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Jewish Prayers: Addir Bi-Melucha

Addir Bi-Melucha (Hebrew, "Might in Kingship") is an acrostical hymn recited toward the close of the Passover seder in the Ashkenazi and some other rites. It enumerates various attributes of God in the first two lines of each strophe, followed by a list of the various types of angels and the praises which they voice.

The hymn is first found in German manuscripts of the early 13th century and was probably written in Germany about that time.

In the Eẓ Ḥayyim of the 13th-century Jacob Ḥazzan of London (edited by I. Brodie, 1 (1960), 332), an additional stanza gives the acrostic Jacob, and conceivably this author wrote the poem.


Sources: Encyclopaedia Judaica. © 2008 The Gale Group. All Rights Reserved.

Responsa Meir of Rothenburg, ed. by Y.Z. Kahana, 1 (1957), 279, no. 462; Zunz, Vortraege, 133; Kaufmann, in: JQR, 4 (1892), 32, 560–1; Davidson, Oẓar, 2 (1929), s.v. Ki Lo Na'eh; E.D. Goldschmidt, Pessach-Haggada (Heb., Ger., 1937), 100–2; idem, Haggadah shel Pesaḥ (1947), 74–75; idem, Haggadah shel Pesaḥ (1960), 97.