On Wings of Prayer: Sources of Jewish Worship; Essays in Honor of Professor Stefan C. Reif on the Occasion of his Seventy-fifth Birthday 311062995X, 9783110629958

Table of contents :
Table of Contents
Preface
Abbreviations
Part I: Biblical and Second Temple Studies
Glimpses of Prayers and Poetics in the Book of Amos
The Prayer in Ben Sira 22:27–23:6 and the Prosodic Version in MS ENA 3053.3
Ben Sira’s Teaching on Prayer: The Example of the Generations of Old
Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur Theology in Ben Sira 17:25–18:14
“When she ended her prayer …”. A Study of the Relationship between the Hebrew and the Greek Texts of the Book of Esther
Rediscoveries in Judaism: The Temple and the Return to Israel in 2 Macc 1:10–2:18
Did Judith Go to the Miqweh?
Wisdom 9, an “Inset Psalm”
The Qumran Tefillin and Their Possible Master Copies
The Prayer of Faith – the Prayer of the Righteous (Jas 5:13–18): Where the “Ways” Intersect
Part II: Rabbinic Traditions
A New Look at the Nuptial Benedictions in Babylonia and Palestine
The Poetics and Theology of Adon Olam
Re-Examining the Early Evidence for Rabbinic Liturgy: How Fixed Were Its Prayer Texts?
The Introduction of the Hallel into the Passover Seder and the Split of the Chapters 114 and 115 in the Book of Psalms
Ritual and Communal Responsibility: Hanina bar Hama and the Sepphoreans
Whom to Remember: Sarah or Noah?
The Behavioral and the Mental in Jewish Worship: Is There A Hierarchy?
The Qumran Psalter and the Medieval Palestinian Tefillat ha-Shir
“We shall glorify You, our King”: A Poetic Passage in the Second Benediction of the Grace after Meals
The Rabbinic Traditions about the Establishment of the Amidah: Some Observations
List of Publications of Professor Stefan C. Reif
List of Contributors
Index of References
Index of Authors
Index of Subjects

Citation preview

On Wings of Prayer

Deuterocanonical and Cognate Literature Studies

Edited by Friedrich V. Reiterer, Beate Ego, Tobias Nicklas, and Kristin de Troyer

Volume 44

On Wings of Prayer

Sources of Jewish Worship Essays in Honor of Professor Stefan C. Reif on the Occasion of his Seventy-fifth Birthday Edited by Nuria Calduch-Benages, Michael W. Duggan, and Dalia Marx

ISBN 978-3-11-062995-8 e-ISBN (PDF) 978-3-11-063028-2 e-ISBN (EPUB) 978-3-11-063072-5 ISSN 1865-1666 Library of Congress Control Number: 2019943433 Bibliographic information published by the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek The Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche Nationalbibliografie; detailed bibliographic data are available on the Internet at http://dnb.dnb.de. © 2019 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston Printing and binding: CPI books GmbH, Leck www.degruyter.com

Stefan C. Reif

Table of Contents Preface  |  XI

Abbreviations  |  XV

Part I: Biblical and Second Temple Studies  Stefan Beyerle  Glimpses of Prayers and Poetics in the Book of Amos | 3 Pancratius C. Beentjes  The Prayer in Ben Sira 22:27–23:6 and the Prosodic Version in MS ENA 3053.3 | 21 Nuria Calduch-Benages  Ben Sira’s Teaching on Prayer: The Example of the Generations of Old | 37 Jeremy Corley  Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur Theology in Ben Sira 17:25–18:14 | 55 Kristin De Troyer  “When she ended her prayer …”.  A Study of the Relationship between the Hebrew and the Greek Texts of the Book of Esther | 71 Michael W. Duggan  Rediscoveries in Judaism: The Temple and the Return to Israel in 2 Macc 1:10–2:18 | 83 Renate Egger-Wenzel  Did Judith Go to the Miqweh? | 101 Maurice Gilbert  Wisdom 9, an “Inset Psalm” | 125 Emanuel Tov  The Qumran Tefillin and Their Possible Master Copies | 135

VIII | Table of Contents

Oda Wischmeyer  The Prayer of Faith – the Prayer of the Righteous (Jas 5:13–18): Where the “Ways” Intersect | 151

Part II: Rabbinic Traditions   Shulamit Elizur  A New Look at the Nuptial Benedictions in Babylonia and Palestine | 171 Reuven Kimelman  The Poetics and Theology of Adon Olam | 187 Ruth Langer and Richard S. Sarason  Re-Examining the Early Evidence for Rabbinic Liturgy: How Fixed Were Its Prayer Texts? | 203 Clemens Leonhard  The Introduction of the Hallel into the Passover Seder and the Split of the Chapters 114 and 115 in the Book of Psalms | 233 David Levine  Ritual and Communal Responsibility: Hanina bar Hama and the Sepphoreans | 251 Alona Lisitsa  Whom to Remember: Sarah or Noah? | 273 Dalia Marx  The Behavioral and the Mental in Jewish Worship: Is There a Hierarchy? | 285 Vered Raziel Kretzmer and Jonathan Ben-Dov  The Qumran Psalter and the Medieval Palestinian Tefillat ha-Shir | 299 Avi Shmidman and Uri Ehrlich  “We shall glorify You, our King”: A Poetic Passage in the Second Benediction of the Grace after Meals | 317

Table of Contents | IX

Joseph Tabory  The Rabbinic Traditions about the Establishment of the Amidah: Some Observations | 337 List of Publications of Professor Stefan C. Reif  |  355 List of Contributors  |  377 Index of References |  379 Index of Authors |  398 Index of Subjects |  405

Preface Through an unparalleled combination of scholarly acumen and administrative ingenuity, Professor Stefan Reif effected an awakening in Genizah studies from lingering dormancy in the wake of the nineteenth century to enduring vibrancy at the dawn of twenty-first century and beyond. The vitality for this transformation originated in the infectious energy that Prof. Reif brought to his work daily over the course of 33 years. In March of 1973 he was appointed as an assistant under-librarian tasked with sorting out the contents of the Taylor-Schechter collection of Cairo Genizah materials at Cambridge University. In March of 2006, he retired as the founding Director of Taylor-Schechter Genizah Research Unit. The transformation he brought to Genizah research over this time-span is reflected in his professional advancement as he was elected to a Fellowship of St. John’s College (1998), appointed a professor of Medieval Hebrew Studies in the Faculty of Oriental Studies (1998), and admitted to the Litt. D. degree of the University of Cambridge (2002). A decade later, the University of Haifa recognized his accomplishments by awarding him a Ph.D honoris causa (2014). Stefan Reif is a strategist who generated a whirlwind of activity that transposed 190,000 Genizah fragments from dusty storage boxes into a world-class data base that receives hundreds of hits per day. He is a visionary who surveyed ancient scraps in cardboard containers and foresaw a new era of Jewish studies that would expand education in the humanities to benefit the world at large. To accomplish this task, he became a model of multitasking that erased partitions between academia and enterprise. He was an archivist, librarian, scholar, author, editor, teacher, mentor, publicist, fundraiser, and office manager all rolled into one. His expertise in medieval Hebrew and Jewish studies combined with his work ethic to attract industrious research assistants, whom he mentored to work on the fragments. He drew accomplished scholars to the Taylor-Schechter Unit for their sabbatical studies and saw to the publication of their monographs. For three decades, Stefan’s wife Shulie, of blessed memory, demonstrated unstinting devotion at the office as she undertook a wide spectrum of tasks that included cataloguing the fragments and reviewing Stefan’s works for publication. She and Stefan extended the hospitality of their home to visitors and colleagues at the Taylor-Schechter Genizah Unit. In Stefan Reif, the fragments had an ambassador who shaped the TaylorSchechter Unit into an environment in which leaders and citizens of our contemporary global village could encounter the medieval Jewish community in Cairo. Stefan welcomed to the Unit an array of dignitaries including Prince Philip of the U.K., King Juan Carlos and Queen Sofia of Spain, Mr. Ezer Weizman,

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XII | Preface

the President of Israel, Lord Coggan, the former Archbishop of Canterbury and the Chief Rabbi of the U.K., Sir Jonathan Sacks. Stefan facilitated access for film crews from the American NBC network and the BBC to produce specials on the Genizah collection. His numerous radio and television interviews spread the word about the collection across the world. Twice yearly from 1981 until 2006 he published the newsletter, Genizah Fragments, which chronicled the exceptional pace at which the Genizah Unit developed and captured international attention. Nevertheless, Prof. Reif’s success in innovative librarianship serves primarily as background for appreciating his prodigious scholarly output. Shortly after his arrival at the library, he published the Guide to the Taylor-Schechter Genizah Collection which set the stage for his developing and supervising the Cambridge University Library Genizah Series, to which he also contributed as an author and editor. He complemented such technical works with a fine history of the Genizah collection at Cambridge that reached a wide readership. His publications on Hebrew and Judaism in the medieval era provide rich interpretations of the rabbinic material from the Cairo genizah. His book, Judaism and Hebrew Prayer: New Perspectives on Jewish Liturgical History (1993), with a translation into Hebrew, is emblematic of his studies in Jewish prayer, which extend beyond the historical range of the Genizah material and have endured as essential references for successive generations of scholars. Some of his recent articles and editorial endeavors, particularly in collaboration with Prof. Renate EggerWenzel, have explored the roots of Jewish prayer and liturgy in the Second Temple era. He has had an invaluable impact on the International Society for the Study of Deuterocanonical and Cognate Literature. In Cambridge, Prof. Reif takes an active role in the Traditional Jewish Congregation which is a centre for Jewish student life in close proximity to St. John’s College. The locale has associations with Hebrew literature that date back to the twelfth century. Within this milieu, one may contemplate Prof. Reif as embodying the tradition of Solomon Schechter in the twenty-first century. From 1890 until 1902, Schechter made a home for his family in the small Jewish community at Cambridge. He was an industrious scholar who researched halakhic manuscripts in the University library and held a university post as a lecturer in rabbinic studies. In 1896, he travelled to Egypt and discovered the folios and fragments in the genizah of the Ben Ezra synagogue, which was located in the Fustat district of Old Cairo. Throughout Schechter’s residence in Cambridge, the Master of St. John’s College was The Rev’d Dr Charles Taylor, an Anglican priest who was a Hebraist and mathematician by training. Taylor provided financial and moral support that enabled Schechter to bring the Genizah collection from Cairo to Cambridge. The working partnership between Schechter and Taylor

Preface | XIII

calls to mind the enduring personal friendship between Prof. Stefan Reif and The Rev’d Dr Andrew Macintosh, the former Dean and President of St John’s College. Their rapport exemplifies bonds between Jews and Christians that open new horizons of creativity and collaboration in the academy. Now Prof. Reif makes his home in Israel as well as Cambridge. Throughout his tenure as founding Director, the Genizah Unit in Cambridge became a place of pilgrimage for research scholars from Israel and he reciprocated by working as a visiting scholar at Hebrew University. Currently, he serves as Chairman of The Centre for Interdisciplinary Research of the Cairo Genizah at the University of Haifa and he holds a senior research post in liturgical studies at Tel Aviv University. He continues to advance scholarship in the field of Jewish liturgy and to lecture on vital issues pertaining to the origins of Jewish prayer. Some essays in this volume bear witness to his unremitting engagement in current academic debates. Prof. Reif demonstrates exceptional persistence in strengthening scholarly collaboration in Hebrew and Jewish studies between Israel and the U.K. The contributors and editors dedicate this volume of research to Professor Stefan C. Reif on the occasion of his 75th birthday. Together these papers reflect our appreciation for his exemplary scholarship and lifelong commitment to acquaint our world with the theological and cultural riches of Jewish Studies. This collection reflects the breadth of Prof. Reif’s interests insofar as it is a combination of Second Temple studies and Rabbinic Traditions. Moreover, the regional diversity of scholars from Israel, continental Europe, the United Kingdom, Ireland and North America mirrors Stefan’s travels as a lecturer and the reach of his publications. Beyond all of Stefan’s accomplishments, we express our gratitude for his strength of character, wisdom and personal friendship. Ad multos annos. Nuria Calduch-Benages, Michael Duggan, and Dalia Marx

Abbreviations AASOR AB ABD ABE AIL AnBib ANRW AOAT ATD BBB BDAG

Annual for the American Schools of Oriental Research Anchor Bible Anchor Bible Dictionary Asociación Bíblica Española Acient Israel and Its Literature Analecta Biblica Aufstieg und Niedergang der römischen Welt Alter Orient und Altes Testament Das Alte Testament Deutsch Bonner biblische Beiträge Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and other Early Christian Literature, Third Edition revised and edited by Fredrick William Danker et al. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000 (electronic version) BETL Bibliotheca Ephemeridum Theologicarum Lovaniensium BHQ Biblia Hebraica Quinta Bib Biblica BJS Brown Judaic Studies BKAT Biblischer Kommentar, Altes Testament BRLJ Brill Reference Library of Judaism BZ Biblische Zeitschrift BZAW Beihefte zur Zeitschrift für die altestamentliche Wissenschaft BZNW Beihefte zur Zeitschrift für die neutestamentliche Wissenschaf CAD The Assyrian Dictionary of the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago CAT Commentaire de l’Ancien Testament CBQ Catholic Biblical Quarterly CEJL Commentaries on Early Jewish Literature CNT Commentaire du Nouveau Testament CRINT Compendia Rerum Judaicarum ad Novum Testamentum CUL Cambridge University Library DBSup Dictionnaire de la Bible: Supplément DCH The Dictionary of Classical Hebrew (Clines) DCLS Deuterocanonical and Cognate Literature Studies DJD Discoveries in the Judaean Desert DSSR Dead Sea Scrolls Reader EBib N.S. Etudes bibliques. Nouvelle série EHAT Exegetisches Handbuch zum Alten Testament EMC Enelow Memorial Collection ENA Elkan Nathan Adler EncJud Encyclopedia Judaica EstBib Estudios bíblicos ETS Erfurter theologische Studien FAT Forschungen zum Alten Testament FGP Friedberg Geniza Project FHJA Fragments from Hellenistic Jewish Authors (Holladay)

https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110630282-101

XVI | Abbreviations

FRLANT FTS GCS HAL Hen HR HSAT HThKAT HUCA ICC IJS ISDCL ITQ JAL JBL JBQ JJS JNUL JQR JRS JSHRZ JSJ JSJSup JSOT JSOTSup JSP JSQ JTS KAI KAT KJV KJVA LCL LD LEH LNTS MS(S) NETS NJB NLI NRSV NRT NS NSKAT NTS NZST

