Literature of the Synagogue

323 Pages·2006·13.528 MB·English

by  Joseph Heinemann;Jacob Petuchowski

JEWISH STUDIES CLASSICS
Volume 4
The Jewish Studies Classics series brings back to academia
standard works in the field. Each title is reproduced from the
original with a new introduction by a contemporary scholar.
The first volumes are works from the 19th and early 20th cen-
tury scholars of the Wissen-schaft des Judentums and their
followers.
1. Leopold Zunz, Die gottesdienstlichen Vorträge der Juden:
his-torisch entwickelt.Ein Beitrag zur Alterthumskunde und
biblischen Kritik, zur Literatur- und Religionsgeschichte
(original edition 1919). With a New Introduction by Prof.
Rivka Kern-Ulmer.
2. Louis Ginzberg and Israel Davidson (eds.), Genizah Studies
in Memory of Doctor Solomon Schechter, 3 vols, (original
edition 1928). With a New Introduction by Prof. Burton L.
Visotzky.
3. Solomon Schechter, Studies in Judaism, 3 vols, (original
edition 1896-1924). With a New Introduction by Prof. Ismar
Schorsch.
4. Joseph Heinemann and Jakob J. Petuchowski, Literature of
the Synagogue (original edition 1975). With a New Introduc-
tion by Richard Sarason.
LITERATURE OF THE SYNAGOGUE
MRNMRN LITERATURE OF
THE SYNAGOGUE Edited, with
introductions and notes, by
JOSEPH HEINEMANN i i«
with JAKOB J. PETUCHOWSKI
Introduction by
Richard Sarason
GORGIAS PRESS
2006
First Gorgias Press Edition, 2006.
© Copyright 1975 by Joseph Heinemann
© Copyright 1975 by Jakob. J Petuchowski
for "The Poetry of the Synagogue"
The special contents of this edition are copyright © 2006 by
Gorgias Press LLC.
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright
Conventions. Published in the United States of America by
Gorgias Press LLC, New Jersey.
This edition is a facsimile reprint of the
original edition published by the Behrman House, Inc., New York, 1975.
ISBN 1-59333-364-1
GORGIAS PRESS
46 Orris Ave., Piscataway, NJ 08854 USA
www.gorgiaspress.com
The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of the
American National Standards.
Printed in the LTnited States of America.
JEWISH STUDIES CLASSICS
AN INTRODUCTION TO THE SERIES
Classics are standard works that retain their value, even after newer
insights have come up that supplement, or even replace part of
their contents. In Jewish learning, as in other fields of learning,
classic works have stood out from their more volatile companions
since antiquity. The classics remain, the others sink into oblivion.
At times classics disappear for reasons unrelated to their quality:
wars, natural catastrophes, political changes, religious reforms, cen-
sorship. Sometimes long forgotten works resurrect from oblivion,
such as was the case with the re-discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls
and the Cairo Geniza.
This series is devoted to the preservation and resurrection of
such Classics in Jewish Studies. The preservation is accounted for
by the fact that they are currently being reprinted in their original
state. Resurrection involves a notion of refreshment, of change
within the continuity. This is accomplished by means of new intro-
ductions by contemporary specialists in the field. Each work thus
presented is prefaced by a learned retrospect on the author or edi-
tor and his or her work, accounting for new insights and findings
that arose between the time of its earlier appearance and the pre-
sent day. By doing so each classic work is taken up in the discourse
of contemporary scholarship, in which the seeds of future learning
are already laid.
As a rule, works only become 'classics' in the eyes of subse-
quent generations. Their authors are often met with indignation
and misunderstanding by their contemporaries, confirming the ad-
age that nobody is a prophet in his own time. The history of Jewish
learning abides with great thinkers that suffered poverty, contempt
by fellow Jews, even excommunication. Baruch de Spinoza is only
the most well-known example of a great thinker who suffered such
i*
ii* INTRODUCTION TO THE SERIES
fate. The hostile attitude of the gentile authorities and masses to-
wards Jews more often than not aggravated this situation.
Milestones of Jewish learning are often laid in periods of tran-
sition, be it a revolution or the revival after a catastrophe. Such was
the case with the composition of many of the Biblical writings dur-
ing and after the Babylonian Exile (587-539 BCE), and with the
explosion of rabbinic literature after the Roman destruction of the
Jerusalem Temple (70 CE). Similarly, Jewish Studies only started to
flourish in the US after its decline in Germany, due to the latter's
political climate in the first half of the 20th century. After the Holo-
caust, the new State of Israel encouraged a spectacular revival of
Hebrew Studies.
Fortunately, reform and renewal are not always dependent on
historical catastrophes. The Golden Age of Spanish Jewry (10th —
12th century CE), was an age of relatively peaceful and intellectually
fruitful co-existence between Muslims and Jews. This era has
brought forth some of the greatest of Jewish thinkers, among
whom most famously Moses Maimonides. Centuries later, the
Haskalah movement in Central and Eastern Europe, promoted
(though not initiated) by Moses Mendelsohn (1729-86), was an in-
ner-Jewish revolution rather than a reaction to gentile oppression,
even though the latter was certainly not absent in that place and
time. These maskilim were triggered by the desire to learn from and
communicate with the surrounding non-Jewish world and its cul-
ture. A century later, their German-speaking followers benefited
from the groundwork of the maskilim, and even more from the
work of the Christian humanists. The movement that became
known as the Wissenschaft des Judentums, aspired to contribute to
general academic learning by bringing in what they thought was the
best of the Jewish heritage, and even to solicit the respect of their
mostly Christian environment. The full realization of the latter
dream had to wait for at least another century, with a catastrophic
downfall in the beginning of the previous century. In Europe, as in
the United States, Jewish Studies became only gradually accepted as
an academic discipline after the Second World War.
In this time of never-ending production of books and broad-
casting of information by all sorts of media, reflection on where we
come from is often forgotten. In view of the massive history of
Jewish learning, contemporary scholarship in Jewish Studies is no
more than the top level of a giant mountain. This series aims to
INTRODUCTION TO THE REPRINT III*
contribute to the re-appreciation of the mountain, which, at closer
view, reveals itself to be an accumulation of diverse levels and
multi-colored rocks.
Lieve M. Teugels,
Spring 2003

