BLESSING OF THE NEW MOON Originally the New Moon was determined by the Sanhedrin on the basis of eye-witness testimony. Since this could not be precisely predicted in advance, the decision of the court had to be communicated to the Jewish communities in Israel and elsewhere. At first this was done by lighting fire signals on hill-tops. Later it was done by messengers, and in the fourth century, when much of the Jewish population had been forced to leave Israel, Hillel II ordained that the new moon be determined by astronomical calculation. Our ceremony, though of a later date, recalls the earlier custom.

RETURNING THE TORAH TO THE ARK A ceremony parallel to that accompanying the taking out of the scroll(s).

מִזְמוֹר לְדָוִד A psalm of David: Psalm 29, with its sevenfold reference to “the LORD’s voice” that makes the world tremble, was traditionally associated with the giving of the Torah at Mount Sinai, accompanied by thunder and lightning, when the mountain “trembled violently” (Ex. 19:18).

וּבְנֻחֹה יֹאמַר When the Ark came to rest: The verse (Num. 10:36) describing the moments in the wilderness years when the Israelites encamped. As at the opening of the Ark, a ceremony in the present recalls the ancient past, when the Israelites carried the Ark, containing the Tablets, with them on all their journeys. Hence the poignancy of the last line, taken from the book of Lamentations, “Renew our days as of old.” In Judaism – the world’s oldest monotheistic faith – the new is old, and the old is new. The symbol of this constant renewal is the Torah, the word of the One who is beyond time.

THE ADDITIONAL SERVICE On Shabbat, festivals and Rosh Ḥodesh, an extra sacrifice, Musaf, was brought in addition to the regular daily morning and afternoon offerings. The Musaf Amida corresponds to that sacrifice. Through it we ask God, in the absence of the Temple and its rites, to accept our prayer in place of sacrifice in the spirit of the words of Hosea (14:3), “Receive us graciously that we may offer (the words of) our lips as the sacrifices of bulls.” The Hebrew word for sacrifice, korban, derives from the root k-r-b meaning “to come, or bring close.” The act of coming close to God involves sacrifice in the deepest sense of the word: surrendering something of ourselves to One greater than ourselves, the Author and ultimate Owner of all. Prayer-as-sacrifice means not asking God to do our will, but pledging ourselves to do His will. It is the supreme act of acknowledging our dependency on God.

תִּכַּֽנְתָּ שַׁבָּת You instituted the Sabbath: The central blessing of the Amida focuses on the biblical passage describing the additional Sabbath sacrifice (Num. 28:9–10). Surrounding it are two prayers. The first, “You instituted the Sabbath,” opens with an acrostic: the initial letters of the first twenty-two words spell out the Hebrew alphabet in reverse. It continues with a prayer for the return of Jews to Israel and the restoration of the Temple service. The second, “Those who keep the Sabbath and call it a delight,” speaks of the joyous nature of the day of rest.

אֵין כֵּאלֹהֵֽינוּ There is none like our God*:* This paragraph, usually sung in the synagogue, is a poetic introduction to the reading of the passage about the incense offering in the Temple. The initial letters of the first three lines spell Amen; the first words of the next two are “Blessed are You.” Thus the poem is a way of reaffirming the preceding prayers, a coded coda to the service as a whole. Some suggest that the passage was intended to complete the “hundred blessings” to be said every day, since the Shabbat Amidot have fewer blessings than their weekday counterparts (Kol Bo).

פִּטּוּם הַקְּטֹֽרֶת The incense mixture: This paragraph is a Talmudic passage (Keri-tot 6a) describing the composition of the incense, burned in the Temple every morning and evening (Ex. 30:7–9).

הַשִּׁיר שֶׁהַלְוִיִּם הָיוּ אוֹמְרִים בְּבֵית הַמִּקְדָּשׁ These were the psalms which the Levites used to recite in the Temple: Each day of the week, after the regular offerings in the Temple, the Levites would sing a particular psalm, signaling that each day has its own character, its own tasks, its own tonality in the symphony of time. We still say these psalms, usually at the end of the service. In this way, a further connection is made between our prayers and the Temple service.

אַנְעִים זְמִירוֹת Song of Glory: Attributed to either Rabbi Yehuda HeḤasid (d. 1217) or his father Rabbi Shmuel, this hymn is structured as an alphabetical acrostic, with a (non-acrostic) four-line introduction and a three-line conclusion, followed by biblical verses. The poem, with great grace and depth, speaks about the limits of language in describing the experience of God. On the one hand, God – infinite, eternal, invisible – is beyond the reach of language. On the other, we can only address Him in and through language. Hence the various literary forms – metaphor, image, mystic vision – used by the prophets and poets and their successors to indicate, through words, that which lies beyond words. The images are many, but God is One. In some communities the hymn is said each day. Many authorities, how-ever, held that it was too sublime to be said daily, and limited its recital to Shabbat and Yom Tov.

אֲדוֹן עוֹלָם LORD of the Universe: A magnificent poem, attributed by some to the Spanish Jewish poet Solomon ibn Gabirol (1021–1070). Its power lies in its effortless transition from abstract theology to personal experience. The first six lines speak of God in cosmic terms; the last four lines turn to God as a personal presence. Though He is unfathomably vast, He is also intensely close. I face the world without fear because I rest in His everlasting arms.