Al HaNissim alternatively V'al HaNissim (, " ndon the miracles") is an addition to the

Amidah The ''Amidah'' (, ''Tefilat HaAmidah'', 'The Standing Prayer'), also called the ''Shemoneh Esreh'' ( 'eighteen'), is the central prayer of Jewish liturgy. Observant Jews recite the ''Amidah'' during each of the three services prayed on week ...

and

Birkat Hamazon Birkat Hamazon ( "The Blessing of the Food"), known in English as the Grace After Meals ( "to bless", Yinglish: Bentsching), is a set of Hebrew language, Hebrew blessings that Halakha, Jewish law prescribes following a meal that includes at le ...

Hanukkah Hanukkah (, ; ''Ḥănukkā'' ) is a Jewish holidays, Jewish festival commemorating the recovery of Jerusalem and subsequent rededication of the Second Temple at the beginning of the Maccabean Revolt against the Seleucid Empire in the 2nd ce ...

and

Purim Purim (; , ) is a Jewish holidays, Jewish holiday that commemorates the saving of the Jews, Jewish people from Genocide, annihilation at the hands of an official of the Achaemenid Empire named Haman, as it is recounted in the Book of Esther (u ...

. On both holidays, it starts off with a short paragraph, beginning with the words for which it is named. After that, each holiday has a unique paragraph, describing the events for which that day is celebrated.

Text of the Prayer

The standard Ashkenazi Orthodox text of the prayer is as follows:

The source of Al HaNissim

A prayer for the miracles is already mentioned in the

Tosefta The Tosefta ( "supplement, addition") is a compilation of Jewish Oral Law from the late second century, the period of the Mishnah and the Jewish sages known as the '' Tannaim''. Background Jewish teachings of the Tannaitic period were cha ...

which indicates that on Hanukkah and Purim they say "a kind of event" in the confessional blessing of the eighteenth prayer. The exact wording "on the miracles" is not mentioned in the Tosefta (but "the kind of event") and even the Talmuds when they refer to prayer indicate "the kind of event". Probably the first to explicitly mention the words "Al HaNissim" is Rabbi Achai Mishbaha in the

She'iltot She'iltot of Rav Achai Gaon, also known as Sheiltot de-Rav Ahai, or simply She'iltot (), is a rabbinic Halakha, halakhic work composed in the 8th century by Ahai of Shabha (variants: Aḥa of Shabha; Acha of Shabcha), during the geonic period. ''S ...

and its full version is found for the first time in the order of Rabbi Amram Gaon and Siddur RSG.

Al HaNissim on Yom Ha'atzmaut

Various rabbis endorsed the recitation of Al Hanisim on Yom Ha'atzmaut, and even penned unique versions of this prayer, although this practice is not universally accepted. The first to publish a version of Al Hanisim for Yom Ha'atzmaut was Rabbi Ezra Zion Melamed.

External links

* rabbi

Eliezer Melamed Eliezer Melamed (; born 28 June 1961) is an Israeli religious-Zionist rabbi, the rosh yeshiva of Yeshivat Har Bracha, the rabbi of the settlement Har Bracha, and the author of '' Peninei Halakha'', a series of '' Halakhic'' works. Biography ...

Al Ha-nisim
in Peninei Halakha.

References

{{Purim footer, state=expanded Jewish prayer and ritual texts Hanukkah Purim Hebrew words and phrases in Jewish prayers and blessings