Forschungen zur Religion und Literatur des Alten und Neuen Testaments Frankfurter theologische Studien Die griechischen christlichen Schriftsteller der ersten [drei] Jahrhunderte Hebräisches und aramäisches Lexikon zum Alten Testament (Koehler, Baumgartner, Stamm) Henoch History of Religions Die Heilige Schrift des Alten Testaments Herders Theologischer Kommentar zum Alten Testament Hebrew Union College Annual International Critical Commentary Institute of Jewish Studies International Society for the Study of Deuterocanonical and Cognate Literature Irish Theological Quarterly Jewish Apocryphal Literature Series Journal of Biblical Literature Jewish Bible Quarterly Journal of Jewish Studies Jewish National and University Library, Jerusalem Jewish Quarterly Review Journal of Roman Studies Jüdische Schriften aus hellenistisch-römischer Zeit Journal for the Study of Judaism in the Persian, Hellenistic, and Roman Periods Supplements to Journal for the Study of Judaism Journal for the Study of the Old Testament Journal for the Study of the Old Testament Supplement Series Journal for the Study of the Pseudepigrapha Jewish Studies Quarterly Jewish Theological Seminary Kanaanäische und aramäische Inschriften Kommentar zum Altes Testament Kings James Version Kings James Version Apokrypha Loeb Classical Library Lectio Divina Greek-English Lexicon of the Septuagint (Lust, Eynikel and Hauspie) The Library on New Testament Studies Manuscript(s) A New English Translation of the Septuagint (Pietersma and Wright) The New Jerusalem Bible National Library of Israel New Revised Standard Version Nouvelle revue théologique New Series Neuer Stuttgarter Kommentar, Altes Testament New Testament Studies Neue Zeitschrift für systematische Theologie

Abbreviations | XVII

OBO OTE OTL PAAJR PAM PzB RB REJ RevQ RHR RNL RSém RSV SBLDS SBLSP SBLTT SCS SJ SRIHPJ StBibLit STDJ TH THKNT ThWAT TQ TSAJ USB VT VTSup WUNT ZAW ZNW

Orbis Biblicus et Orientalia Old Testament Essays Old Testament Library Proceedings of the American Academy of Jewish Research Palestine Archeological Museum Protokolle zur Bibel Revue biblique Revue des études juives Revue de Qumrân Revue de l’histoire des religions Russian National Library Revue de sémitique Revised Standard Version Society of Biblical Literature Dissertation Series Society of Biblical Literature Seminar Papers Society of Biblical Literature Texts and Translations Septuagint and Cognate Studies Studia Judaica Studies of the Research Institute for Hebrew Poetry in Jerusalem Studies in Biblical Literature (Lang) Studies on the Texts of the Desert of Judah Theodotion Theologischer Handkommentar zum Neuen Testament Theologisches Wörterbuch zum Alten Testament (Botterweck and Ringgren) Theologische Quartalschrift Texte und Studien zum antiken Judentum United Bible Societies Vetus Testamentum Supplements to Vetus Testamentum Wissenschaftliche Untersuchungen zum Neuen Testament Zeitschrift für die alttestamentliche Wissenschaft Zeitschrift für die neutestamentliche Wissenschaft und die Kunde der älteren Kirche

| Part I: Biblical and Second Temple Studies

Stefan Beyerle

Glimpses of Prayers and Poetics in the Book of Amos Abstract: After a critical examination of scholarly approaches towards poetry, the study explores the connecting lines between poetry and prophecy. Among recent scholarly approaches, careful distinctions made by Robert Alter, Moshe Greenberg, and Alexa Wilke, are helpful to determine approach and method. Furthermore, the investigation focuses on the three hymns in the book of Amos: 4:13; 5:8–9; 9:5–6, questioning their functions in a prophetic context. Following a detailed investigation of philological and literary-critical problems in all three hymns, the study points to three different strategies of transformation, which help to explain the function of the hymns in their prophetic environment. Keywords: book of Amos; hymns; prophecy; poetry; prayer, creation; apocalypticism.

1 Poetics and prayers in prophecy Modern scholarship on the Hebrew Bible clearly distinguishes between prophecy on the one hand and poetry on the other. This distinction can by no means be taken for granted. As we all know, it was Robert Lowth (1710–1787), a Bishop of the Church of England and Oxford Professor of Poetry, who pointed out the distinctive features of Hebrew poetry by referring to the “parallelism,” the doubling of language in different words (parallelismus membrorum: “parallelism of clauses”).1 Lowth’s description of Hebrew poetry was published in his academic lectures De sacra poesi Hebraeorum (1753) and especially in lecture XIX that was part of an examination on “‫ נבואה‬sive poesis prophetica” (“The Prophetic Poetry:” lectures XVIII–XXI). Lowth distinguishes three species of “parallelism:” synonymous, antithetic, and synthetic. In the following paragraphs of his lectures, Lowth explains those categories by referring to textual evidence from the Hebrew Bible that includes prophecy in particular (e.g., Isaiah or Hosea). All in

|| 1 Nevertheless, Immanuel ben David Frances (1618–ca. 1710) of Leghorn (Livorno, Italy; born in Mantua) had already identified Hebrew poetry by its use of “parallelism” (cf. Berlin, Poetry, 163). On the pre-history of Lowth’s invention of “parallelisms” in Jewish and Christian environments cf. Kugel, Idea, 204–73. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110630282-002

4 | Stefan Beyerle

all, Lowth’s approach to poetry views poetry and prophecy as being very closely linked to each other. In contrast to Lowth, Jewish exegesis in Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages clearly separated poetry from prophecy. The most important reason for this separation was that prophets acted as persons endowed with divine inspiration, while poetry was a human product.2 In other words, prophecy was caused by divine revelation, but poetry was a human art form. As a consequence of this differentiation, major problems were seen among Jewish scholars, as, for example, no one could deny that divinely inspired compositions, like the Torah, included poetry (cf. Exod 15; Num 24; Deut 32 etc.). Thus, some scholars, like Isaac Abravanel (1437–1508), pled for different types of poetry and conceded that the biblical prophets used both divine and human speech at the same time.3 Modern scholarly discussions on Hebrew poetry, on the one hand, harshly criticize Lowth’s rather formal approach to poetry, especially Lowth’s restricted method of using parallelisms as a criterion to identify poetry, and, on the other hand, come back to Lowth’s connection between poetry and prophecy.4 For example, Robert Alter points out that every discursive stance between the prophet and his or her audience was realized through poetry, while those passages that address a dialogue between God and the prophet, as in the “visions,” were written in prose (cf. Jer 1:13–14; 36:27–31).5 The picture of form-critical differentiations within prophetic literature is further muddled by the question concerning the use and function of prayers. Most recently, Andrew Hill voted for a broad definition of “prayer” as “divinehuman dialogue” or a human’s access to the divine and included also related forms like “prayer sidelights.” Among the latter, Hill refers to texts that support the act of praying and imply that God had heard a prayer, or that a prayer was initiated by certain “code words” like “seek” (‫בקשׁ‬, ‫)דרשׁ‬, “ask” (‫)שׁאל‬, “cry out” (‫)קרא‬, and “entreat” (‫)חלה‬.6 Based on this definition and differentiation, Hill provides us with a list of different types of “prayers” in the Book of the Twelve. Regarding the book of Amos, he identifies the following passages: Amos 5:4–6 (implied prayer); 7:1–9 (recorded prayers of intercession); 2:6–8; 5:10–12; 8:4–6 (“sidelight to prayer:” a link between worship and social justice) and 4:1–4, 6–

|| 2 Cf. Berlin, Poetry, 48–49. 3 Cf. Berlin, Poetry, 120–24. 4 For a critique of Lowth cf. Kugel, Idea, 1–58 (esp. 12–15, 57–58); cf. also 274–86. 5 Cf. Alter, Art, 137–39. 6 So Hill, “Theology,” 152–53.

Glimpses of Prayers and Poetics in the Book of Amos | 5

13 (“sidelight to prayer:” God’s theodicy).7 Obviously, Hill thought that the “divine-human dialogue” criterion for prayer was not met in the lament and the hymnal passages of the Book of Amos. Alexa Wilke very recently studied the whole corpus of prophetic writings in the Hebrew Bible, including the book of Daniel, with a view to prayers and how they were integrated in their contexts. Wilke, comparable to Hill’s approach, finds the differential criterion for “prayer” in a verbal turn to God, or the verbal “divine communion.”8 But, beyond Hill’s examinations, she is fully aware that hymnal passages may not comply with the principle of “divine communion.” What is more, within their prophetic contexts, prayers are located within crucial textual environments of a passage or a book with the aim to point to transformations of “time periods,” “places,” or “identities.”9 Overall, the discussion of poetry, prophecy and prayer paves the way for a comprehensive analysis of the hymns in the book of Amos.10

2 From prayer to prophecy: hymns in the book of Amos One of the most prolific biblical scholars of the twentieth century, Moshe Greenberg, pointed to the fact that prayers in ancient Israel were not just an issue for professionals such as priests. Greenberg’s analysis demands a secondary literary transfer of prayers, which have their origin in popular experiences, into a context that was adopted by prophets, psalmists, and sages.11 In the case of Hebrew prophecy, particularly with regard to the book of Amos, the exegetical analysis, as a consequence, should be limited to the level of literary texts.

|| 7 So Hill, “Theology,” 156. 8 Cf. Wilke, Gebete, 2. 9 Wilke, Gebete, 403–19. 10 Generally speaking, poetry and prayer are closely linked for a variety of reasons, one of which is clearly the liturgical localization of prayers—e.g., in early Judaism. Stefan Reif, a leading expert in the field of Jewish liturgy, contributes to this topic. His analyses highlight a strong connection between prayer and liturgy, even beyond liturgy and services at the Jerusalem temple in antiquity: cf. Reif, “Place,” 2–12. Reif explains the liturgical setting of prayers with a view to “private” and “official” worship. 11 Cf. Greenberg, Prayer, 51.

6 | Stefan Beyerle

2.1 Philological notes on Amos 4:13 The hymns are among the most difficult passages in the book of Amos. Unfortunately, text-historical investigations are only possible to a limited extent due to the rather meager evidence from variant sources such as the Dead Sea Scrolls or the Old Greek version (OG). In sum, the lack of a more extensive textual basis from the Hebrew Dead Sea Scrolls prevents us from checking the variants in the OG version(s) and their conformity with a Hebrew Vorlage, as it differs from the MT.12 This is even more regrettable, because in several cases, the OG version is supported by the Syriac (Syr.) and the Vulgate (Vulg.). The Hebrew text of Amos 4:13 reads as follows: ‫ומגיד לאדם מה שחו‬ ‫ודרך על במתי ארץ‬

‫יוצר הרים וברא רוח‬ ‫עשה שחר עיפה‬ ‫יהוה אלהי צבאות שמו‬

‫כי הנה‬

Two bi-cola—wherein each colon is introduced by a participle—are framed by a “presentative exclamation”13 and a formula, which identifies the subject of the participles with “YHWH, the God of Hosts.” The second and third colon in particular provoke controversy. Regarding ‫מה שחו‬, discussion centers on the meaning of the noun ‫שח‬, a hapax legomenon, whereas concerning the phrase ‫עשה‬ ‫שחר עיפה‬, scholarly debate surrounds both the relationship between the participle and the following nouns and also the semantic range of ‫עיפה‬. The noun ‫שח‬ is derived from the root ‫שיח‬, “plaint, complaint, musing, study, thinking,” attested especially in late poetry like the Psalms (cf. 77:13; 105:2; 119:148) or the book of Job (12:8).14 But even if numerous scholars think that the suffix of the || 12 For the textual evidence, compare the following editions: For the MT cf. BHQ 13, 45–46, 55; for the fragments from the Dead Sea Scrolls cf. Fuller, “4QXIIg,” pl. LI, and 300, 307 (4QXIIg 47α ii 8; 4QXIIg 69 1–3: no photo) for the 4Q-fragments, and Milik, “Textes,” planche LVIII, 188 (MurXII col. VIII 14–18), who prepares the Murabba‘ât fragments. For a reconstruction of the fragments within the context of the Book of Amos cf. Ulrich, Scrolls, 606, 609, and for a synopsis of the fragments from the Dead Sea Scrolls and MT, including the Greek text of OG, see Ego et al., Minor Prophets, 56–57, 66–67. 13 Cf. Waltke and O’Connor, Introduction, 675–78: no. 40.2.1. 14 Cf. also Sir 11:8; 13:11; 20:4LXX, the noun ‫( שיח‬1 Kgs 18:27; Ps 55:3; 64:2; 102:1; 104:34; Job 7:13), and HAL 1225, 1230–31; DCH VIII, 119, 125–26. The semantics of “word, utterance, thought” is also present in the translations of the OG versions, like Aquila (ὁμιλία), Theodotion (λόγος), and Symmachus (φώνημα): cf. Ziegler, Duodecim prophetae, 191; Wolff, Dodekapropheton, 249; Paul, Amos, 154. The interpretation in the Septuagint version of the OG: τὸν χριστὸν αὐτοῦ presupposes a conflation of radicals, of ‫ מה שחו‬in ‫משחו‬, and a late messianic rereading (cf. Glenny, Meaning, 141–43, 236–40).

