That's transliterated Hebrew. The first one means "The world and everything in it belongs to God", the second "The end, praise God, creator of the world."
Yes. Those are traditional mottos from the way Jewish religious books are used. My wild guess is that they are more likely a sort of inside joke here, but it is conceivable that they are intended in all seriousness. Anyway, a person may write in the beginning of a book not only their own name, to mark their ownership of the book, but also that motto averring in humility that despite human claims to possessions there is one true owner of all the world. The second motto is used by the author of the book to express not only the end of the book's text, but also the author's hope that the goal of the book is worthy and is fulfilled.
No idea why they are there.