Ari Afilalo is a law professor by
day, who has co-authored ‘The New Global Trading Order: The
Evolving State and the Future of Trade’ with Dennis Patterson, a
book published by the Cambridge University Press. He is also an avid
researcher and consumer of Sephardic texts, poetry, music and
religious interpretations.
Ari Afilalo has started several
projects that he plans to complete over the summer, present at his
synagogue, the West Side Sephardic Synagogue, and other venues. The
first project is a compilation of traditional blessings given to
congregants called to the Torah in a Sephardic synagogue.
Ari stumbled upon the job of giving
the blessings when the then Rabbi of his community, who had been in
charge, moved to a new congregation. Instead of using the
traditional, fixed text that has been developed by the compilers of
the Moroccan prayer book used in the shul, Ari developed his own
blessings (brahot) based on the needs of each congregant: children,
marriage, a better living, good health.
His new project blends the text that
Ari developed with the traditional text of the blessings canon, and
comments on the sources that he uses for this project.
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