Hoshanos

"The difficult Succos prayers fully explained." ArtScroll's line names the problem precisely. Hoshanos are among the least understood texts a person recites all year: dense alphabetical piyutim, packed with allusions, said quickly while the tzibbur circles the bimah, and then put away for twelve months.

This volume from Rabbi Avie Gold and Rabbi Nosson Scherman is given over to them entirely - not a chapter tucked inside a broader machzor commentary, but 159 hardcover pages on Hoshanos alone, laying out what the words mean and what the composers built into them.

The 6.00 x 9.00 inch hardcover is sized for reading rather than for a pocket: large enough to follow comfortably at a shtender, bound solidly enough to be taken off the shelf one week a year for many years running without the spine giving up.

It is the right sefer for someone who has spent years saying Hoshanos without knowing what he is saying, for a baal tefillah who leads them, and for anyone preparing for Hoshana Rabbah. As a pre-Yom Tov gift it has the advantage of being useful immediately, which is more than most Succos gifts can claim.

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