Geniza Lab

Petition from Yaʿaqov b. Aharon, a man of some learning. In Judaeo-Arabic. Dating: Unknown. The sender petitions the addressee for financial help and for an appeal through the addressee to the council of elders to arrange a public collection for him. He describes himself as 'naked and bare with nothing upon me and nothing beneath' and having three children and a wife. In the margin the sender offers to copy out for the recipient the 'prayer for rain,' a long and extremely difficult liturgy (recited on the concluding holiday of the Feast of the Tabernacles) which Yaʿaqov obviously knew by heart. (Information from Mediterranean Society, V, pp. 90, 531.) Possibly in the hand of the clerk of Yehoshua Maimonides (d.1355).