Glimpses of Prayers and Poetics in the Book of Amos | 7

3rd person masculine singular refers to the divine, i.e., “God’s thought/plan,”15 a divine revelation by the muse of a human being seems much more appropriate: Firstly, the semantics of ‫ שיח‬and ‫ שח‬never point to divine plans.16 Secondly, the structure of the poem reveals a change of divine actions concerning the cosmic (‫ יוצר הרים וברא רוח‬and ‫ )עשה שחר עיפה‬and the mundane spheres (‫ומגיד‬ ‫ לאדם מה שחו‬and ‫)ודרך על במתי ארץ‬. Regarding the colon ‫עשה שחר עיפה‬, a participle of ‫ עשה‬is followed by two unrelated objects, which pertain to astrology.17 Most recently, John Whitley examined the various possibilities for decoding the syntax in this phrase. He distinguishes two syntactical constructions. As the Masoretes interpret the participle of ‫ עשה‬in the construct state (‫)עֹ ֵשׂה‬, the syntax reveals “a construct chain with an objective genitive (‫ )שחר‬followed by an accusative (‫ )עיפה‬designating the final rendered product.”18 If ‫ שחר‬refers to the “dawn” and ‫ עיפה‬to “darkness,” the phrase includes a negative tone with an orientation that contradicts the divine creation: “the One [i.e., God] who makes darkness out of the dawn.” Many scholars, including Whitley, emphasize that this negative tone makes no sense within a chain of hymnic cola “otherwise devoted to positive descriptions of YHWH’s role as the creator.”19 At this point, a second interpretation comes to mind. This exegesis explains the phrase as “(1) a double construct chain with an objective genitive (‫ )שחר‬followed by a genitive of material (‫ ;)עיפה‬or (2) a verb followed by a double accusative in which the first denotes the final, rendered

|| 15 Cf. Wolff, Dodekapropheton, 264 (cf. Amos 3:7); Crenshaw, Affirmation, 65, 74; Mathys, Dichter, 111–12; Amsler, Amos, 201; Dietrich and Arnet, Ausgabe, 563; Whitley, “Winged Disk [‘yph],” 135, and, most recently, Eidevall, Amos, 149–50, who follows in the paths of Wolff and Jeremias. Mays, Amos, 77, suggests the conjecture ‫“( מעשהו‬his work”) and, consequently, identifies God in the suffix. For a reference of the suffix in ‫ שח‬to human recipients cf. Keil, Commentar, 198; Hammershaimb, Book, 75; Rudolph, Joel, 181–82; Story, “Amos,” 69, and Gese, “Amos 8,4–8,” 66 n. 25. 16 This equally applies for the later genuine (“sectarian”) and other compositions from the Dead Sea Scrolls. Cf. Opitz and Stadel, “‫ שׂיח‬śjḥ,” 756–57. Cf. also Ps 55:3, 18; 64:2; 102:1; 104:34; 119:148; Job 7:13; 1 Kgs 18:27: ironically related to “Baal.” 17 The OG connected the two objects: ποιῶν ὄρθρον καὶ ὁμίχλην. This reading is preferred, e.g., by Keil, Commentar, 199; Duhm, “Anmerkungen,” 8; and Cripps, Commentary, 177. 18 So Whitley, “Winged Disk [‘yph],” 128–29, with nn. 4 and 5. Cf. also HAL 776; Eidevall, Amos, 83, 148, 150–51. This syntactical architecture presupposes the construct of the participle, as indicated by the Masoretes. However, both nouns, ‫ שחר‬and ‫עיפה‬, could function as accusatives, in terms of a “double accusative” that includes the determination of a product in its second element (‫)עיפה‬: cf. the second hymn (Amos 5:8a: ‫ )ויום לילה החשיך‬and GKC § 117 ii; Waltke and O’Connor, Introduction, 173–77: no. 10.2.3. 19 So Whitley, “Winged Disk [‘yph],” 129.

8 | Stefan Beyerle

product, and the second, the material.”20 A proposed translation could sound something like: “the one [i.e., God] who turns darkness into dawn.”21 Whitley goes further and favors the initially explained syntax, in accordance with the Masoretes, but he avoids the negative tone by interpreting ‫ עיפה‬with reference to Hebrew ‫“( עוף‬to fly”) and the Aramaic term ‫עפתא‬, as attested in the inscriptions on the Yehawmilk relief (KAI 10, line 5: fifth century BCE) and on the Arslan Tash amulet 1 (KAI 27, line 1: seventh century BCE).22 Whitley translates the phrase “the one who makes the winged disk at dawn.”23 If, for a moment, one disregards how grammatically sound the interpretation of ‫ שחר‬as a temporal attribute, “at dawn,” is, and why a “winged disk” should consociate with “dawn,” there are several good reasons, why ‫ עיפה‬could indicate the meaning of “darkness.” Within the context of the following hymns in Amos 5 and 9, a destabilizing creation makes perfect sense: In Amos 5:8 the deep darkness is turned into morning and the day into night. In 9:5 everything that constitutes the earthly realm rises like the Nile and sinks like the Nile. Thus, the divine creation is characterized by a certain ambiguity, which is also apparent in semantic and etymological aspects of the Hebrew term ‫עיפה‬.24 As a summary, the following translation of Amos 4:13 should be suggested: For behold:

the one who forms mountains, and creates wind, who makes darkness out of dawn,

who declares to mankind its thought, who treads on the earthly high places,

YHWH, the God of hosts, is his name.

2.2 Philological notes on Amos 5:8–9 and 9:5–6 Due to the specific character and textual problems in Amos 5:8–9 (see below), it makes perfect sense to start with the third hymn. In general, the second and the third hymn comprise passages that were inserted into their (hymnal) contexts at

|| 20 So Whitley, “Winged Disk [‘yph],” 130, with n. 12. 21 Or: “The Maker of dawn out of Darkness,” as suggested by Andersen and Freedman, Amos, 453 (cf. Whitley, “Winged Disk [‘yph],” 130, n. 11). For the same reason DCH VI, 367, suggests a positive semantic denotation in ‫ עיפה‬II: “light.” 22 Cf. Whitley, “Winged Disk [‘yph],” 132–37. 23 So Whitley, “Winged Disk [‘yph],” 135. 24 Cf. the Akkadian terms apû and epû: “to become dim, cloudy” (CAD A/I: 204); see Gesenius, Handwörterbuch, 958; Dietrich and Arnet, Ausgabe, 403.

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a later date.25 A quick glance at the cola in Amos 5 and 9 reveals double readings (cf. 5:8b and 9:6b) and strong textual relationships within the wider context of the book (cf. 9:5 and 8:8). Those references and further associations, e.g., with the first hymn (cf., e.g., the refrain: ‫יהוה שמו‬, and 4:13 with 5:8: see above), raise the question as to whether at least parts of the cola from all three hymns originally formed one continuous psalm.26 Especially the third hymn in Amos 9:5–6 provides a useful example that offers evidence for literary techniques, which were available when the texts of the hymns were inserted into the book of Amos. Several cola in this hymn reveal a strong resemblance to other passages in Amos 5:8 and beyond. What seems apparent from the beginning is that within the process of a literary production, the question of a “pre-Amosian” psalm is rather of secondary nature.27 The Hebrew text of Amos 9:5–6 reads as follows: ‫ואדני יהוה הצבאות‬

v. 5

v. 6

‫ואבלו כל יושבי בה‬ ‫ושקעה כיאר מצרים‬ ‫ואגדתו על ארץ יסדה‬ ‫וישפכם על פני הארץ‬

‫הנוגע בארץ ותמוג‬ ‫ועלתה כיאר כלה‬ ‫הבונה בשמים מעלותו‬ ‫הקרא למי הים‬ ‫יהוה שמו‬

|| 25 Regarding the first hymn, only the colon ‫ ומגיד לאדם מה שחו‬is suspected of being a secondary (Dtr.?) insertion (cf. Jeremias, Prophet, 58–59; Wöhrle, Sammlungen, 76, 133–34). Among other scholars, Watts (“Hymn,” 11–12, 24) also omits this phrase and finds in ‫כי הנה‬ another later addition. He inserts 4:12bβ, as an introduction, in front of the hymn. For a skeptical view on all literary stratifications within the hymns cf. Hadjiev, Composition, 128. 26 Cf. a corresponding view held by Watts, “Hymn,” 19–23 (cf. also the summary and critical evaluation in Crenshaw, Affirmation, 31–33, 38–39), who reconstructs a hymn existing of Amos 4:12bβ, 13*; 5:6–9*; 9:5–6 that praises the God of Israel as being the only creator in the Autumnal New Year Festival. Leaving Watts’ far-reaching textual reconstructions aside, his “original” psalm presupposes the doctrine of YHWH as a monotheistic creator prior to the eighth century BCE (between Elijah and Amos). This assumption alone makes the thesis highly improbable. In a study, which exceeds that of Watts in precision and influence, Horst, “Doxologien,” 46–48 (cf., again, Crenshaw, Affirmation, 27–29, 37–38), argues for a composite poetic text that functioned as an “exhomologese” of the people who accepted the divine judgment, as uttered in the prophetic context. Critical statements against this reading of one psalm were brought to the fore especially from conservative scholars who tried to save these poetic fragments for the “prophetic kerygma” of Amos (see, e.g., Pfeifer, “Jahwe,” 475–81). Recently, Hadjiev, Composition, 134–36, argues convincingly against the “Amosian” authorship of the hymnal passages. 27 Cf. the recent commentary by Eidevall, Amos, 148: “It is difficult, but perhaps not necessary, to decide whether these doxologies are cited from a preexisting hymn that has been split up….”

10 | Stefan Beyerle

The discussion of the text and its intended message has to focus on v. 5aγ–5bβ and v. 6aα.β. The hymn starts with a theophanic motif in v. 5: The Lord, YHWH of hosts, touches the earth so that it wavers. The following colon in v. 5aγ includes a grammatical problem: In ‫ יושבי בה‬the plural construct is combined with a preposition and its suffix. The Hebrew parallel in Amos 8:8aβ (‫)כל יושב בה‬ presents, correctly, the participle singular absolute. While the Dead Sea fragment, MurXII col. VIII 15, also preserves the singular absolute in connection with a singular verb in 9:5aγ (‫)אבל כל יושב בה‬, as in 8:8, the OG version read the plural participle and omitted the preposition in 9:5aγ (καὶ πενθήσουσιν πάντες οἱ κατοικοῦντες αὐτήν), obviously reading the Hebrew ‫ואבלו כל יושביה‬.28 By contrast, the OG in Amos 8:8 follows the Hebrew text in translating a singular verb and the preposition with suffix (καὶ πενθήσει πᾶς ὁ κατοικῶν ἐν αὐτῇ), in accordance with 9:5aγ in MurXII (cf. also Hos 4:3: ‫)תאבל הארץ ואמלל כל יושב בה‬.29 Consequently, Amos 9:5aγ, in the version of Codex Petropolitanus, attests to a misreading or miswriting. This misreading was already at hand when the OG translated the text and, correctly, omitted the preposition. Only the Dead Sea fragment preserved the correct reading, as it was taken from Amos 8:8. The following two cola in Amos 9:5b, ‫ ועלתה כיאר כלה‬and ‫ושקעה כיאר מצרים‬, also represent duplicates of 8:8b. As in 9:5b so in 8:8b, the reader finds some typos, but they are less severe and significant. In sum, the textual evolution in Amos 8 and 9 makes it more likely that the third hymn borrowed the examined phrases from 8:8, than vice versa.30 When examining the philology in v. 6aα.β, two lexicological problems come into view. The first pertains to ‫מעלותו‬, which is also preserved in MurXII col. VIII 15, but comes along as a (correct) plural form in 4QXIIg 69 2 and the qere (‫)מעלותיו‬.31 The second term that triggers discussion is the noun ‫אגדה‬. The early || 28 Cf. Watts, “Hymn,” 17–18, who assumes a case of haplography because of the similar endings in ‫ יושביה‬and ‫בה‬. The text of Amos 8:8 is not preserved among the fragments of the Dead Sea Scrolls. 29 Wolff, Dodekapropheton, 387, already hinted to this fact (cf. also Paul, Amos, 280 n. 72). 30 By using further supporting arguments, Keil, Commentar, 235; Budde, “Text (Schluß),” 107; Wolff, Dodekapropheton, 255; Crenshaw, Affirmation, 73, 134–35, and Gese, “Amos 8,4–8,” 64– 65, arrive at the same conclusion. Schart, Entstehung, 93, and Fleischer, Buch, 253, argue for one and the same editorial layer in Amos 8:8 and 9:5, and for a different view cf. Duhm, “Anmerkungen,” 16; Watts, “Hymn,” 16; Andersen and Freedman, Amos, 809–10, and, recently, Eidevall, Amos, 220, 232, 264 n. 95. 31 Also, the OG version (singular: ἀνάβασιν αὐτοῦ), Vulg. (ascensio), and the Syr. (plural: msqnwhy) provide this reading of “his stair(s) in heaven.” Cf. Duhm, “Anmerkungen,” 17; DCH V, 404; Eidevall, Amos, 232. Contrary to this, many scholars omit the mem and translate “upper chambers”: so Budde, “Text (Schluß),” 107–8; Cripps, Commentary, 161; Wolff, Dodeka-

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translations of the term already testified to their editors’ hesitancy: While the OG (ἐπαγγελία: “promise”) and Syr. (mwlkn’: “promise, advice, property”) obviously choose to deduce from the root ‫ נגד‬hiphil, the Targum refers to “troop” and, thereby, covers the broad semantics of the noun in 2 Sam 2:25.32 The noun ‫ ֲאגֻ ָדּה‬covers a semantic field that includes “bands” (Isa 58:6), “bunch” (Exod 12:22), “troops” (2 Sam 2:25: “band of men”), and “vault” (Amos 9:6).33 Obviously, the metaphor of ruling and pouring water on earth (Amos 9:6bα.β) also bears positive associations and finds a doubling in the second hymn (5:8bα.β): ‫הקרא למי הים וישפכם על פני הארץ‬/‫הקורא‬. Consequently, also the second and the third hymn attest to the deep ambivalence of cosmic “judgment” and “salvation,” as it is prominently conceptualized in the first hymn (Amos 4:13: see above: 2.1). The most attractive explanation of the duplicate identifies in 9:6bα.β an addition that was borrowed from 5:8bα.β. The reason for this becomes apparent in the contextual disconnectedness of Amos 9:6bα.β. The phrase falls back on the “rising” and “sinking” of the river Nile in 9:5b, which was already characterized as an augmentation of the third hymn (see above).34 Lately, the superscription of the third hymn, ‫ואדני יהוה הצבאות‬, has also been a matter of dispute. This introduction is integrated into a casus pendens construct, and also represents a later addition.35 As a summary, the following translation of Amos 9:5–6 should be suggested:36 5 And the/my Lord, YHWH of the hosts is he, the one who touches the earth that it wavers, And all of it rises like the Nile, 6 The one who builds his stairs in heaven, The one who calls the waters of the sea YHWH is his name.

and everyone who lives in it mourns. and sinks like the Nile in Egypt. and his vault: on earth he founds it. and pours them out on the earthly surface.

|| propheton, 385, 387; Hammershaimb, Book, 134; Rudolph, Joel, 242; Crenshaw, Affirmation, 72, 74; Jeremias, Prophet, 123. 32 Cf. Budde, “Text, (Schluß)” 108; BHQ 88* (Gelston). 33 Crenshaw, Affirmation, 72, 74; HAL 10. Cripps, Commentary, 262; Hammershaimb, Book, 134, and Paul, Amos, 280 n. 77, point to the Hebrew ‫ רקיע‬as a synonym of ‫ אגדה‬in Amos 9:6. The Vulg. has fasciculum, and in Akkadian one finds the noun agittû[m]: “headgear, bandage (of a physician):” cf. CAD A/I: 151; Gesenius, Handwörterbuch, 11. Cf. also Amsler, Amos, 240. 34 Cf. Wolff, Dodekapropheton, 255, 385, 387; Rudolph, Joel, 247. 35 Cf. Wolff, Dodekapropheton, 385–86; Paul, Amos, 273, 280; Jeremias, Prophet, 122. For a different opinion cf. Story, “Amos,” 76. 36 Later additions are written in italics.

