—that they slapped him, spat in his face, and pressed a crown of thorns upon his head—and how much more with the Persians, the Chaldeans, and others besides them?!

Time and again the Persian kings forbade them to practice circumcision, leaving them uncircumcised, and repeatedly they barred them from prayer. The Persians knew that the bulk of those prayers consisted of calling down ruin upon the nations and destruction upon their lands—except for the land of Canaan. When they discovered this, they prohibited them from praying altogether. Realizing how determined the Persians were to stop their prayers, the Jews invented a set of supplications which they blended into (1) their devotions and called “the khazanah.” They composed many melodies for it and would gather to chant and recite it together.

The difference between the khazanah and regular prayer is that the latter is performed without melody, each worshiper standing alone, whereas the khazanah is sung to a tune in which others join the chanter. Thus, if the Persians objected, the Jews would say, “We are only singing and lamenting over ourselves,” and the Persians would leave them to it.

When the Islamic polity arose, they enjoyed perfect security under it; they could perform their prayers in their synagogues, and the khazanah remained a custom among them on festivals, occasions, and joyful gatherings, serving as a substitute for formal prayer.

What is astonishing is that—despite the loss of their kingdom, their dispersal, their awareness of the continual wrath that pursues them, the transformation of their forefathers into apes for (2) killing the prophets, their transgression of the Sabbath, their abandonment of the law of Moses and the Torah, and their suspension of its rulings—they still say every single day in the prayer they call “Love of Eternity”: