Revised edition. 8 pp. plus extra title wrappers, octavo 180:100 mm., wide margins, usual light age staining. A very good copy bound in the original wrappers.

Tehinnot are private devotions, often the source for later public prayers. They are a private, spontaneous and inspired form of expression representing the craving of the soul. They may be understood as in keeping with Berakhot (28b), which states, Do not make your prayer routine, but rather free supplications and petitions before God.” Tehinnot were written through the ages by men of piety; they have been described as a rivulet of that warm and soulful outpouring [that] never ran dry in Israel. They have been written through the generations to express plights, needs, wishes, and aspirations which move the heart. Originally in Hebrew, they have been written in all languages spoken by Jews.

Hebrew printing began in Bombay with the arrival of Yemenite Jews in the middle of the 19th century. They took an interest in the religious welfare of the Bene Israel, for whom - as well as for themselves - they printed various liturgies from 1841 onward, some with translations into Marathi, the vernacular of the Bene Israel. Apart from a short lived attempt to print with movable type, all this printing was by lithography. In 1882, the Press of the Bombay Educational Society was established (followed in 1884 by the Anglo-Jewish and Vernacular Press, in 1887 by the Hebrew and English Press, and in 1900 by the Lebanon Printing Press), which sponsored the publication of over 100 Judeo-Arabic books to meet their liturgical and literary needs, and also printed books for the Bene Israel.

Hebrew Description

References