12 | Stefan Beyerle

The Hebrew text of Amos 5:8–9 reads as follows: v. 8

‫והפך לבקר צלמות‬ ‫וישפכם על פני הארץ‬

v. 9

‫ושד על מבצר יבוא‬

‫עשה כימה וכסיל‬ ‫ויום לילה החשיך‬ ‫הקורא למי הים‬ ‫יהוה שמו‬ ‫המבליג שד על עז‬

A brief glance at Amos 5:8–9 discloses that v. 9 follows after the refrain (‫יהוה‬ ‫ )שמו‬at the end of v. 8. What is more, the lexical inventory in v. 9 is quite opaque. In sum, whatever Amos 5:9 had once explained to its readers is lost; a detailed translation and understanding of these cola is a matter of guesswork. However, it is safe to say that the text includes destructions within a war-like context. While in Amos 4:13; 5:8 and 9:5–6 the God of Israel is characterized as a God of creation and the whole cosmos, in 5:9 he is a God of war. Therefore, it seems rather unlikely that v. 9 was once part of the same literary layer as Amos 4:13; 5:8 and the older cola in Amos 9:5–6 (see above).37 The divine creation of star constellations, Pleiades (a cluster of seven stars) and Orion, mark the start of the second hymn: ‫עשה כימה וכסיל‬. The terminology is ambiguous since the Hebrew Bible refers to those nouns—‫ כימה‬and ‫—כסיל‬ only in Amos 5:8; Job 9:9 and 38:31.38 While the OG in Job 9:9 speaks of Πλειάς and Ἀρκτοῦρος, only Job 38:31 attests to the pair Πλειάς and Ὠρίων in the Greek text. In the late Aramaic and the Ethiopic languages, only ‫ כימא‬and kemā/kimā bear the sense of “Pleiades.” The Arabic noun kaum[a] (“bunch, herd”) could, nevertheless, suggest the shape of the Pleiades as a cluster of stars, and the

|| 37 Especially those scholars, who tried to reconstruct the “original” hymn, excluded Amos 5:9. For a critical evaluation of older contributions cf. Crenshaw, Affirmation, 47–60. One of the most prominent exceptions, arguing that the verse should be included in the hymn, is the reconstruction (and emendation) of Hoffmann, “Versuche,” 110–11, who found names of the stars (cf. 5:8aα) in v. 9 (English translation by Crenshaw, Affirmation, 54): “Who makes the Bull (Taurus) to rise hard on (the rising of) the She-goat (Capella), and causes the Bull to set hard on (the rising of) the Vintager (Vindemiator).” Among those who followed Hoffmann are Duhm, “Anmerkungen,” 9–10; Watts, “Hymn,” 13–15. In earlier times, especially Budde, “Text,” 111, polemicized against this suggestion: “V. 9 bietet in den astronomischen Lesarten G. Hoffmanns (…), eins der entmutigendsten Beispiele dafür, wie uns die unvokalisierte hebräische Schrift zu Narren halten kann.” For a more recent critique cf. Rudolph, Joel, 201. 38 The references in the versions, especially in the OG version of Amos 5:8, are slightly different, cf. Albani, “Siebengestirn,” 144–46.

Glimpses of Prayers and Poetics in the Book of Amos | 13

etymology of ‫“( כסיל‬cheeky, naughty”) is suspected of being connected to the Greek myth and idea of “Orion.”39 A plethora of interpretations of Amos 5:8 emphasizes a certain relationship between the astronomical colon and the waters that God called forth and poured out on the earthly surface. According to those interpreters, this relationship indicated God’s omnipotence in history and nature.40 Klaus Koch and Matthias Albani criticized this conclusion as being more “romantic” than conclusive.41 Both of them analyze a certain mythical worldview which serves as the background in Amos 5:8.42 If this analysis of a mythical background is conclusive, then the hymnal insertions into the book of Amos cannot be dated before the exile (sixth century BCE). More recently, Hans-Peter Müller contests Albani’s conclusions. He generally disputes a connection between the creation of the stars and the cosmic actions of the divine in Amos 5:8. It is YHWH, not the “Pleiades and Orion,” who “turns” (‫ )הפך‬or “pours out” (‫ )שפך‬water. Consequently, Müller characterizes the colon ‫ עשה כימה וכסיל‬as a secondary augmentation of the second hymn, being borrowed from Job 9:9.43 Thus, the Pleiades and Orion cannot be made responsible for divine judgment or salvation. With a view to the opaque readings in the versions of Amos 5:8; Job 9:9 and 38:31, it seems more probable that the sentence ‫ עשה כימה וכסיל‬was borrowed from Job 38:31, the only attestation in a version of the Hebrew Bible in which the “Pleiades and Orion” are mentioned together (see above). Taking those results into account, the opening colon in Amos 5:8 should be dated in post-exilic, i.e., in Persian or early Hellenistic times. Thus, the older parts and cola of the hymns cannot be dated earlier than the Babylonian exile. As a summary, the following translation of Am 5:8–9 should be suggested:44 || 39 For the latter connection cf. Albani, “Siebengestirn,” 166–67; Müller, “Mond,” 213–14, and for the aspects of language and etymology cf. Gesenius, Handwörterbuch, 542, 561. 40 Cf., e.g., Cripps, Commentary, 185–86; Hammershaimb, Book, 81; Rudolph, Joel, 200; Fleischer, Buch, 199–200. See, especially, Amsler, Amos, 211: “Il célèbre d’abord le Créateur (…), en polémisant contre les divinités astrales et contre le Baal cananéen, maître de la végétation et des saisons. C’est YHWH et nul autre qui est le maître des astres ; c’est lui qui renouvelle l’alternance du jour et de la nuit, et préside au cycle des eaux qui s’évaporent des mers pour retomber en pluie sur la terre (…).” 41 Cf. Koch, “Rolle,” 516–25; Albani, “Siebengestirn,” 144–49. 42 Cf. Albani, “Siebengestirn,” 151–97, and the summary in Fleischer, Buch, 200. 43 Cf. Müller, “Mond,” 213–14, and Wolff, Dodekapropheton, 255, 283. Müller discusses Koch, “Rolle,” 516–25, and Albani, “Siebengestirn,” 144–49. 44 Later additions are written in italics. Due to the textual problems in v. 9, I opt for the translation of Eidevall, Amos, 83, 151, because it represents a recent version of understanding this verse, which is widely accepted.

14 | Stefan Beyerle

The one who built the Pleiades and Orion, the one who turns darkness and darkens the day into morning, into night. The one who calls the waters and pours them out on the of the sea earthly surface. YHWH is his name. 9 It is he who flashes destruction so that destruction comes on the stronghold, upon the fortified city. 8

2.3 Functions of the hymns in the book of Amos It makes good sense to start with the first hymn, because many scholars maintain that the hymnal insertion of Amos 4:13, in comparison with the two following hymns, fits well with its context in Amos 4.45 John Watts studied the hymn in close connection with the second part of v. 12: “Therefore, thus I will do to you, Israel. Because I will do this to you, get prepared to meet your God, Israel!”46 More recently, Göran Eidevall calls Amos 4:12 “a bridge between the preceding catalogue of catastrophes (vv. 6–11) and the doxology in v. 13.”47 Amos 4:6–11 recalls a sequence of chastisements: famine (v. 6), drought (v. 7–8), blight and mildew (v. 9), locusts (v. 9), pestilence, battle (v. 10) and the divine overthrow of Sodom and Gomorrah (v. 11), interrupted by the refrain “and you did not return to me, says YHWH.” The “catalogus calamitatum” points out that every plague failed to bring Israel to repentance. If Israel is unable to choose the divine proximity, then God will approach Israel, as it is stated in Amos 4:12. But, the text is characterized by “its indefinite and unspecified nature.”48 Yet, the mode or habit included in the imperative ‫ הכון לקראת אלהיך‬strikes at the core of the matter, but in reverse order by addressing humankind. In poetry or prayers, humankind

|| 45 Wolff, Dodekapropheton, 135–37, 257, very prominently argued for a redaction-critical layer in the hymns from the time of Josiah in the last third of the seventh century BCE by pointing to the criticism of the cult at Bethel, especially in Amos 4:4–5 (with 4:13; for a moderate critique cf. Jeremias, Prophet, 58). 46 Cf. Watts, “Hymn,” 10–11. More recently, also Schart, Entstehung, 73–74, among other scholars, emphasized the connection between 4:12 and 13 (see also Wöhrle, Sammlungen, 73– 76). 47 So Eidevall, Amos, 148. 48 So Paul, Amos, 149, albeit Paul’s commentary pleads for an “Amosian” provenance of the discussed passages in Amos 4. Some scholars mention a rîb-pattern in Amos 4 (cf. Crenshaw, Affirmation, 121–23) and also suggest a plural reading of ‫ אלהיך‬in Amos 4:12: cf. Ramsey, “Amos 4:12,” 188–91; Youngblood, “To Call [lqr’t],” 98. Paul, Amos, 152 n. 119, criticizes the plural reading of ‫ אלהיך‬as hardly convincing.

Glimpses of Prayers and Poetics in the Book of Amos | 15

addresses God. In v. 12 the content of the encounter with God remains ambiguous. The same holds true for the first hymn, which implies doom and salvation (see above: 2.1). But, in contrast to v. 12, v. 13, as a hymn, provides the expected direction, from humankind towards the divine. Finally, the direction changes again from humankind addressing God to the prophet—or the prophetic message—addressing, not “Israel,” but humankind as a whole. The third hymn in Amos 9:5–6 results, at first glance, in a different mood: harshly uttered hopelessness. This becomes obvious when the earlier parts of the hymn (see above: 2.2) are read in combination with the second part of the previous verse (Amos 9:4b): “I will set my eyes upon them for evil and not for good.” Here, God’s ambition to reveal himself in a theophany (cf. Ps 104:32; 144:5; 46:7; Nah 1:5) is connected with YHWH’s declaration to let the people of Israel encounter evil and harm. Furthermore, the motifs also refer to themes and topics from the fifth vision, which was added later.49 However, the third hymn also addresses the following passages in 9:7–10 and vv. 11–15, because two central aspects reoccur in these texts: the universal power of YHWH, which also embraces his responsibility for the nations (v. 7), and a mundane differentiation between the sinful and the righteous “kingdoms” (v. 8; cf. 9:6aβ). The latter responsibility will lead to an eschatological rebuilding of David’s booth, i.e., Judah. In other words, a turn from judgment to salvation, beginning with the fifth vision and finishing with the oracle of David’s fallen booth (vv. 11–15), presupposes a shift in the perspective on God, from the altar of the temple (9:1) to the most distant nations (v.7).50 The transformation of the older parts of the third hymn into prophecy works as a kind of catalyst for a more universalistic and eschatological perspective on “Israel.”51 The function of the second hymn further fosters the universalistic and eschatological tendencies. First of all, the chiastic literary structure of Amos 5:1– 17 is interesting, because the hymn, especially ‫ יהוה שמו‬at the end of v. 8, is situated in the center of this structure.52 Therefore, the hymn can be closely

|| 49 Cf. the “touching of the earth” in 9:5aβ with the “striking of the capitals” in 9:1aβ or God’s heavenly and earthly power in 9:5b with v. 1b–4a (see especially v. 2 and 3, and Crenshaw, Affirmation, 134–35). For the fifth vision (Amos 9:1–4) as an addition in the context of Amos 7– 9 cf. Waschke, “Visionen,” 434–45. 50 Cf. Eidevall, Amos, 235–36. 51 In the wake of these universalistic and eschatological tendencies, the additions of Amos 9:5–6 augmented the older text by referring to (the rising and sinking waters of) the river Nile and Egypt, the waters of the deluge, and the inhabitants of the earth. 52 Cf. de Waard, “Structure,” 170–77; de Waard and Smalley, Handbook, 189–94, and the most recent reception of this approach by Eidevall, Amos, 10–11, 83–84, 152–53, who calls Amos 5:1–

16 | Stefan Beyerle

related to the immediate context, the lament (vv. 1–3, 16–17), the exhortations (vv. 4–6, 14–15) and the critique on injustice (vv. 7, 10–12). The verses that frame the hymn (vv. 7, 10) are of particular interest. In Amos 5:7 justice is turned (‫ )הפך‬into wormwood, and righteousness is cast down to earth (cf. 6:12), while v. 10 refers to the persons or functionaries who were in charge of establishing justice and righteousness in the mundane world. They are hated and their word is detested.53 The connective key word is ‫( הפך‬5:7a, 8aβ.γ). Its sense includes a radical, and sometimes violent, aspect of “turning”: more precisely, “upheaval.”54 As the older parts of the hymn in 5:8 reflect on the “upheaval” with a view to the “morning,” the “deadly shadow,” “day” and “night,” so, in the immediate context, the turning of “justice” and “righteousness” has been brought to a cosmic level. Thus, the transformation in the second hymn effectively mirrors the criticized social order in a cosmic order that pertains to a radical change (‫—)הפך‬an “apocalyptic structure.”55 Finally, the astronomical addition with reference to Pleiades and Orion also belongs to this apocalyptic scenery. In 1 En. 18:12–14; 21:1–5, Enoch, on his cosmic journey, sees seven stars in prison, bound and cast in a terrible place, the netherworld. They strayed from their path and transgressed the command of God. It makes very good sense to associate the “seven stars” with the Pleiades.56

|| 17 a “concentric centerpiece.” Paul, Amos, 158–59, argues for a different structure: He finds in vv. 7, 10–12, 13 the center of a chiastic structure: vv. 1–3 (a), 4–6 (b) 7, 10–12, 13 (c) 14–15 (b'), 16–17 (a'), excluding the hymn and also reconstructing a chiasm in vv. 7, 10–12, 13. 53 The relationship between vv. 7 and 10 is a matter of dispute. While some scholars deny a connection (cf., e.g., Crenshaw, Affirmation, 129), others emphasize their connecting links (cf. Eidevall, Amos, 159). 54 It should be connected etymologically with the Akkadian abāku B (“to turn upside down, uproot”: cf. CAD A/I: 8–10). The Hebrew root ‫ הפך‬in the book of Amos (cf. Amos 4:11; 6:12; see also 8:10) is also connected with the divine upheaval in Sodom and Gomorrah (cf. Gen 19:21, 25, 29: cf. Seybold, “ ‫ ָה ַפ‬hāpak,” 458). 55 A closer look at this “change,” “turn” or “upheaval” shows that the motif points to a prominent “structure” within later ancient Jewish apocalypticism. Cf. Koch, “Rolle,” 537; Foresti, “Funzione,” 183–84; Beyerle, “Apokalyptik,” 232–46. For a critical evaluation of apocalyptic thinking cf. Mathys, Dichter, 109–10. 56 Cf. Albani, “Siebengestirn,” 168, 178.

