Guide
Rabbinic Penitential Prayers on Fast Days
By Carol Bakhos
In early rabbinic literature, drought was the most common occasion on which communal penitential prayers would be recited, together with the act of fasting as a form of self-mortification.
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Penitential Posture and Rhetoric
Rav [once] happened [to come] to Babylonia on a public fast. He stood and read from a [Torah] scroll. [When] he began [to read,] he recited a blessing, [but when] he concluded, he did not recite a…