[11] Kiddush levana is generally understood to be an evolution of the rituals associated with declaring a new calendar month, which date back to the Second Temple period, or possibly even earlier.

[29] Arthur A. Friedman traces it to worship of Astarte,[30] George Margoulioth, to Sin,[31] Abraham Danon, to Ishtar,[32] and Gerda Barag, to "the cult of the Mother-Goddess",[33] while M. H. Segal, Theodor Reik, and Gnana Robinson argue that it was originally a form of moon-worship.

[63] Yet by the turn of the 14th century, Soferim ritual's had been wholly accepted by Ashkenazic authorities (Orhot hayyim, Rokeah, Semag, Manhig, Shibbolei haleket,[64] Or zarua,[65] Machzor Vitry (London),[66] ex-Montefiore 134[67]), as well as by Bahya ben Asher[68] and Jonah Gerondi,[69] and it was eventually codified in the Tur (c. 1340) and Beit Yosef (1542).

[74] Samuel Schlettstadt (14th century) is the first to describe including "Long live David, King of Israel" in Kiddush levana, attributing the addition to a certain "Sefer Hekhalot".

[75] It is later cited by Zelikman of Binga [he] (d. c. 1470), Judah Obernik (c. 1450), Abraham Saba (1500), Meir ibn Gabbai (1507), and Naphtali Hirsch Treves (1546), before being codified by Moses Isserles in 1590.

[76] Schlettstatt compares the custom to b. Rosh Hashanah 25a, but Obernik and Isserles associate it with the biblical commentaries of Nachmanides (Gen. 38:29) and Bahya ben Asher[i] (Gen.

[11]Ibn Gabbai was apparently the first to record the addition of another liturgy, "May it be Your will for the moon to wax into fullness ..."[83] Mordecai Yoffe (1530–1612) was the first to prefer reciting Kiddush levana in a group.

16th-century Lurianic kabbalists added Psalm 148 to the service[85] and began a practice of shaking one's garments (especially tzitzit) after the ritual, in order to dislodge any evil spirits drawn by the moon.

[87] Isaiah Horowitz (1555–1630) records including Psalm 150, the baraita "Rabbi Ishmael said, had Israel merited no other privilege than to greet their Father in Heaven once a month, that would have been sufficient .

[l][113] On January 19, 1980,[114] the Jewish Arts Community of the Bay hosted a 1,500-person Kiddush levana with masks, choreographed dancing, shofar blowing, original liturgy, the Priestly Blessing, and other novel ritual elements.

Falk also included an original Hebrew poem, Hithadshut halevana ("Renewal of the Moon") and recommended that readings be separated by "periods of silence, conducive to reflection or meditation".

"[121] The Kol Sakhal (1504) of "Amitai bar Yedaya ibn Raz of Alcalay" calls Kiddush levana "not only complete idiocy but obvious idolatry" and moon-worship.

[122] In 1854, Pavel Ignatieff commissioned a report on Kiddush levana, which found "obscene (nepristoinye) phrases incorporated within the liturgy," demonstrating a fanatical, messianic undertone.

[143] In 1931, Samuel Krauss described jumping at the moon as a primitive magical practice, "so strange that even Isserles acknowledged that it had a suspicion of idolatry attached to it .

The inconvenience of the late evening hour, when the blessing is to be recited, the cumbrous rubrics, and the mystical accretions surrounding the prayer all account for its current lack of recognition .

Traditional Jews observing the practice of birkat hal'vanah seem unselfconsciously to enjoy the ritual with all its celebratory, nature-loving, "pagan" undertones—presumably aware that it is a link to their ancient history.

[160][161][162][122] According to David Lida [he], even one who has not yet said Maariv should recite Kiddush levana with the rest of the community;[163] this ruling is also cited by Yechiel Michel Epstein Ashkenazi in the name of "the writings of Bunim Halevi of Rymanów".

[174] Obernik would recite Kiddush levana even if the moon was mostly covered by clouds,[174] but the common practice of today's Orthodox Jews is to wait for a clear night.

[228] Shlomo Kluger (1785–1869) went further, abandoning Horowitz's premise, and explained that women are obligated to perform the mitzvah, because it is dependent on the act of seeing the new moon rather than a particular schedule.

[238] Eric L. Friedlander, a Reform rabbi, endorsed reciting the blessing component in 1968: "The prayer's present-day indisposition should not in the least obscure for us its literary excellence and religious feeling .

[266] Davis argues that Kiddush levana adaptations should always include the Talmudic blessing, and that it is particularly suited to "renewal that follows diminution or loss, and to periods of flux or change".

"[281] Many believe that this statement is the origin of the following widespread beliefs:[282][283][284] However, they may also have been adapted from non-Jewish Eastern European folk custom, which likewise held that the new moon brings prosperity and that one can avoid death that month by greeting it with the correct liturgy.

[115] The premier of Shlomo Bar and the Natural Gathering's musical pageant "Birkat halevana" closed out the World Organization of North African Jewry's 1983 Knas Shoreshim;[315] it aired on Channel 2 in 1987.

Leopold von Sacher-Masoch wrote a short story, "The Blessing of the New Moon" (1892), about a Jewish slave named Naome who unites with his master, Zamira, over Kiddush levana.

[334] Sholem Aleichem's "Kiddush levana" (1917;[335] abridged in English as "The Krushniker Delegation"[336]) is "a variation of the Joseph and Benjamin story from Genesis and at the same time shows the limitations of Jewish political efforts in World War I".

[341] Joseph Skibell's debut novel A Blessing on the Moon (1997) takes its title from Kiddush levana, which it uses to "provide a cause for hope",[342] evoking "significantly and potentially restorative symbolic meaning".

[349] The form of these depictions follows a template established by early woodcuts of astrologers, and they generally include an anthropomorphic moon, which was very common in pre-modern Jewish art.

[355] Notable modern artists have depicted Kiddush levana, including Joseph Budko, Max Weber,[93] Lionel S. Reiss[356] Emanuel Glicen Romano,[357] Hendel Lieberman,[358] Zalman Kleinman,[359] Moshe Castel[360] Zvi Malnovitzer,[361] Elena Flerova,[362] Boris Shapiro,[363][364] Reuven Rubin, Haim Goldberg, Tadeusz Popiel, Hermann Junker, Jacob Steinhardt, and Artur Markowicz.

Noa Ginzburg's MFA thesis, Kiddush Levana, The Moon Is Your Handheld Mirror (2019), aimed "to disarm anthropocentric points of view and speak of temporality and displacement".

This prayer is pronounced in a whisper; the party holding up his hands before his face: its purport (as I have been assured by many different people) is to return thanks to God for his kindness through the existence of the past moon, and to solicit a continuation of his favour during that of the new one.