Glimpses of Prayers and Poetics in the Book of Amos | 17

3 Conclusions After a critical examination of scholarly approaches towards poetry, this study explores the connecting lines between poetry and prophecy. Beyond James Kugel’s rejection of all Hebrew poetry in general, Robert Alter’s more moderate distinction between a poetic addressing of the audience and a prosaic dialogue between the prophet and God may serve as a hermeneutical model for further interpretations of poetic prophecy. Alter’s distinction may be enhanced by adding Moshe Greenberg’s insight that, prayers formed literary artifacts. If one looks at Hebrew prophecy as a literary product, the question arises as to how and how far prayers had undergone literary transformations when they were integrated into prophetic contexts (Alexa Wilke). The philological analysis emphasizes the ambiguous habit found in the hymns. It pertains to an ambiguity that sharply confronts creation with the annihilation of creation (cf. especially Amos 4:13). In addition, the third hymn (9:5–6) attests to this ambiguity, although it contains passages originating from the second hymn and the wider context within the book of Amos (Am 8:8). At the opening of the second hymn, an astronomical reference is added, obviously borrowed from Job 38:31, and reflects a late post-exilic setting. The older parts of the hymns derive from exilic or early post-exilic times.57 When it comes to the question of how the poetic hymns became part of the prophetic message, different strategies are visible in each of the three hymns. In Amos 4:13 the transformation pertains to the role of God, who is invoked as an object when the text is prayed as an isolated hymn. The close connection to v. 12 shows that the immediate context of the hymn already points to a different role of God: as an active subject who addresses the audience—but not simply for good. Only if Amos 4:13 is read within its prophetic context does the subject, God, invoke the object, the audience. The difference between Amos 4:12 and v. 13 is that while v. 12 concludes the pursuit of plagues and addresses “Israel,” the hymn refers to a concept of divine creation that invokes mankind (‫)אדם‬. Finally, the third (Amos 9:5–6) and second hymns (Am 5:8) further elaborate the universalistic tendencies and add an eschatological or “apocalyptic” aspect. In chapter 9 of the book of Amos, vv. 5–6 are part of a literary progress that starts on an altar of a temple and ends up in an eschatological hope that

|| 57 Cf. the language of creation as attested in Amos 4:13. It includes a combination of verbal expression that is attested only in texts from Deutero-Isaiah (cf. Foresti, “Funzione,” 176, and Isa 43:7; 45:7, 18).

18 | Stefan Beyerle

David’s booth will be rebuilt. Within this scenery—from the Israelite temple (cf. 9:1) to the most distant nations (cf. v. 7), from the divine view on “Israel” for evil and not for good (v. 4b) to eschatological hope (vv. 11–15)—the older parts of the third hymn, their transformation from poetry as prayer to prophecy, function as a catalyst. In the second hymn, the transformation mirrors the criticized social order in a cosmic order that pertains to a radical change, as indicated by the Hebrew root ‫הפך‬. The motif of “upheaval” pertains to a “structure” that paves the way for apocalyptic thinking.

Bibliography Albani, Matthias. “‘Der das Siebengestirn und den Orion macht’ (Am 5,8): Zur Bedeutung der Plejaden in der israelitischen Religionsgeschichte.” Pages 139–207 in Religionsgeschichte Israels: Formale und materiale Aspekte. Edited by Bernd Janowski and Matthias Köckert. Veröffentlichungen der Wissenschaftlichen Gesellschaft für Theologie 15. Gütersloh: Kaiser; Gütersloher Verlagshaus, 1999. Alter, Robert. The Art of Biblical Poetry. New York: HarperCollins, 1985. Amsler, Samuel. Amos. Pages 157–247 in Edmond Jacob, Carl-A. Keller, and Samuel Amsler, Osée, Joël, Abdias, Jonas, Amos. CAT 11a. Genève: Labor et Fides, 1992. Andersen, Francis I., and David Noel Freedman. Amos: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary. AB 24A. New York et al.: Doubleday, 1989. Berlin, Adele. Biblical Poetry Through Medieval Jewish Eyes. Indiana Studies in Biblical Literature. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1991. Beyerle, Stefan. “Apokalyptik und Biblische Theologie.” NZST 52 (2010): 232–46. Budde, Karl. “Zu Text und Auslegung des Buches Amos.” JBL 43 (1924): 46–131. Budde, Karl. “Zu Text und Auslegung des Buches Amos (Schluß).” JBL 44 (1925): 63–122. Crenshaw, James L. Hymnic Affirmation of Divine Justice: The Doxologies of Amos and Related Texts in the Old Testament. SBLDS 24. Missoula, MO: Scholars Press, 1975. Cripps, Richard S. A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Book of Amos: The Text of the Revised Version. London: SPCK, 1955. Dietrich, Walter, and Samuel Arnet, eds. Konzise und aktualisierte Ausgabe des Hebräischen und Aramäischen Lexikons zum Alten Testament. Leiden; Boston: Brill, 2013. Duhm, Bernhard. “Anmerkungen zu den Zwölf Propheten.” ZAW 31 (1911): 1–43. Ego, Beate, et al., eds. Minor Prophets. Biblia Qumranica 3B. Leiden; Boston: Brill, 2005. Eidevall, Göran. Amos: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary. Anchor Yale Bible 24G. New Haven; London: Yale University Press, 2017. Fleischer, Gunther. Das Buch Amos. Pages 115–292 in Ulrich Dahmen and Gunther Fleischer. Die Bücher Joel und Amos. NSKAT 23/2. Stuttgart: Katholisches Bibelwerk, 2001. Foresti, Fabrizio. “Funzione semantica dei brani participiali di Amos: 4,13; 5,8s; 9,5s.” Bib 62 (1981): 169–84. Fuller, Russell. “4QXIIg.” Pages 270–318 in Qumran Cave 4.X: The Prophets. Edited by Eugene C. Ulrich et al. DJD 15. Oxford: Clarendon, 1997.

Glimpses of Prayers and Poetics in the Book of Amos | 19

Gese, Hartmut. “Amos 8,4–8: Der kosmische Frevel händlerischer Habgier.” Pages 59–72 in Prophet und Prophetenbuch: Festschrift für Otto Kaiser zum 65. Geburtstag. Edited by Volkmar Fritz, Karl-Friedrich Pohlmann, and Hans-Christoph Schmitt. BZAW 185. Berlin; New York: de Gruyter, 1989. Gesenius, Wilhelm. Hebräisches und Aramäisches Handwörterbuch über das Alte Testament. Rev. and ed. by Herbert Donner. 18th ed. Heidelberg: Springer, 2013. Glenny, W. Edward. Finding Meaning in the Text: Translation Techniques and Theology in the Septuagint of Amos. VTSup 126. Leiden; Boston: Brill, 2009. Greenberg, Moshe. Biblical Prose Prayer: As a Window to the Popular Religion of Ancient Israel. The Taubman Lectures in Jewish Studies. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1983. Hadjiev, Tchavdar S. The Composition and Redaction of the Book of Amos. BZAW 393. Berlin; New York: de Gruyter, 2009. Hammershaimb, Erling. The Book of Amos: A Commentary. Translated by John Sturdy. New York: Schocken Books, 1970. Hill, Andrew E. “A Theology of Prayer in the Book of the Twelve.” Pages 149–65 in The Book of the Twelve: An Anthology of Prophetic Books or the Result of Complex Redactional Processes? Edited by Heiko Wenzel. Osnabrücker Studien zur Jüdischen und Christlichen Bibel 4. Göttingen: V&R Unipress; Osnabrücker Universitätsverlag, 2018. Hoffmann, Georg. “Versuche zu Amos.” ZAW 3 (1883): 87–126. Horst, Friedrich. “Die Doxologien im Amosbuch.” ZAW 47 (1929): 45–54. Jeremias, Jörg. Der Prophet Amos. ATD 24/2. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1995. Keil, Friedrich. Biblischer Commentar über die zwölf kleinen Propheten. 3rd ed. Biblischer Commentar über das Alte Testament III/4. Leipzig: Dörffling und Franke, 1888. Koch, Klaus. “Die Rolle der hymnischen Abschnitte in der Komposition des Amos-Buches.” ZAW 85 (1973): 504–37. Kugel, James L. The Idea of Biblical Poetry: Parallelism and Its History. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1981. Repr. Baltimore; London: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1998. Mathys, Hans-Peter. Dichter und Beter: Theologen aus spätalttestamentlicher Zeit. OBO 132. Fribourg; Göttingen: Universitätsverlag; Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1994. Mays, James Luther. Amos: A Commentary. OTL. Philadelphia, PA: Westminster, 1969. Milik, Józef T. “Textes Hébreux et Araméens.” Pages 65–205 in Les grottes de Murabba‘ât. Edited by Pierre Benoit, Józef T. Milik, and Roland de Vaux. DJD II.1–2. Oxford: Clarendon, 1961. Müller, Hans-Peter. “Der Mond und die Plejaden: Griechisch-orientalische Parallelen.” VT 51 (2001): 206–18. Opitz, Sophie, and Christian Stadel, “‫ שׂיח‬śjḥ.” Theologisches Wörterbuch zu den Qumrantexten 3:755–57. Paul, Shalom M. Amos: A Commentary on the Book of Amos. Hermeneia. Minneapolis, MN: Fortress, 1991. Pfeifer, Gerhard. “Jahwe als Schöpfer der Welt und Herr ihrer Mächte in der Verkündigung des Propheten Amos. ” VT 41 (1991): 475–81. Ramsey, George W. “Amos 4:12—A New Perspective.” JBL 89 (1970): 187–91. Reif, Stefan C. “The Place of Prayer in Early Judaism.” Pages 1–17 in Ancient Jewish Prayers and Emotions: Emotions Associated with Jewish Prayer in and around the Second Temple Period. Edited by Stefan C. Reif and Renate Egger-Wenzel. DCLS 26. Berlin; Boston: de Gruyter, 2015.

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Rudolph, Wilhelm. Joel—Amos—Obadja—Jona. KAT 13/2. Gütersloh: Mohn, 1971. Schart, Aaron. Die Entstehung des Zwölfprophetenbuchs: Neubearbeitungen von Amos im Rahmen schriftenübergreifender Redaktionsprozesse. BZAW 260. Berlin; New York: de Gruyter, 1998. Seybold, Klaus. “ ‫ ָה ַפ‬hāpak,” ThWAT 2: 454–59. Story, Cullen I. K. “Amos—Prophet of Praise.” VT 30 (1980): 67–80. Ulrich, Eugene C., ed. The Biblical Qumran Scrolls: Transcriptions and Biblical Variants. VTSup 134. Leiden; Boston: Brill, 2010. Waard, Jan de. “The Chiastic Structure of Amos v 1–17.” VT 27 (1977): 170–77. Waard, Jan de, and William A. Smalley. A Handbook on the Book of Amos. New York: United Bible Societies, 1979. Waltke, Bruce K., and Michael O’Connor. An Introduction to Biblical Hebrew Syntax. Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 1990. Waschke, Ernst-Joachim. “Die fünfte Vision des Amosbuches (9,1–4)—eine Nachinterpretation.” ZAW 106 (1994): 434–45. Watts, John D. W. “An Old Hymn Preserved in the Book of Amos.” Pages 9–27 in Vision and Prophecy in Amos: Expanded Anniversary Edition. Repr. Macon, GA: Mercer University Press, 1997. Whitley, John B. “Winged Disk [‘yph] in Amos 4:13: New Evidence for the Yahwistic Incorporation of Ancient Near Eastern Solar Imagery.” JBL 134 (2015): 127–38. Wilke, Alexa F. Die Gebete der Propheten: Anrufungen Gottes im ,corpus propheticum‘ der Hebräischen Bibel. BZAW 451. Berlin; Boston: de Gruyter, 2014. Wöhrle, Jakob. Die frühen Sammlungen des Zwölfprophetenbuches: Entstehung und Komposition. BZAW 360. Berlin; New York: de Gruyter, 2006. Wolff, Hans Walter. Dodekapropheton 2: Joel und Amos. BKAT 14/2. Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag, 1969. Youngblood, Ronald. “To Call [lqr’t] in Amos 4:12.” JBL 90 (1971): 98. Ziegler, Joseph, ed. Duodecim prophetae. Septuaginta. Vetus Testamentum Graecum 13. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1943.

Pancratius C. Beentjes

The Prayer in Ben Sira 22:27–23:6 and the Prosodic Version in MS ENA 3053.3 Abstract: In 1931, Joseph Marcus published the Hebrew text of a mediaeval manuscript (MS ENA 3053.3), which he characterized as “a prosodic version of Ben Sira 22:22–23:9.” Since this text has almost sunk into oblivion in Western scholarship, this article presents the Hebrew text and an English translation of this manuscript, as well as the Greek text of the prayer in Sir 22:27–23:6 also with an English translation. The subsequent comments focus on the structure of the prosodic version, its relation to the book of Ben Sira, and some characteristic literary features. Keywords: The book of Ben Sira; MS ENA 3053.3; prayer in Ben Sira; Said ben Babshad ha-Kohen; revealing secrets; friendship.

1 Introduction The first article I published on the book of Ben Sira focused on the structure and context of Sir 22:27–23:6.1 In that essay from 1978, I argued that, rather than being an isolated passage, this prayer is closely related to its context. Apart from some contributions on other issues in this text,2 it was a quarter of a century after my publication that this prayer became a focal point of two well-known Ben Sira scholars, Maurice Gilbert and Friedrich Reiterer.3 And most recently, another well-known Ben Sira scholar, Nuria Calduch-Benages, published an essay that concentrates on emotions in this prayer while also providing a fine overview of scholarly interest in this particular passage.4 Hence there is no need for me to offer another analysis of Sir 22:27–23:6 here.5 Immediately after the publication of my article on Sir 22:27–23:6 in 1978, it was my intention to start with an investigation into a peculiar text that, without

|| 1 Beentjes, “Sir 22:27–23:6.” 2 E.g., Marchel, “Abba,” 57–73; Fitzmyer, “Abba,” 77; Schuller, “4Q372,” 75 n.; Strotmann, Mein Vater, 77–83; Crenshaw, “Restraint,” 206–21. 3 Gilbert, “Prayer”; Reiterer, “Gott.” 4 Calduch-Benages, “Emotions.” 5 See also: Urbanz, Gebet, 245–49; Balla, Ben Sira, 164–67. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110630282-003

22 | Pancratius C. Beentjes

any comment, was published in 1931 by Joseph Marcus.6 He characterized it as “a prosodic version of Ben Sira (Ecclesiasticus xxii,22–xxiii,9).”7 In a photograph of it, one can see that it is a vocalized text, whereas in Marcus’ transcription of it there is no vocalization at all.8 However, demands of a busy job at the university forced me to set aside my plan to give this prosodic text a closer examination. I am grateful to take it up once more in this contribution to a Festschrift for Stefan Reif, whom I met for the first time at a Ben Sira conference in Soesterberg, the Netherlands.9 I was absolutely confident that the prosodic version discovered by Joseph Marcus had sunk into oblivion and had eluded exegetes’ notice. However, this was not the case. In his doctoral dissertation on friendship, Jeremy Corley published the first ten Hebrew lines of this medieval text (Sir 22:22cd, 24–26) together with a translation, but without any further comment.10

Sir

MS ENA 3053.3 recto

Line Translation by J. Corley

22:22c

‫גדולה הוצאת סור חרפה‬

1

The disclosure of a confidence is a great disgrace,

22:22d

‫ומכת סתר ]ת[ביא‬ ‫קללה‬

2

and a hidden blow will bring a curse.

