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Machzor for Yom Kippur
Old and special Ashkenazi version
I will also present an old From my experience with the old Haggadah that I had
15th century machzor purchased (this is not the place to tell its story), I knew
(prayer book) from 1450 that there was in Eretz Israel an expert in cleaning
CE that in my possession. and renewing old books, Mr. Alexander. I brought the
No other such prayer book machzor to him and cleaned all the stains accumulated
is known. over the years.
At a Sotheby’s action in New York, I saw an old machzor Next, I brought the machzor to Rabbi Aharon Weiss,
for Yom Kippur for a public emissary. The large and im- whom I knew as an expert scribe and craftsman in the
pressive machzor, handwritten on parchment in an old recovery of old books. He proposed adding and com-
script, was from the Montefiore collection. My sense of pleting the five missing pages of the machzor.
antiquity propelled me to buy and save it.
I deliberated over this a great deal, especially in view of
I purchased it for a substantial sum, and I greatly en- the fact that the machzor has the alphabetized closing
joyed holding it in my hands and feeling the prayers ut- hymns. I found no other example that contained three
tered by the righteous emissaries of the people of Israel syllables for each missing closing letter and I did not
six hundred years ago. Commentaries of the hymns and know how to complete it, but Rabbi Aharon, in an ex-
the order of the tunes were written in the margins. hausting search, found in the Cairo geniza the continu-
ation of the hymn and was able to complete and correct
The machzor is the earliest original hymns, commentar- all the missing pages, to the point that the machzor’s
ies and tunes, and chants known to date. In addition to reader and worshipper will not be able to distinguish its
the illustrations in the sacred writings by the order and original pages from the new ones.
origin of the prayers and vows, [incomplete sentence]
In addition to being a distinguished scribe, Rabbi Weiss
carried out research on the special machzor, which ex-
ists nowhere else in the world, and its unique hymns.
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