[Ḳovets: maḥazor minhag Teman le-shalosh regalim ule-Furim, Seder arbaʿ taʿaniyot ke-minhag ḳ.ḳ. Sefaradim, ḳinot le-Tishʿah be-Av, ṿe-ʿevronot]. [קובץ : מחזור מנהג תימן לשלש רגלים ולפורים, סדר ארבע תעניות כמנהג ק׳׳ק ספרדים,קינות לתשעה באב, ועברונות]. [Yemenite liturgical miscellany : prayer book for the pilgrim festivals and Purim according to the Yemenite rite, hymns and prayers for the four fasts according to the Sephardic rite including elegies for the Ninth of Av, as well as charts and instructions regarding the Hebrew calendar].

Description

Title supplied by cataloguer.


Variant titles:

Piyuṭim u-tefilot ke-minhag Teman. פיוטים ותפילות כמנהג תימן.

The National Library of Israel (NLI), Online Catalogue, system-no. 990001856860205171 records the item unter the title תכלאל (tiklal).


Summary:

Item is contains three parts likely written by different hands:

1. folios 4–118: Prayers and hymns specific to the pilgrim festivals and Purim, as well as instructions; written possibly by two professional Yemenite hands (alternating) as there are two different substitutes for the Tetragrammaton, and possibly two different sets of para-scriptural elements.

2. folios 119–182: Prayers and hymns specific to the four fasts and the fast of Gedalyah (צום גדליה) as well as instructions; likely written by another Yemenite hand; with own title page which includes a colophon maybe providing the date of production (see above); there is most likely a connection to a printed edition of Seder Arbaʿ taʿaniyot (Livorno?).

3. folios 1 and folios 183–204: Additions likely by different hands; the collation is possibly in disarray.


Text on title page of item’s second part (folio 119r): נאה וישר על כל צרות שאירעו את אבותינו בארבע מלכיות ‏…‏‏ וגם הוספנו צום ג׳ בתשרי והד׳ הם עשרי בטבת וצום אסתר וי׳׳ז בתמוז וט׳ באב … בשנת א׳ז תק׳רא׳ ... י׳ע׳נא׳‏[!‏]‏ לפ׳׳ק.


Dates of production:

1. First colophon (folio 119r): According to its markings the chronogram made up of Isaiah 59:9 in the title page of the item’s second part provides the impossible date 183 (1322 or 1323): בשנת א׳ז תק׳רא׳ ... י׳ע׳נא׳[!] לפ׳׳ק. It seems probable that the scribe forgot to mark the ת in תק׳רא׳ as the letter is written bigger; if so, the year to which the chronogram refers would be 583 (1822 or 1823) (there is an edition of Seder arbaʿ taʿaniyot, printed in Livorno in 401 (1840 or 1841), which also uses Isaiah 59:9 as base for its chronogram).

2. Second colophon (folio 198r) (see full Hebrew text below in Scribal information): According to its markings the chronogram of the second colophon refers to the year 488 (1728): ונשלמה ביום ד׳ זהוא ג׳ לחודש אב שנת ש׳בענו ב׳בק׳ר חס׳דך׳ ו׳נרננה; it needs to be be asked whether the scribe of this colophon made a mistake when marking the chronogram given that the first colophon refers likely to the year 1822 or 1823, and the following calendric tables refer to the years [1869/70]–[1898/99].

3. The calendric tables at the end of the item refer to the years 630 (1869/70)–659 (1898/99).


Contents:

Text (prayer?) in Judaeo-Arabic and some Hebrew (folio 1).

First part (4–118): תקון פסח (folio 4r) (mainly instructions for [בדיקת חמץ]); folio 4v is blank; תפלת ליל פסחים (folios 5r–6v), hymn for the Passover evening prayer; עמידה לשלש רגלים (folios 6v–8v); אגדתא דפסחא (folios 8v–28r) (Hagadah shel Pesaḥ) with סימן לסדר הפסח at its end (folios 27v–28r); שחרית של פסח (folios 28r–30r) instructions and תקון הטל; ‎ מוסף לשלש רגלים (folios 30r–32v); מסכת אבות (folios 32v–55r); מזמור לליל שבועות (folios 55r–56v); שחרית של שבועות (folios 56v–68r), instructions and אזהרות beginning with רשות לאזהרות: אמון יום זה followed by שמור לבי מענה and בצל שדי אחסה both by שלמה בן גבירול; ‎תפלת חג הסכות (folios 68v–98v) with [הושענות] and [הקפות], as well as תקון הגשם (folios 97r–98v); ‎יום שמחת תורה (folios
98v–110v), beginning with instructions and אשר בגלל אבות, followed by other hymns, including אצולה לפנים בכסא [by אברהם אבן עזרא] (folio 107) and ברכה לרבים (folio 107v–110v); תקון פורים (folios 111r–118r); ליל פורים (folio 118), mainly instructions.

