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For Purim
After the reading of the Megillah:
Blessed art thou, Lord our God, King of the universe, who dost champion our cause and vindicate our rights, taking revenge for us, repaying all our mortal enemies as they deserve, and punishing our oppressors. Blessed art thou, O Lord, who dealest out punishment to the oppressors of Israel thy people, O thou, redeeming God.[1]
On Purim morning omit:
- The Lord wrecked[2] the counsel of heathen,
- Frustrating the plans of the crafty,
- When against us rose a wicked man.
- A hateful offshoot of Amalek,
- Who grew in wealth and dug his own grave.
- It was his power that ensnared him!
- He wished to entrap and was entrapped;
- He sought to destroy and was destroyed.
- Haman revealed his fathers’ hatred,
- And stirred Esau’s enmity to Jacob.
- He failed to recall that he, the foe,
- Was born thanks to Saul’s pity for Agag.
- The wicked planned to cut off the righteous;
- But the impure was caught by the pure.
- Mordecai’s kindness offset Saul’s fault;
- Wicked Haman heaped guilt upon guilt.
- He hid his crafty plans in his heart,
- And gave himself over to evil.
- He laid his hands on godly people,
- Spending his wealth to destroy their name.
- When Mordecai saw that wrath had gone forth,
- Haman’s decrees issued in Shushan,
- He put on sackcloth, sign of mourning,[3]
- Proclaimed a fast and sat in ashes,
- Who would rise to atone for errors,
- To gain pardon for our fathers’ sins?
- ↑ ברוך... הרב את ריבנו is quoted in the Talmud (Megillah 21b).
- ↑ אשר הניא, an alphabetic acrostic, recounts the story of Purim with poetical embellishments and closes with a eulogy of Mordecai and Esther. This piyyut, found in Maḥzor Vitry (page 214), was composed during the geonic period.
- ↑ קשר מספד is used in the sense of עשה מספד (Micah 1:8). The phrase קושרים הספד is repeatedly found in Midrash Rabbah (Introduction to the Book of Lamentations).