22:24a

‫לפני אש תימרות עשן‬

3

Columns of smoke precede fire,

22:24b

‫ולפני שפך דם צרה‬ ‫תעשן‬

4

and distress will smoke before the shedding of blood.

22:25a

‫מסתיר סודו לא יבוש‬

5

One who hides his confidence will not be ashamed,

22:25b

‫ומטמין דבה רעתו‬ ‫יכבוש‬

6

and one who buries malicious talk will conquer his evil.

22:26a

‫סודו ו]א[ם גלה לך רעך‬

7

And if your companion has revealed to you his confidence,

22:26b

‫אל תגלהו‬

8

do not reveal it.

|| 6 Marcus, “Newly Discovered Original.” 7 For a characterization of this manuscript, Marcus refers to Schechter, “A Further Fragment,” 459 who presents a manuscript that has quite similar peculiarities: “Schechter’s remarks apply most aptly to this MS. also”; Marcus, “Newly Discovered Original,” 10. 8 Marcus added the Syriac text of Sir 22:22–23:10, as well as a retroversion from the Greek into Hebrew including “several variants and additions” from Codex 248; Marcus, “Newly Discovered Original,” 26–28. 9 See Beentjes, The Book of Ben Sira in Modern Research. 10 Corley, Ben Sira’s Teaching, 192. Instead of the original Babylonian vocalization, however, Corley renders the text with a Tiberian/Masoretic vocalization.

The Prayer in Ben Sira 22:27–23:6 and the Prosodic Version in MS ENA 3053.3 | 23

Sir

MS ENA 3053.3 recto

Line Translation by J. Corley

22:26c

‫פן תהי כנבל בהוציאו‬

9

lest you become like a fool by disclosing it,

22:26d

‫ויזהר ממך שומעהו‬

10

and one who hears it will be wary of you.

Although my main concern is to comment on the remaining part (lines 11–31) of this “rhymed Ben Sira paraphrase,” some remarks relating to lines 1–10 are in order here. First, Sir 22:19–26 deals with certain aspects of friendship that are also found in the prosodic version. Second, Corley’s overview suggests that all ten lines of the prosodic version are direct quotations from the book of Ben Sira. In my view, however, we should make some differentiations, since it appears that just four lines are to be considered direct quotations: Line 1 Lines 3–4 Line 10

Sir 22:22c Sir 22:24a-b Sir 22:26d11

Third, the opening line—“The disclosure of a confidence is a great disgrace”— sets the tone for the first seventeen lines, in which “revealing,” “hiding” or “disclosing” a confidence (‫ )סוד‬is a major theme, specifically when it affects a friend or companion (lines 7, 9, 16).12

2 Renewed attention Recently, Franz Böhmisch drew further attention to MS ENA 3053.3 not only by offering a translation of it into German, but also pointing out that over the years scholars—like Moshe Segal, Ezra Fleischer, Menahem Zulay, Ḥayyim Schirmann, and Menahem Kister—had published about this and other rhymed texts, which resemble Ben Sira passages.13 Many Ben Sira scholars may have overlooked these publications because they were written in modern Hebrew.14 Therefore, I present here the text of MS ENA 3053.3, with an English translation of the twenty-one lines (11–31) that have a bearing on the prayer in Sir

|| 11 In fact, this is Sir 22:26b according to the Greek. 12 The noun ‫ סוד‬is used with ‫“( יצא‬to disclose”) in lines 1, 9, with ‫“( סתר‬to hide”) in line 5, and with ‫“( גלה‬to reveal”) in lines 7, 8, 13, 15. 13 Böhmisch, “Vorlage,” 214–29. 14 The only exception is Segal, “Evolution,” 116–17.

24 | Pancratius C. Beentjes

22:27–23:6. I then investigate the manner and extent that these lines might be considered as an interpretive expansion of the original version of Ben Sira’s prayer.15 There is a strong basis for attributing the authorship of this “rhymed Ben Sira paraphrase” to the Hebrew poet Said ben Babshad ha-Kohen, who lived at the end of the tenth century and in the first two decades of the eleventh century.16 MS ENA 3053.3 recto

Line

‫שים על פיך משמר ועל שפתך‬

11

Set a guard over your mouth and upon your lip

‫חותם נגמר‬

12

a perfect seal,

‫למען לא תידמה במגלים סודות‬

13

lest you will be like those who reveal secrets

‫ולא תתן לנבלות אלך אודות‬

14

and give cause for foolishness about you.

‫תשחית נפשך בגילוי סודך‬

15

You will ruin your life by revealing your secret

‫ורעך אשר האמינך והבא עדך‬

16

as well as your companion who puts trust in you and came to you.

‫אמור ליוצרך אל אבי ואדון חיי‬

17

Say to your Creator: God, my father and Lord of my life

‫אל תפילני בעצתי ומאויי‬

18

do not let me fall by my decision and my desires.

‫רדני על יצרי והצילני ממגורי‬

19

Let me rule my inclination and deliver me from my fear

MS ENA 3053.3 verso

‫ומחול על חטאי כי אתה בוראי‬

20

and from whirling to my sin, for you are my Creator,

‫למען לא ירבה פשעי ולא יוסיף רשעי‬

21

lest my sin will increase and my guilt will go on.

‫אל תשמח עלי אויבי ואל יזנחוני רעי‬ ‫וקרובי‬

22

Let my enemy not rejoice about me and let my companion and my neighbor not reject me.

‫גבה עינים אל תתנני ולב פחז הרחק‬ ‫ממני‬

23

Do not give me haughty eyes and a reckless heart keep far from me.

‫נפש עזה אל תמשל בי וטהר‬

24

A shameless mind will not master me and cleanse

‫רעיון לבבי וקרבי‬

25

the striving of my heart and my inner self.

‫פחזי יצר אל יחפיזוני ומליצי רע‬

26

The recklessness of my inclination will not please me and my evil saying

|| 15 I am grateful for the co-operation of Franz Böhmisch, with whom I consulted, and who, in the near future, plans to publish a text edition of this prosodic Ben Sira manuscript. 16 Zawanowska, “Ibn Bābshād, Sa‘īd.”

The Prayer in Ben Sira 22:27–23:6 and the Prosodic Version in MS ENA 3053.3 | 25

MS ENA 3053.3 verso

‫אל יליצוני‬

27

will not mock me.

‫בשפתי אל תפילני ולשוני אל ילכדני‬

28

Do not let me fall by my lips and my tongue will not capture me

‫לשבועה אל תאלפני ולפני שופטים‬

29

Do not get me accustomed to an oath and before judges

‫אל תושיבני‬

30

do not sit me.

[‫מוסר ]פה‬

31

Discipline (of the mouth)

In this chart, I reproduce the Hebrew text of lines 11–31 according to the photographs of MS ENA 3053.3. The arrangement of the printed text as provided by Marcus differs from the arrangement of the lines in the photographs.17 Since a Hebrew text of Sir 22:22–23:9 is missing, for comparison with ENA 3053.3 the Greek text and a translation of the prayer follows here. Sirach

Ziegler

NETS

22:27a

Τίς δώσει ἐπὶ στόμα μου φυλακὴν

Who will grant a guard upon my mouth

22:27b

καὶ ἐπὶ τῶν χειλέων μου σφραγίδα πανοῦργον,

and a shrewd seal upon my lips,

22:27c

ἵνα μὴ πέσω ἀπ᾿ αὐτῶν

lest I fall because of them

22:27d

καὶ ἡ γλῶσσά μου ἀπολέσῃ με;

and my tongue destroy me?

23:1a

Κύριε, πάτερ καὶ δέσποτα ζωῆς μου,

O Lord, Father and Master of my life,

23:1b

μὴ ἐγκαταλίπῃς με ἐν βουλῇ αὐτῶν,

do not abandon me to their design,

23:1c

καὶ μὴ ἀφῇς με πεσεῖν ἐν αὐτοῖς.

and do not let me fall among them.

23:2a

τίς ἐπιστήσει ἐπὶ τοῦ διανοήματός μου μάστιγας

Who will set whips upon my thought

23:2b

καὶ ἐπὶ τῆς καρδίας μου παιδείαν σοφίας,

and discipline of wisdom upon my heart

23:2c

ἵνα ἐπὶ τοῖς ἀγνοήμασίν μου μὴ φείσωνται

so that they might not spare my faults of ignorance

23:2d

καὶ οὐ μὴ παρῇ τὰ ἁμαρτήματα αὐτῶν,

and he shall not let their sins go

23:3a

ὅπως μὴ πληθύνθωσιν αἱ ἄγνοιαί μου

that my acts of ignorance may not be multiplied,

23:3b

καὶ αἱ ἁμαρτίαι μου πλεονάσωσιν

and my sins may increase,

|| 17 Marcus, “Newly Discovered Original,” 26–27. The photographs are inserted between pages 26 and 27 without page numbering.

26 | Pancratius C. Beentjes

Sirach

Ziegler

NETS

23:3c

καὶ πεσοῦμαι ἔναντι τῶν ὑπεναντίων

and I will fall before my adversaries,

23:3d

καὶ ἐπιχαρεῖταί μοι ὁ ἐχθρός μου;

and my enemy will rejoice over me?

23:3e

[ὧν μακράν ἐστιν ἡ ἐλπὶς τοῦ ἐλέους σου;]18

[Far from them is the hope of your mercy.]

23:4a

κύριε, πάτερ καὶ θεὲ ζωῆς μου,

O Lord, Father and God of my life,

23:4b

μετεωρισμὸν ὀφθαλμῶν μὴ δῷς μοι

do not give me a lifting up of eyes,

23:5

καὶ ἐπιθυμίαν ἀπόστρεψον ἀπ᾿ ἐμοῦ·

and turn desire away from me.

23:6a

κοιλίας ὄρεξις καὶ συνουσιασμὸς μὴ καταλαβέτωσάν με,

Let not the belly’s appetite and sexual intercourse seize me,

23:6b

καὶ ψυχῇ ἀναιδεῖ μὴ παραδῷς με.

and do not give me over to a shameless soul.

23:7a

Παιδείαν στόματος ἀκούσατε, τέκνα

Listen, children, to discipline of the mouth

23:7b

καὶ ὁ φυλάσσων οὐ μὴ ἁλῷ.

and who observes it will never be caught.

23:8a

ἐν τοῖς χείλεσιν αὐτοῦ καταληφθήσεται ἁμαρτωλός,

By his lips a sinner will be seized,

23:8b

καὶ λοίδορος καὶ ὑπερήφανος σκανδαλισθήσονται ἐν αὐτοῖς.

and an abusive person and an arrogant person will be made to stumble by them.

23:9a

ὅρκῳ μὴ ἐθίσῃς τὸ στόμα σου

Do not accustom your mouth to an oath,

23:9b

καὶ ὀνομασίᾳ τοῦ ἁγίου μὴ συνεθισθῇς·

and do not become used to the naming of the Holy One.

3 Lines 11–31 and Ben Sira’s prayer Three factors demonstrate that the prosodic text of lines 11–31 is indisputably grafted onto the prayer of Sir 22:27–23:6 and subsequent lines. First, we note these parallels and striking similarities: Lines 11–12 Sir 22:27ab

Set a guard over your mouth and upon your lip a perfect seal Who will grant a guard upon my mouth and a shrewd seal upon my lips?

Line 17 Sir 23:1a Sir 23:4a

God, my father and Lord of my life O Lord, Father and Master of my life O Lord, Father and God of my life

|| 18 This line is only found in the so-called Gk.II.

The Prayer in Ben Sira 22:27–23:6 and the Prosodic Version in MS ENA 3053.3 | 27

Line 21 Sir 23:3a

So that my transgression will not increase That my acts of ignorance may not be multiplied

Line 22 Sir 23:3d

Let my enemy not rejoice about me and my enemy will rejoice over me

Line 23 Sir 23:4b

Do not give me haughty eyes do not give me a lifting up of eyes

Line 23 Sir 23:5

And a reckless heart keep far from me And turn desire away from me

Line 24 Sir 23:6b

A shameless mind will not master me Do not give me over to a shameless soul

Line 26 Sir 23:6a

The recklessness of my impulse will not please me Let not the belly’s appetite and sexual intercourse seize me

Line 28 Sir 23:8a

Do not let me fall by my lips By his lips a sinner will be seized

Line 29 Sir 23:9a

Do not get me accustomed to an oath Do not accustom your mouth to an oath

Line 31 Sir 23:7a

Discipline (of the mouth) Listen, children, to discipline of the mouth

Second, the fact that all the lines of MS ENA 3053.3 quoted above—with only two exceptions (lines 24, 31)—follow the order of the lines in Ben Sira’s prayer further indicates that lines 11–31 of the prosodic version derive their structure from the prayer in Sir 22:27–23:6.19 This feature is a hallmark of the so-called piyyutim, which are also comparable to the prosodic text of ENA 3053.3: Bibelverse werden im Pijjut wörtlich vor allem in strukturbedingten Positionen zitiert, d.h. als Strophenanfang und ‘biblische Endung’ (Sijomet Miqra’it). … Pijjutim bestehen häufig aus Strophen, die mit Versen aus einem fortlaufenden Text eingeleitet werden und mit Versen aus einem anderen Text oder Versen, die ein gemeinsames Strukturelement (meist das Anfangs- oder Endwort) haben, enden.20

The section consisting of lines 21a–23 is a good example of how the medieval poet composed this text. Lines 21a, 22a, and 23a refer to Sir 23:3a, 23:3d, and

|| 19 As to the transposition of 23:6b and 23:6a, see Segal, “Evolution,” 116. 20 Hollender, “Zur Verwendung,” 442.

