The Thomas More Society of Buenos Aires begins or ends almost all its events by reciting in both English and Spanish a prayer written by More in the margins of his Book of Hours probably while he was a prisoner in the Tower of London. After a short history of what is called Thomas More’s Prayer Book, the author studies the prayer as a poem written in the form of a psalm according to the structure of Hebrew poetry, and looks at the poem’s content as a psalm of lament.
Abstract
This is the first publication of the beginning of one of the sidrei ʿavodah for the Day of Atonement by Shelomo Suleiman al-Sinjari, a prolific Palestinian paytan who lived in the second half of the 9th century. Although well known to researchers, this piyyut was incorrectly attributed to the greatest Palestinian poet: Eleazar b. Qallir. My consultation of a copy of the seder ʿavodah in a Cairo Geniza manuscript and the database of the Ezra Fleischer Geniza Research Project for Hebrew Poetry led to the correct identification of the author of אצחצח דבר גבורות as Shelomo Suleiman. The article contains a critical edition of the beginning of this seder ʿavodah with annotations and variants.
