("Our Father, our King"). Opening words and refrain of the most ancient Jewish litany, recited on penitential and fast days. Its origin may be found in a talmudic passage describing how, during a severe drought, only the prayer of R. Akiva was answered when he made an impromptu supplication: "Our Father, our King, we have no king beside You. Our Father, our King, for Your own sake have mercy on us!" (Ta'an. 25b). This forms the basis of a brief prayer that Sephardim and Yemenite Jews recite, morning and afternoon, in the weekday Taḥanun. From early rabbinic times, as new disasters befell the Jewish people, an expanded litany developed and each additional petition used the same opening words. In the ninth-century prayer book of Amram Gaon there are 25 lines, which have been incorporated in the Yemenite ritual. Both the order and the number of lines vary in other rites: Sephardim generally recite 32 and Ashkenazim 44 lines. The Avinu Malkenu petitions cover a wide range of private and communal anxieties; as well as expressing humility and repentance, they ask for the worshiper's own lack of merit to be weighed in the balance with the righteousness of Israel's saints and martyrs. While God is approached as a loving and protective Father, He is also the King of Kings who demands obedience to His Torah.
The Ashkenazi tradition stipulates that Avinu Malkenu be recited immediately after the Morning and Afternoon Service Amidah during the Ten Days of Penitence and on all public fast days (excluding Tishah Be-Av). It is not read, however, when these occasions fall on a Friday afternoon or on Sabbaths; when the Day of Atonement coincides with a Sabbath, it is only recited in the Concluding (Ne'Ilah) Service. Not all of these restrictions are observed by Sephardim, who include Avinu Malkenu in their liturgy for Shabbat Teshuvah, the "Sabbath of Repentance" (see Sabbaths, Special). Reform Jews recite the prayer only on Rosh Ha-Shanah and the Day of Atonement. In most Ashkenazi congregations, the last line is sung to a traditional melody on the High Holidays. It is customary for the Ark to be opened and for worshipers to stand while Avinu Malkenu is recited.
