Penitential prayers, Mannheim or Heidelberg: 1791, Scribe: Kasman ben Leib Oppenheim of Heidelberg

36 leaves (4 1/2 x 3 3/8 in.; 115 x 85 mm). Written in brown ink on paper in Hebrew square script with nikkud and Yiddish waybertaitsch script. Ruled in pencil. Title set within architectural frame and thirteen initial words decorated in brown ink and wash; pages within brown ink frames. Title lightly soiled; small stain f. 32v-33r. Edges speckled in red; endpapers, eighteenth century decorated paper. Contemporary pasteboard, worn; spine defective.

Kasman ben Leib Oppenheim of Heidelberg-scribe; Moses ben Leib Fulda of Mannheim- dedicatee; by descent in family to his grandson and gifted to Isaac Neckar.

 

This elegantly penned and decorated book of penitential prayers was written in 1791 by Kasman ben Leib Oppenheim of Heidelberg for his father-in-law, Moses ben Leib Fulda of Mannheim. It was designed to allow for the recitation of the appropriate supplications, psalms, and affirmations of faith in times of illness and at the end of life.  According to the initial instructions (f.2r), Satan stands alongside the dying person, exhorting him to deny the God of Israel. One should therefore recite the following affirmation of faith in the presence of witnesses, and preferably in the company of ten or more. Since, as stated on the decorated title page, "no man knows the hour of his death," one should also perform this during the Ten Days of Penitence between Rosh ha-Shana and Yom Kippur.

The following pages include a variety of texts: entreaties for healing, confessions of sin and the recitation of mystical names of God. Once death is imminent however, the prayers shift to requests for a peaceful passing, and the hope that one's soul will be received with favor. There are Psalms to be recited by the one who is dying and others to be said by those in attendance. Near the end of the manuscript is a prayer to be recited at the cemetery by the members of the Burial Society on the eve of the New Moon of Adar, the society's annual fastday. The prayer begins by beseeching God's forgiveness; it goes on to beg the pardon of the buried dead for any offense or ill treatment they may have inadvertently received at the hands of the society members. A brief description follows, in Yiddish, of post mortem practices. These include instructions for the correct order of dressing the deceased in shrouds, the distinctions between burial procedures for adults and children, and similar, related topics. One custom however, is particularly noteworthy. Every deceased Jewish man is buried wearing a white garment called a kittel. According to the present text, a Kohen (a descendant of the High Priest Aaron) was to be buried in two kittels, rather than one.