INTRODUCTION TO THE 2006 REPRINT
RICHARD S. SARASON
Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion, Cincinnati
To the memory of my teachers,
Joseph Heinemann, V'T
and
Jakob J. Petuchowski, V'T
When a sage's words are transmitted in this world, his lips move in the grave.
b. Yevamot 97a; cf. b. Sanhedrin 90b
The rapid growth of course offerings in Jewish studies in North American
colleges and universities in the late 1960s and early 1970s created a demand
for the publication of appropriate teaching materials—particularly introduc-
tory textbooks and annotated collections of primary sources in English
translation. To address this need, Behrman House, a publisher of curricular
materials for Jewish schools, inaugurated its Library of Jewish Studies series.
According to its prospectus, this series was designed to present "the basic
texts and documents in post-Biblical Jewish history, religion, philosophy,
and literature, ... newly edited with introductions and notes by well-known
scholars," and was aimed at "teachers and students, librarians, adult-
education groups, and all those who have wished to examine the Jewish
cultural tradition at first hand but who have been hampered by the absence
of good translations." Beginning with the publication in 1972 of Maimon-
ides Reader, compiled, annotated, and introduced by the noted Maimonides
scholar Isadore Twersky, the series would ultimately comprise ten volumes
published over the next twelve years. The present volume, originally pub-
lished in 1975, is to this day the only book that presents to the English
reader excerpts from all aspects of the "literature of the synagogue"—
prayers, hymns (liturgical poetry), and early homiletical materials. Its editors,
vi* NEW INTRODUCTION
Joseph Heinemann and Jakob J. Petuchowski, were two of the foremost
scholars of this literature.
The Jewish prayer book (comprising the siddur, or order of prayers for
weekdays and Sabbaths, and the mah^or, the annual cycle of prayers for the
festivals and high holy days)1 is probably the best textbook of basic Juda-
ism, practice, and theology. Outside of the Hebrew Bible, the prayer book
is that text most familiar to the average Jew, and the one that he or she en-
counters most frequently. It is the most direct expression of the fervently
held beliefs, hopes, fears, and aspirations of traditional Judaism over the
centuries. How Jews address God in prayer reveals much about Jewish con-
ceptions of God and the possibilities and dynamics of human—divine inter-
action.
Prayer and ritual are often referred to as instances of performative or
enacted theology—that is, theology that is kinesthetically acted out through
verbalization, intonation, gesture, movement, and interaction in both physi-
cal and social space. While the prayer book supplies the script for that activ-
ity, it is not coextensive with the activity itself.2 (A contemporary analogy
would be to the difference between reading the script of a play and acting in
a staged performance.) For the most part, the present volume focuses on
what can be learned from the script of Jewish communal prayer; the impact
of ritual studies, deriving from cultural anthropology and the study of relig-
ion, came to be felt on the study of Jewish worship after this volume was
first published. Nonetheless, there is much to be learned from the scripts of
prayer: their contents, theological worldviews, structures, and rhetoric.
Part One of this book presents the texts of major prayers recited in the
synagogue, annotated and introduced by Joseph Heinemann. Heinemann
drew on his own extensive publication and teaching in this area, particularly
on his seminal volume Prayer in the Talmud: Forms and Patterns? and his work
1 Strictly speaking, this twofold division of liturgical text obtains only among
Ashkenazim, the medieval Jewish communities that formed in central, then eastern,
Europe, and is a late medieval development. Initially, the term mah^or, "[annual]
cycle" (as well as the term seder tefillah, "order of prayer"), designated the entire
year's liturgy, and that unitary designation still obtains among Sephardim (the Jews
of the Iberian peninsula and their descendents) and most other rites. See Daniel
Goldschmidt, "Prayer Books," in Engclopaedia Judaica (Jerusalem: Keter, 1971),
13:985.
2 This insight has been put forth most consistently in the study of Jewish liturgy
by Lawrence A. Hoffman. See particularly his volume Beyond the Text: A Holistic
Approach to Uturg (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1984).
3 1977; translated by the present writer in consultation with the author; Hebrew