The machzor (, plural machzorim, and, respectively) is the prayer book which is used by Jews on the High Holy Days of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. Many Jews also make use of specialized machzorim on the three pilgrimage festivals of Passover, Shavuot, and Sukkot. The machzor is a specialized form of the siddur, which is generally intended for use in weekday and Shabbat services. The word machzor means "cycle"; the root ח־ז־ר means "to return". The term machzor originally referred to a book containing prayers for the entire year, including weekdays and Shabbat as well as holidays. Later (first in Ashkenazi communities) a distinction developed between the siddur, which included weekday and Shabbat prayers, and the machzor, which included festival prayers. Nevertheless, the original type of Machzor containing all of the prayers for the year continued to be used (even if less common) at least into the 20th century.

Origins and peculiarities

Some of the earliest formal Jewish prayerbooks date from the tenth century; they contain a set order of daily prayers. However, due to the many liturgical differences between the ordinary, day-to-day services and holiday services, the need for a specialized variation of the siddur was recognized by some of the earliest rabbinic authorities, and consequently, the first machzorim were written incorporating these liturgical variations and additions. The machzor contains not only the basic liturgy, but also many piyyutim, which are liturgical poems specific to the holiday for which the machzor is intended. Many of the prayers in the machzor, including those said daily or weekly on the Sabbath, have special melodies sung only on the holidays. Most machzorim contain only text and no musical notation; the melodies, some of which are ancient, have been passed down orally.

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