154 UNKNOWN SOURCES OF LADINO INSTRUCTIONS IN A PRAYER BOOK FOR JEWISH WOMEN Ora (Rodrigue) Schwarzwald (Bar-Ilan University. Israel) Seder Nashim, a Ladino prayer book for women published in Thessaloniki in the sixteenth century, contains a variety of instructions relating to all aspects of Jewish life. Most of the instructions are based on known Jewish halakha as presented in the Talmud or the Shulḥan Arukh. Some of the instructions are formulated anew by Rabbi Meir Benveniste, the author of the book, but follow traditional laws. However, a number of the instructions cannot be traced back to any halakhic sources. Instances of such instructions include laws pertaining to Sabbath observance and the commandment of Ḥalla. This article presents examples of these laws, describes them, and shows how they were reformulated in order to conform to social customs of the day. 1. Introduction Seder Nashim (from here on SN), a Ladino prayer book for women designed for year-round use, was published circa 1565 in square vocalized Hebrew letters. It was written by Rabbi Meir Ben Shmuel ben Ban Benst (Benveniste) in Thessaloniki and published at the Yosef Ben Yitsḥaq Yaabets printing-house (Cohen, 2015). The only extant original copy of this book can be found today in the National Library in Jerusalem. 1 SN includes prayers, blessings, and instructions, all written in Ladino. The book is comprised of 315 pages, the average number of words per page is 85, and a few pages are missing at the end (Schwarzwald, 2012). The prayers in the book are equivalent to any prayer book used by men, but have been abridged. This format follows a rabbinical ruling that women do not need to recite the full corpus of prayers, as stated in Benveniste’s introduction. Thus, for instance, Tefillat HaAmida (the silent prayer said three times a day, known among Ladino Sephardim as Amida and among Ashkenazim as Shemone Esre [the eighteen blessings]) is ———— 1 Catalogue number: R099A681; online version: http://web.nli.org.il/sites/ nli/Hebrew/library/Pages/BookReader.aspx?pid=515347.