28 | Pancratius C. Beentjes

23:4b respectively.21 However, lines 21b, 22b, and 23b, were not taken from the book of Ben Sira, but were composed in the same vein. So a pattern was created: in each of these three instances when a line from the book of Ben Sira is quoted, a non-Ben Sira line follows.22 Third, the first ten lines of the prosodic version have quite strong links to Ben Sira verses (22:22c–26) that precede the prayer in 22:27–23:6. (See chart 1 above.) This observation adds further weight to the argument that ENA 3053.3 must be linked to the prayer in Ben Sira.

4 A different setting Within the pericope on friendship (Sir 22:19–26), three different “actors” are present: a) Sir 22:19–20, 24 contain general maxims in the third person singular (“one who”). b) Sir 22:21–23 present more specified maxims (“you”). c) Starting with 22:25–26, an “I” dominates the conversation and continues in 22:27–23:6. The prosodic version exposes a slightly different setting: a) Lines 1–6 contain general maxims in the third person singular. b) Starting with line 7, a “you” is addressed and is given precise instructions not to reveal secrets and not to ruin one’s own life and that of a friend (7– 17a). c) Starting with line 17b, an “I” addresses God with a plea for protection from all kinds of harmful actions (17b–30). This is a long series of supplications, most of which take the form of ‫ אל‬+ verb, either in the second or third person.23

|| 21 On the Syriac of 23:4, see Joosten, “Language,” 192–94. 22 A fine example of such a pattern is, e.g., Moré ha-taïm, a composition based on Psalm 145 by Meshullam ben Kalonymos. See Heil, “Ashkenazic Piyyut,” 347–50. 23 For the second person, see lines 18, 22a, 23a, 24a, 28a, 29, 30; for the third person, see lines 22b, 26, 27, 28b.

The Prayer in Ben Sira 22:27–23:6 and the Prosodic Version in MS ENA 3053.3 | 29

Here the prosodic version differs markedly from the “I”-section in Sir 22:27–23:6. In Sirach, the supplicant takes the initiative by voicing a rhetorical question: “Who will grant a guard upon my mouth and a shrewd seal upon my lips?” and then addresses God directly. By contrast, in the prosodic version, an outside authority—most probably a wisdom teacher—calls the student, first to discretion: “Set a guard over your mouth and upon your lip a perfect seal” (line 10– 11); and then, to prayer: “Say to your Creator” (line 17). While the remaining lines seem to be the words of the supplicant, in fact they continue the instructions of the unknown ‘authority’ about what to say to God. This authority “supervises” the supplicant’s behavior as prevention against negative actions. In contrast to the prayer in Sir 22:27–23:6, the prosodic version includes a number of imperatives. In lines 11 (“set”), and 17 (“say”), the wisdom teacher employs imperatives to address the student. In lines 19a (“let me rule”), 19b (“deliver me”), 23b (“keep far”), and 24b (“cleanse”), the supplicant voices the imperatives when addressing God.

5 Literary features 5.1 Rhyme One of the most striking features of this prosodic Hebrew version is its rhyme. In an extensive lemma on Hebrew prosody, Benjamin Hrushovski distinguished five varieties of rhyme: “sound rhyme,” “morphological rhyme,” “semantic rhyme,” “root rhyme,” and “word rhyme.”24 Lines 1–6 of MS ENA 3053.3 exhibit sound rhyme: ‫ גדולה‬/ ‫( קללה‬lines 1–2), ‫ עשן‬/ ‫( תעשן‬lines 3–4), ‫ יבוש‬/ ‫( יכבוש‬lines 5–6), whereas lines 7–10 contain morphological rhyme that is based on a suffix.25 Within lines 11–31, we come across sound rhyme in lines 11–12 (‫ משמר‬/ ‫)נגמר‬, lines 13–14 (‫ סודות‬/ ‫)אודות‬, lines 15–16 (‫ סודך‬/ ‫)עדך‬, lines 19–20 (‫ ממגורי‬/ ‫)בוראי‬, and lines 27–28 (‫ יחפיזוני‬/ ‫)יליצוני‬. The remaining lines all contain morphological rhyme, either ‫ יי‬/ ‫( יי‬lines 17–18), ‫ י‬/ ‫( י‬lines 21, 22, 23), lines 24–25 (‫בי‬/ ‫)וקרובי‬26, or ‫ ני‬/ ‫( ני‬lines 23a, 23b; 28a, 28b; 29–30).27

|| 24 Hrushovski, “Prosody,” cols. 1203–11. 25 Hrushovski, “Prosody,” col. 1210: “It appears sporadically in the Bible … It became a legitimate variety of rhyme in non-strophic piyyutim, especially in the pattern poems.” 26 Within the sound rhyme of lines 24–25 (‫ בי‬/ ‫)וקרובי‬, there is another one in line 25: ‫לבבי‬.

30 | Pancratius C. Beentjes

5.2 Word plays In different ways, the poet of the prosodic version is playing on words and playing with words: a) ‫“—לפני אש תימרות עשן ולפני שפך דם צרה תעשן‬Columns of smoke precede fire, and distress will smoke before the shedding of blood” (lines 3–4). The word play at the end of each colon (‫ עשן‬/ ‫ )תעשן‬indicates the technique of the mediaeval poet. In order to create a rhymed bicolon of the quotation from Sir 22:24a-b, he added a verbal form (‫)תעשן‬, which is directly related to ‫“( עשן‬smoke”).28 b) ‫“—ומליצי רע אל יליצוני‬and my evil saying will not mock me” (lines 26–27). This example is similar to the previous one, but this time the noun (‫)מליצה‬ and the verb (‫ )ליץ‬are within the same colon. c) ‫“—מסתיר סודו לא יבוש ומטמין דבה רעתו יכבוש‬One who hides his confidence will not be ashamed, and one who buries malicious talk will conquer his evil’ (lines 5–6). Here, the rhymed word play is based upon another principle. The verb ‫“( בוש‬to be ashamed”) reflects a theme in Ben Sira as it occurs more than a dozen times in his book.29 To accompany this favored notion, at the end of the second colon, the verb ‫“( כבש‬to subdue”)—which does not occur in Ben Sira—has been inserted. d) ‫“—פחזי יצר אל יחפיזוני‬The recklessness of my impulse will not please me” (line 26). This first colon presents a playful word picture in the juxtaposition of the noun ‫“( פחז‬recklessness”) at the beginning with the verb ‫“( חפז‬to please”) at the end. The poet plays with the same consonants, but in a different order.30 e) The word picture technique continues in the interactions between the noun ‫( רע‬re‘a “companion”) in lines 7, 16, 22 and the adjective ‫( רע‬ra‘ “malicious, evil”) in lines 6, 26). Both notions are crucial to the distinctive thrust of the prosodic version.

|| 27 Some lines have an almost identical word form (line 21 (‫פשעי‬/ ‫)רשעי‬, but not an identical rhyme sound. 28 See Böhmisch, “Vorlage,” 227. 29 Barthélemy and Rickenbacher, Konkordanz, 50. 30 Moreover, the opening ‫( פחזי יצר‬line 32) resonates with ‫( לב פחז‬line 28), which thereby demands a consonant rendering such as “a reckless heart.”

The Prayer in Ben Sira 22:27–23:6 and the Prosodic Version in MS ENA 3053.3 | 31

5.3 Repetition a) Another important literary tool in poetry is repetition. The opening line of the prosodic version contains a reference to “the disclosure of confidence” in Sir 22:22c. The noun ‫“( סוד‬confidence”) dominates the first part (line 1– 16) of MS ENA 3053.3. “Disclosing” (‫[ יצא‬line 1, 9]), or “revealing” (‫[ גלה‬7, 8, 13, 15]) a confidence is the major theme (cf. “hiding” [‫[ סתר‬line 5]). The emphasis on “confidence” (‫ )סוד‬as a crucial component of friendship in complete accord with the book of Ben Sira, which repeatedly highlights the term since (Sir 3:19b; 19:8; 27:16, 17, 21).31 The terminology of disclosure in the Greek of Sir 22:22c (μυστηρίου ἀποκαλύψεως) also corresponds with the opening line of the prosodic version.32 b) The noun ‫“( יצר‬natural inclination of man”) occurs twice in the prosodic version, (lines 19, 26). Two observations are in order here. First, here ‫ יצר‬is reminiscent of ‫“( יוצר‬Creator”) in line 17. That the poet made a wellconsidered choice here may be inferred from the fact that the notion “Creator” is used again in line 20, but now with the help of ‫בורא‬. Second, it is not far-fetched to maintain that both occurrences of ‫ יצר‬in the medieval manuscript have a negative connotation. Would this be in line with its usage in the book of Ben Sira? Whether this Hebrew noun in the book of Ben Sira has a positive, negative or neutral connotation is the subject matter of extensive debate. Nevertheless the conclusions are quite unanimous. Cohen Stuart strongly asserts that: “[I]t is evident that yeṣer in this period means ‘disposition’ or ‘the power to choose’ and ‘the result of the choice’ derived there from. It was never used as ‘(evil) inclinatio[n]’.”33 “Recent scholarship has been consistent in emphasizing the neutrality of the inclination in Sirach, and its conformity to biblical view.”34 While being distinctive from Hebrew Ben Sira, the meaning of the noun ‫ יצר‬in the prosodic version corresponds to later rabbinic usage of “evil inclination.”35

|| 31 For other contexts, see 4:18; 41:23 (Heb.) = 42:1 (Gk.); 42:19. 32 πλὴν ὀνειδισμοῦ καὶ ὑπερηφανίας καὶ μυστηρίου ἀποκαλύψεως καὶ πληγῆς δολίας, ἐν τούτοις ἀποφεύξεται πᾶς φίλος (“…—with the exception of reproach and arrogance and revealing a secret and a treacherous blow—in these cases any friend will flee”); NETS, 737. 33 Cohen Stuart, The Struggle, 93. 34 Collins, Jewish Wisdom, 83. Both Cohen Stuart and Collins refer to specific literature on this particular question. 35 Scholars discussing the usage of ‫ יצר‬in the book of Ben Sira usually note that quite often the Greek translation is already on its way towards later rabbinic usage.

32 | Pancratius C. Beentjes

c) Finally it is worth noting words that are repeated in the document, such as: ‫( רע‬re‘a “companion”) in lines 7, 16, 22; ‫“( נבל‬fool”); ‫“( נבלות‬foolishness”) in lines 7, 14; and ‫“( שפה‬lip”) in lines 11, 28.

6 The search for biblical references The prosodic version not only contains quotations from and allusions to the book of Ben Sira, it also bears resemblances to vocabulary of the Hebrew Bible. However, resemblance alone is not sufficient to label it a parallel. At least one more point of agreement is required, e.g., an identical collocation, a similar context, or a marked contextual clue.36 In the prosodic version, the following instances invite closer examination: a) ‫“—אל תפילני בעצתי ומאויי‬Do not let me fall by my disobedience and my desires” (line 18). The noun ‫‘( מאוי‬desire’) is a hapax in the Hebrew Bible: “Do not grant, O Lord, the desires of the wicked” (Ps 140:9). In both texts, an individual is addressing God for help; both contexts have similar vocabulary: ‫“( שפה‬lip”) and ‫“( לשון‬tongue”).37 Nevertheless such data are insufficient to postulate a direct link between the psalm and the prosodic version. b) ‫“—גבה עינים אל תתנני ולב פחז הרחק ממני‬Do not give me haughty eyes and a reckless heart keep far from me” (line 23). The collocation ‫ גבה עינים‬is found only once in the Hebrew Bible: “A haughty look and an arrogant heart I will not tolerate” (Ps 101:5).38 In both texts, “eyes” and “heart” form a parallel pair whose activities are described from a negative perspective, namely, what should be avoided. As noted earlier, line 23 is a parallel to Sir 23:4b. As to μετεωρισμός ὀφθαλμῶν, Skehan and Di Lella favor the translation “a brazen look [or eye],” since it “…does not refer to pride in this instance, as the expression usually does (cf., for example, Isa 2:11; 5:15; Ps 131:1; Prov 21:4), but … it refers to the depraved eye that fuels the fires of lust in the heart. Cf. 26:9 … ‘The brazen eye,’ as used here, suggest the gleam of unholy passion.”39

|| 36 For an overview of these categories, see Beentjes, “Canon.” 37 “[L]ip” in Ps 140:4 and in lines 11, 28; “tongue” in Ps 140:4 and line 28. 38 Isa 5:15 has “the eyes of the haughty” (‫)עניני גבהים‬. 39 Skehan and Di Lella, Wisdom, 322.

The Prayer in Ben Sira 22:27–23:6 and the Prosodic Version in MS ENA 3053.3 | 33

This view is supported by Menahem Kister, who refers to the occurrence of ‫“ גבה עינים‬in a rhymed mediaeval Hebrew paraphrase of Ben Sira.”40 Kister takes the view that “[T]he meaning of the idiom ‫ גבה עינים‬in Ben Sira is not derived from the biblical expression. ... Sir 23:4 should be translated: ‘Give me not a brazen eye, and ward off from me a lustful heart’.”41 I offer two observations on Di Lella’s view. First, not one of his biblical references (Isa 2:11; 5:15; Ps 131:1; Prov 21:4) has a direct link to Sir 23:4b, since the noun μετεωρισμός is absent from all these passages.42 Second, it is interesting to note that Skehan and Di Lella rendered μετεωρισμός as ‘her haughty stare’ in 26:9, given that this verse also has a sexual connotation. The question, therefore, arises whether line 23 of the prosodic version might have the same strong sexual connotation as Sir 23:4b. The decisive factor is the fact that both the structure and content of the prosodic version are based on Sir 22:22c–23:8. This necessitates the conclusion that line 23 (and perhaps also lines 24–25) must be interpreted in a sexual sense. As a consequence, the unique collocation ‫( גבה עינים‬line 23) can hardly be considered a parallel with Ps 101:5. c) ‫“—נפש עזה אל תמשל בי וטהר רעיון לבבי וקרבי‬A shameless mind will not master me and cleanse the striving of my heart and my inner self” (lines 24–25). The collocation ‫ רעיון לב‬occurs only once in the Hebrew Bible, viz., in Qoh 2:22 —“For what hath man of all his labour, and of the vexation of his heart ...?” (KJV).43 However, the contexts are completely different. In Qoheleth the phrase is a rhetorical question that demands a response in the negative: the effect of one’s toil does not endure. By contrast, in the prosodic version, the phrase has a different orientation since it is part of a prayer begging God to intervene. d) ‫“—רדני על יצרי והצילני ממגורי‬Let me rule my impulse and deliver me from my fear” (line 19). In the Hebrew Bible, only one passage bears some likeness to the second half of this colon: Ps 34:5 ‫דרשתי את־יהוה וענני ומכל מגורותי הצילני‬ —“I sought the LORD, and he answered me, and delivered me from all my fears” (NRSV). Although both texts are part of a prayer and their verbal forms at first glance look identical,44 the absence of further evidence makes || 40 Kister, “Lexicography,” 172. He refers, of course, to MS ENA 3053.3. 41 Kister, “Lexicography,” 173. 42 Μετεωρισµός is found in Ps 41(42):7; 87(88):7; 92(93):4; Sir 23:4; 26:9; Jonah 2:4; 2 Macc 5:21. 43 In the Hebrew Bible, the noun ‫“( רעיון‬striving”) is found only in the book of Qoheleth (1:17; 2:22; 4:16). 44 In the Psalm, ‫ הצילני‬is a third person perfect hiphil, whereas in the prosodic version it is a hiphil imperative.