Second part (119–182): סדר ארבע תעניות כמנהג ק׳׳ק ספרדים.

Third part (183–204) (probably later additions):

Calendric table for the years 630 [1869]–659 [1899]: [לוחות לשנים תר׳׳ל עד תרנט] (folios 183–184); treatises about calendar calculation (folios 184v–195r) in Judaeo-Arabic and Hebrew beginning with אשרי המחכה ויגיע עבור השנים אעלם; Prayer beginning רחים י׳׳י אלהינו עלינו (folio 195r); Judaeo-Arabic treatise about ארבע תקופות (folios 195v–196v); folio 197 is blank; colophon (folio 198r); folio 198v is blank; instructions concerning calendar calculation עיבור השנים, with calendric table for the years 644 [1883]–699 [1939] (folios 199r–200r) and further instructions which seem to break up in the middle of the text; folio 200v is blank; prayer in Judaeo-Arabic (folios 201–202); קינה (folio 203); סכום המעמדיות שלמועדים (folio 204r); ‏[‏תפילה‏]‏ אחר המילה (folio 204v).


State of text: Slightly stained and mutilated; item underwent extensive conservation work during which one of its front fly-leaves probably got lost (see below Annotations); leaves are repaired with tissue and on guards.


Bibliographical note:

National Library of Israel (NLI), Online Catalogue, system-no. 990001856860205171. The NLI’s description is based on the microfilm of MS Roth 75* made on behalf of the Institute of Microfilmed Hebrew Manuscripts of the NLI during the 1960s. The microfilm can now be downloaded in a digitised form from the NLI-webpage.

Davis, Handlist 164 (Leeds, 2005), no. 75.

Decoration

Decoration 1: Calendric charts (folios 183–184, folios 199v–200r).

Decoration 2: Ornamentation of some of the headings.

Decoration 3: Ornamental design above words to structure the text.

Decoration 4: Different script sizes for different parts of the text. Headings and initial words are in bigger, bolder script; running titles, instructions, and catchwords are in smaller script.

Decoration 5: Running titles.

Decoration 6: Decorative substitutes for Tetragrammaton.

Decoration 7: Maintenance of left margin (more efforts are made by scribe(s) of folios 4–118).

Decoration 8: Catchwords.

Decoration 9: Completion formulas.

Decoration 10: Poetic spacing.

Physical characteristics

Script: Yemenite Hebrew script.

Ms. composite codex: width 112mm height 167mm

Binding

Full leather over boards; blind-tooled geometrical designs on both boards. Item underwent conservation work.

Vocalisation and cantillation

All liturgical parts in Hebrew are vocalised.

Scribal information

Possibly written in at least three different hands (see above Description); on folio 198r is a full scribal colophon by Yeḥiʾel Salem Yaʿaḳov Tabib (on the chronogram, see above Dates of production in Description): ואתה אחי הקורא בזה החפץ אם תמצא בו טעות תדינני לכך זכות לפי שאני בדוחק ומטופל בעול הזמן כדכתיב שגיאות מי יבין מנסתרות נקיני גמח׳׳ע. ונשלמה ביום ד׳ דהוא ג׳ לחודש אב שנת ש׳בענו ב׳בק׳ר חס׳דך׳ ו׳נרננה ונס!מחה בכל ימינו אנא זעירא וחלאשא יחיאל סאלם יעקוב אטביב.

Former owners and annotations

On front free end-paper which is on microfilm (see above bibliographical note) but was probably lost during the conservation work in 1990s: נלד הפרח הטוב אב' בן אהרן ליל פסח שנת תרס"ה (entry about the birth of Av. ben Aharon in the night of Passover 665 (1905)).


Owner’s note in pencil above heading on folio [1]: יודא ן׳ אברהם א‏מארם‏?‏.


Roth acquired MS Roth *75 most likely after 1950; it is not listed in his, "Catalogue", in Alexander Marx: Jubilee Volume, vol. 1 (New York, 1950), 503–35.

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