Azharot
Azharot are read before Mincha on both days of Shavu'ot, followed by Ruth.
On the first day the מצות עשה
(positive commandments) are read and Ruth till ותגל
מרגלותיו
ותשכב (chapter 3 verse 7). The second day the
מצות לא תעשה
(negative commandments) are read followed by Ruth from
ויהי בחצי
הלילה till the end. Both days the verse
ישלם ה' פעלך is read at
the end. This can be found in the Mo'adim
by Mulder (1864) on page 215 onwards. Recordings can be found elsewhere
on this site.
On pages 217-218, Mulder adds a remark and eight verses, which cannot be found in our older Mo'adim books, and are indeed not read.
This is the text:
ודע שהאזרות אלו הם כדעת בעל הלכות גדולות ותרי"ג מצות שלנו הם כדעת הרמב"ם אשר חי כמה שנים אחר בעל הלכות גדולות * והחילוקים הם ל"ב * וקם איש חכם ונבון משורר גדול הרב שמעון בר צמח ובנה לנו שמונה בתים לישר האזרות גם לדעת הרמב"ם * ולפי שמצינו שהרב הגדול חיד"א בספרו מורה באצבע כתב לומר המצות בשבועות כדעת הרמב"ם אציגה לפניכם שמונה בתים אלו * והם הם אשר נדפסו בספר האזהרות עם פירש קצר מהרשב"ץ הנדפס באמסטרדם שנת בתמים (עיין שם הגדולים ערך אזהרות)
Which translates to:
And know that these Azharot are according to the opinion of
Ba’al Halachot Gedolot and our 613 mitzvoth are according to Maimonides who
lived years after Ba’al Halachot Gedolot * And the differences are 32 * And a
wise man, a great poet, rabbi Shimeon bar Tsemah composed for us eight
phrases to align to the opinion of Maimonides * And according to what we have
found that the great rabbi the Hida wrote in his book to say the mitzvoth on Shavu'ot
according to Maimonides I will present to you these eight
verses * And they are the ones printed in the Azharot book with a short
commentary, printed in Amsterdam in the year 5490 (see there the Azharot).
Azharot, Amsterdam 5490-1730
(Mulder writes for the year בתמים,
the book shows התמים. This is obviously incorrect,
because if there is no ה at the beginning, לפ"ק
should have been there)
According the book Malchi Rabanan (1998, יוסף בן יצחק בן נאיים) these versus were composed by rabbi Vidal Serfaty (Hassarfati, 1545-1619) and should be read before the words ויום זכרון תרועה, as printed by Mulder (page 217 last line), see marked lines.
The rabbi of our community, rabbi Joseph Serfay, had a readable version of these eight verses made and promotes to reintroduce them as indicated. Rabbi Serfaty wrote a teshuba (responsum) on this.