkat ha-hammah and on the history of its liturgy and its publication, please note:

• Bleich, J. David; overviews by Rabbi Nosson Scherman. Bircas hachammah: Blessing of the Sun – Renewal of Creation … Brooklyn, New York: Mesorah Publications, 1980.


• Sefer Tefilah zakah … lishboah be-hodshe ha-shanah ve-shalosh regalim … ule-minhage k.k. Livorno … Poh Livorno … shenat 549 [1788 or 1789], Leaves 217b-218a.
  

Be Happy - It's Adar!

Yes, I know we're having snow storms on the East Coast and rain in the West but, we can still gear up to party.

The library posted some images from some of our beautiful, fun, whimsical, illuminated Scrolls of Esther.

If you're looking for information about the holiday, check out our Purim Resource page.

And if you want to get started on some serious theological silliness ... see how I imagined the book of Genesis would look had it been written in Facebook instead of being dictated to Moses.

Getting Graphic

Join the Library in celebrating graphic novels and the work of Will Eisner.

The Frances-Henry Library is displaying many of Eisner's work as well as other graphic novels in the collection.

Search our catalog for graphic novels in the HUC library system.

You can also look for "comic books, strips, etc." after subject headings.

The Jewish Daily Forward has an article about Israeli graphic novelists Etgar Keret and Rutu Modan. For further reading, see Steve Bergson's blog, Jewish Comics.

Check our catalog for these and many other graphic novels.

Our hero!

Check out this library-related story about pilot, Chesley "Sully" Sullenberger.

Israel on my mind

Israel is obviously very much on our minds and in our hearts.

Here is our guide to other Israel resources.

Here is a very small selection of books on Israel and the Arab-Israeli conflict. Check the DS 119.7 and DS 119.76 sections on the shelf.

and no Silver Bells!

Ah, tis the season when I'm frantically trying to get music from that other winter holiday out of my head.

There are some great selections of Hanukkah music at the National Sound Archives at JNUL

You can also check out CD's from the library. Here's a sample from our collections.

The Book as Witness - 1

Previously I have posted entries entitled The Librarian as Witness, in which I celebrated memorable persons in Jewish life and history whom I have been fortunate to meet, in order to share an anecdote that revealed as aspect or aspects of those persons one might not know, overlook, or take for granted.

This entry I entitle The Book as Witness because a single book may contain more than what is apparent between its two covers. For example, not long ano I was perusing the little-used collection of old prayer books shelved in our Kiev Collection (i.e., the collection before we adopted the Library of Congress classification scheme, which was in 1981). I found several volumes of Tehinot ("women's prayers") in Yiddish from the very early 19th century, including one not listed on WorldCat or the standard bibliographies.

But another one stood out immediately - a volume entitled Modlitwy, the Polish word for "prayers," published in Warsaw in 1861 by Henryk Natanson. This small (16 cm.) volume contained Tehinot, not in Yiddish as one might expect, but in Polish, prepared by one Rozalia Felix. At the head of the title-page was the word, "Techynoth," the word "Tehinot" in a Polish spelling, that clinched the deal.

The first question that entered my mind was, "Who was this book's intended user?" Obviously a Jewish woman, but - and this is the perhaps unusual part - one who was more acculturated in the Polish language than Yiddish. From quality of this book's paper, printing, and cover, this we may wonder if there was already a Jewish middle class aspiring to be as Polish as they were Jewish. A little further digging shows there indeed was.

The book's publisher, Henryk Natanson (1820-1895), was a well-known Jewish publisher and related to a Jewish banking family in Warsaw.

And perhaps emblematic of this Jewish middle class class was Samuel Orgelbrand (1810-1868), a publisher whose company produced between the years 1829 and 1868 some 600 titles in Polish and 100 in Hebrew. Most notably of his Hebrew output was an edition of the Talmud, and of his Polish, a 28 volume encyclopedia, the first of its kind in the Polish language. (Indeed, "Orgelbrand" was used in Polish to mean an encyclopaedia in general, just as "Webster" is used in English generically for a dictionary.)

While I was able to find much about the Natanson and Orgelbrand families, I, alas, was unable to find out anything about Rozalia Felix, the woman responsible for the book of prayers itself.

Examing the book further I found a brief introduction in Polish, signed by Dr. M. Jastrow, who was identified as the preacher at the synagoue on Danilowiczowski Street. (Later, Danilowiczowski Street was renamed Nowy Świat, and is a major street, on one side of which one accesses Warsaw University and on the otheer, the Old City (Stary Miasto) and the Jewish Quarter.

Now the detective work became even more interesting. M. Jastrow is none other than Marcus Jastrow, probably better known to most readers of this blog entry as the person whose name is almost synonymous with "Aramaic dictionary"!

Marcus Jastrow was born in Prussian Poland (or Polish Prussia) in 1829 and died in Philadelphia in 1903. After receiving his education in Posen, Berlin, and Halle, he was engaged as the preacher at the German congregation in Warsaw. While there he became deeply interested in the Polish language and culture, and in 1861 preached his first sermon in that language.

The year of this little book of prayers is also significant, for tow years later, in1863 there was a violent uprising by the Poles against the Russian Government, a rebellion in which Jews boldly took sides with the Poles. Indeed, Jewish victims of the repression were honored by the Polish Christians at public ceremonies. (Ceremonies, which I must add, took place on the Sabbath, in which Jastrow openly participated, and for which he was condemned in the Jewish community.) Jastrow was even imprisioned by the Russian authorities for three months for his provocative actions, after which he was expelled to Germany. And in 1866 he settled in Philadelphia, where he died over 35 years later.

So a dusty old book in a language on a shelf untouched for decades may be like an archaeological "tel," as an historical witness to persons and events otherwise unimagined.

libblog/Polish.pdf libblog/Polish.pdf