DUE TO THE CHINESE VIRUS and governments from federal to state to municipality, most Jews stayed home for Shabat.
OK, they may have watched tv, BBQed, and smoked whatever throughout the day, but they stayed home.
Everyone knows becoming shomer Shabat (Shabat observant) is a very steep curve and should be done little by little, one mitzvah now, another next Shabat, and so on.
ANYWAY, since all synagogues and most minyans were closed for the duration, most of us said our Shabat prayers at home.
As one wag put it, on Friday night he’ll pray in the living room; on Shabat morning he will pray in the dining room for a better kiddish. (Wish I had thought of that.)
This Shabat was a L O N G Shabat: double portion PLUS a third portion from a second sefer, and a special haftarah to coincide with the announcement of the New Moon (Rosh Hodesh Nissan/Aviv).
All of which was followed by THE ANNOUNCEMENT.
If you missed it, Rosh Hodesh Nissan is Thursday, March 26, 2020.
In normal times, someone reads the announcement prayer and, I confess, I really don’t pay attention.
But today I had to read it myself.
Wow!
If what I read is correct, the Chinese virus will be history by the first of Nissan and Pesach can proceed as usual.
In the Sefardi announcement prayer (below), we are asking HaShem to לעצר המגפה — to halt (לעצר) the epidemic/pandemic (המגפה).
I have several Sefardi sedurim and they all read just about the same.
And then . . .
And then I opened up a couple of non-Sefardi sedurim: Chabad and Artscroll.
I borrowed the Chabad sedur since, unlike my Sefardi sedurim, it has an English translation. Likewise the Artscroll.
What I found was a totally different.
The Artscroll mevorchim (announcement of the new moon) asks for many things, but halting the Chinese virus is not one of them. Artscroll’s prayer follows:
Most Ashkenazi and Chabad sedurim are similar; not identical, but similar.
Bottom line or קו תחתון
Checking all the sedurim on my shelves brought me to the sad realization that not every הכרזת ראש חודש or mevorchim is the same. Sometimes, it seems, not even close.
Maybe the Ashkenazi contingent can “borrow” the Sefardi prayer if not now, then maybe for next month — unless, of course, that בע"ה the Chinese virus is just a bad memory because a prophylactic and cure is found, produced, and universally administered.
Meanwhile, the following may help.
PLAGIARISM is the act of appropriating the literary composition of another, or parts or passages of his writings, or the ideas or language of the same, and passing them off as the product of one’s own mind.
Truth is an absolute defense to defamation. Defamation is a false statement of fact. If the statement was accurate, then by definition it wasn’t defamatory.
Web sites (URLs) beginning https://tinyurl.com/ are generated by the free Tiny URL utility and reduce lengthy URLs to manageable size.