34 | Pancratius C. Beentjes

it unlikely that the poet of the prosodic version was imitating this psalm verse.45

7 Conclusion The prosodic MS ENA 3053.3 was grafted onto Sir 22:22c–23:9. This “rhymed Ben Sira paraphrase” was probably composed by the Hebrew poet Said ben Babshad ha-Kohen between the end of the tenth century and the first two decades of the eleventh century. The medieval manuscript consists of two parts: (1) lines 1–16 (MS ENA 3053.3 recto) relate to Ben Sira’s maxims on friendship (Sir 22:19–26); (2) lines 17–27 (MS ENA 3053.3 verso) resonate with the prayer in Sir 22:27–23:6, whereas the closing lines 28–31 have been adopted from Sir 23:7–9. In the prosodic version, the quotations from and allusions to the book of Ben Sira follow the same order as in the Ben Sira text. Various forms of rhyme constitute distinctive literary features of the prosodic version.46

Bibliography Balla, Ibolya. Ben Sira on Family, Gender, and Sexuality. DCLS 8. Berlin: De Gruyter, 2011. Barthélemy, Dominique, and Otto Rickenbacher. Konkordanz zum hebräischen Sirach mit syrisch-hebräischem Index. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1973. Beentjes, Pancratius C. “Sirach 22,27–23,6 in zijn context.” Bijdragen 39 (1978): 144–51. Beentjes, Pancratius C. The Book of Ben Sira in Modern Research. Proceedings of the First International Ben Sira Conference 28–31 July 1996, Soesterberg, Netherlands. Edited by Pancratius C. Beentjes. BZAW 255. Berlin: de Gruyter, 1997. Beentjes, Pancratius C. “Canon and Scripture in the Book of Ben Sira.” Pages 591–605 in vol. 1, part 2 of Hebrew Bible/Old Testament. The History of Its Interpretation. Edited by Magne Sæbø. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2000. Bekkum, Wout Jac van. “Zur Verwendung der Bibel im klassischen Pijjut.” Pages 226–42 in Bibel in jüdischer und christlicher Tradition. Festschrift für Johann Maier. Edited by Helmut Merklein, Karlheinz Müller, and Günter Stemberger. BBB 88. Frankfurt am Main: Hain, 1993. Böhmisch, Franz. “Die Vorlage der syrischen Sirachübersetzung und die gereimte hebräische Paraphrase zu Ben Sira aus der Ben-Ezra-Geniza.” Pages 199–237 in Texts and Contexts of

|| 45 In my view, even the occurrence of the word pair “tongue” – “lips” (Ps 34:14), as well as the wisdom setting from Ps 34:12 onwards does not suffice to postulate a parallel. 46 I thank Prof. Dr. Michael Duggan for his assistance with my written English.

The Prayer in Ben Sira 22:27–23:6 and the Prosodic Version in MS ENA 3053.3 | 35

the Book of Sirach/Texte und Kontexte des Sirachbuches. Edited by Gerhard Karner, Frank Ueberschaer, and Burkard M. Zapff. SCS 66. Atlanta: SBL Press, 2017. Calduch-Benages, Nuria. “Emotions in the Prayer of Sir 22:27–23:6.” Pages 145–59 in Ancient Jewish Prayers and Emotions. Emotions Associated with Jewish Prayer in and around the Second Temple Period. Edited by Stefan C. Reif and Renate Egger-Wenzel. DCLS 26. Berlin: de Gruyter, 2015. Cohen Stuart, Geert Hendrik. The Struggle in Man between Good and Evil. An Inquiry into the Origin of the Rabbinic Concept of Yeṣer Hara’. Kampen: Kok, n.d. [1984]. Collins, John J. Jewish Wisdom in the Hellenistic Age. OTL. Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 1997. Corley, Jeremy. Ben Sira’s Teaching on Friendship. BJS 316. Providence: Brown University Press, 2002. Crenshaw, James L. “The Restraint of Reason. The Humility of Prayer.” Pages 206–21 in Urgent Advice and Probing Questions. Collected Writings on Old Testament Wisdom. Edited by James L. Crenshaw. Macon, GA: Mercer University Press, 1995. Fitzmyer, Joseph A. “Abba and Jesus’ Relation to God.” Pages 15–38 in À cause de l’Évangile. Études sur les synoptiques et les Actes offertes au P. Jacques Dupont O.S.B. à l’occasion de son 70e anniversaire. LD 123. Paris: Cerf, 1985. Gilbert, Maurice. “Prayer in the Book of Ben Sira. Function and Relevance.” Pages 117–35 in Prayer from Tobit to Qumran. Edited by Renate Egger-Wenzel and Jeremy Corley. Deuterocanonical and Cognate Literature Yearbook 2004. Berlin: de Gruyter, 2004. Heil, Johannes. “Ashkenazic Piyyut: Hebrew Poetic Prayer in a Latin Environment.” Pages 337– 65 in A History of Prayer. The First to the Fifteenth Century. Edited by Roy Hammerling. Brill’s Companions to the Christian Tradition 13. Leiden: Brill, 2008. Hollender, Elisabeth. “Zur Verwendung der Bibel im frühen Askenasischen Pijjut.” Pages 441– 54 in Bibel in jüdischer und christlicher Tradition. Festschrift für Johann Maier. Edited by Helmut Merklein, Karlheinz Müller, and Günter Stemberger. BBB 88. Frankfurt am Main: Hain, 1993. Hrushovski, Benjamin. “Prosody, Hebrew”. EncJud 13: cols. 1195–1239. Joosten, Jan. “Language and Textual History of Syriac Ben Sira.” Pages 189–97 in Texts and Contexts of the Book of Sirach/Texte und Kontexte des Sirachbuches. Edited by Gerhard Karner, Frank Ueberschaer, and Burkard M. Zapff. SCS 66. Atlanta: SBL Press, 2017. Kister, Menahem. “Some Notes on Biblical Expressions and Allusions and the Lexicography of Ben Sira.” Pages 160–87 in Sirach, Scrolls, & Sages. Proceedings of a Second International Symposium on the Hebrew of the Dead Sea Scrolls, Ben Sira, & the Mishnah. Edited by Takamitsu Muraoka and John F. Elwolde. STDJ 33. Leiden: Brill, 1999. Marchel, Witold. Abba, Père! La prière du Christ et des chrétiens. AnBib 19. Rome: Biblical Institute Press, 1963. Marcus, Joseph. The Newly Discovered Original Hebrew of Ben Sira (Ecclesiasticus xxxii,16– xxxiv,1). The Fifth Manuscript and A Prosodic Version of Ben Sira (Ecclesiasticus xxii,22– xxiii,9). Philadelphia: Dropsie College, 1931 [= JQR 21 (1930–1931): 223–40]. Reiterer, Friedrich V. “Gott, Vater und Herr meines Lebens. Eine poetisch-stilistische Analyse von Sir 22,27–23,6 als Verständnisgrundlage des Gebetes.” Pages 137–70 in Prayer from Tobit to Qumran. Edited by Renate Egger-Wenzel and Jeremy Corley. Deuterocanonical and Cognate Literature Yearbook 2004. Berlin: de Gruyter, 2004. Schechter, Solomon. “A Further Fragment of Ben Sira.” JQR 12 (1900): 456–65. Schuller, Eileen. “4Q372: A Text about Joseph.” RevQ 14 (1990): 349–76.

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Segal, Moshe Z. “The Evolution of the Hebrew Text of Ben Sira.” JQR 25 (1934–1935): 91–149. Skehan Patrick W., and Alexander A. Di Lella, The Wisdom of Ben Sira. A New Translation with Notes, Introduction and Commentary. AB 39. New York: Doubleday, 1987. Strotmann, Angelika. Mein Vater bist du! (Sir 51,10). Zur Bedeutung der Vaterschaft Gottes in kanonischen und nichtkanonischen frühjüdischen Schriften. FTS 39. Frankfurt a. M.: Knecht, 1991. Urbanz, Werner. Gebet im Sirachbuch. Zur Terminologie von Klage und Lob in der griechischen Texttradition. Herders Biblische Studien 60. Freiburg: Herder, 2009. Zawanowska, Marzena. “Ibn Bābshād, Sa‘īd”, Encyclopedia of Jews in the Islamic World, Brillonline consulted 2 March 2018. Ziegler, Joseph, ed. Sapientia Iesu Filii Sirach. Septuaginta. Vetus Testamentum Graecum 12.2. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1965.

Nuria Calduch-Benages

Ben Sira’s Teaching on Prayer: The Example of the Generations of Old Abstract: Prayer is an important theme in Ben Sira’s teaching. Our aim is not to offer a comprehensive view of his teaching on prayer but to study one of its many aspects more deeply. In the present article, we wish to show that in Ben Sira’s “school of prayer” the example of the generations of old plays a fundamental role. In this connection, we consider four texts where the verb ‫ קרא‬/ ἐπικαλέομαι (“call on/beseech”) is used in a context of prayer: Sir 2:10d; 46:5a; 46:16a and 47:5a. Keywords: Prayer; example; generations of old; Joshua; Samuel; David

1 Introduction Prayer is an important theme in the work of Ben Sira.1 The sage often speaks of it, much more than both his predecessors and also the author of the book of Wisdom. Along with some concrete examples of prayer, both individual (Sir 22:27–23:6; 51:1–12) and communal (Sir 36:1–17), Sirach contains numerous reflections and practical advice on prayer. In the words of Maurice Gilbert, for Ben Sira, “prayer is first of all a matter of teaching. Even the three explicit prayers we read in his book are strictly related to the context in which he teaches.”2 Our aim here is not to offer an overall view of Ben Sira’s teaching on prayer, something which has already been done,3 but to study more deeply one of its many aspects. In 2002, Stefan Reif tackled the relationship between prayer, cult and liturgy in Ben Sira and Qumran;4 in 2012, Werner Urbanz focused on the study of the emotions in the passages on prayer in the sage’s work;5 and, in || I am delighted to offer this article in celebration of Stefan C. Reif’s 75th anniversary. I met him for the first time at the initial Ben Sira international conference in Soesterberg (1996) when I had just defended my doctoral dissertation. After listening to his magisterial paper I said to myself, “This is a model to follow!” Thank you, Stefan. || 1 See the monograph of Urbanz, Gebet im Sirachbuch. 2 Gilbert, “Prayer,” 117. Cf. also idem, “Prière,” 236–39. 3 Gilbert, “Prayer,” 117–35; Urbanz, “Gebetsschule,” 31–48. 4 Reif, “Prayer,” 321–41. 5 Urbanz, “Emotionen,” 133–58. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110630282-004

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2017, Judith Newmann examined the central role of prayer in the formation of the scribal identity in Ben Sira, taking her cue from cognitive neuroscience and anthropological studies on prayer.6 In the present article, we intend to show that in Ben Sira’s “school of prayer,”7 as, moreover, in all his teaching, the example of the generations of old plays a fundamental role. To this end, we shall consider four texts where the verb ‫ קרא‬/ ἐπικαλέομαι (“call on/beseech”) is employed in a context of prayer: Sir 2:10d; 46:5a; 46:16a and 47:5a.8

2 The appeal to tradition (Sir 2:10–11) Our study takes its inspiration from Sir 2 which, together with Sir 1, constitutes the portico of the whole work. In these two chapters Ben Sira expounds the theological foundation of his own teaching, namely, the relationship between wisdom and the fear of the Lord. Sir 2 is an exhortation addressed to the disciple who freely decides for the Lord or—and this is the same thing—for wisdom. The sage opens his discourse with a specific warning: “My son, if you decide to serve the Lord, prepare your soul for the testing” (Sir 2:1). This could seem an excessively severe introduction, especially if we think of the youth in his audience. However, this warning has all the irresistible flavour of difficult ventures, of a goal that is almost impossible to attain. Actually, this is like the leitmotiv of chapter 2 and of the book as a whole. The personal relationship with God is developed and strengthened in the concrete experience of testing. We are particularly interested in Sir 2:10–11,9 and, more specifically, 2:10. In this verse, the sage appeals to the authority of previous generations with the aim of strengthening his own argument. By contrast with 2:1–6, where the addressee is the individual disciple, here the discourse is addressed to “you” (2nd person plural), that is, to you who fear the Lord, οἱ φοβούμενοι (τὸν) κύριον (cf. vv. 7a, 8a, 9a).10 We are thus dealing with a group of disciples who have already

|| 6 Newmann, “Formation,” 227–38. 7 Expression borrowed from Urbanz, “Gebetsschule,” 31. 8 We pass over the following texts: Sir 13:14, attested only in Gk. II (recensions of Origen and Lucian) and in the Vetus Latina; Sir 51:10 because of its autobiographical character; Sir 48:20a because, in our opinion, the subject of ἐπεκαλέσαντο is the inhabitants of Jerusalem. For some authors, however, the verb refers also to Isaiah and Hezekiah. Cf. Urbanz, Gebet, 66–67. 9 For a detailed analysis of these verses, cf. Calduch-Benages, Crisol, 123–48. 10 According to Haspecker, the change of the addressee, both in the form and content, is due to the fact that the author wishes to clarify the gradual maturing of the disciple until he reaches

Ben Sira’s Teaching on Prayer: The Example of the Generations of Old | 39

decided to serve the Lord despite innumerable and weighty difficulties. The formula “you who fear the Lord” makes us think, by contrast, of the existence of a group who do not form part of this typology, that is, those who do not fear the Lord and, perhaps, are opposed to the sage’s teaching.11 Since the Hebrew is missing, we record the Greek text of Sir 2:10 according to Joseph Ziegler’s edition,12 followed by our translation and some textual notes: 10a 10b 10c 10d

ἐμβλέψατε εἰς ἀρχαίας γενεὰς καὶ ἴδετε· τίς ἐνεπίστευσεν κυρίῳ καὶ κατῃσχύνθη;13 ἢ τίς ἐνέμεινεν τῷ φόβῳ αὐτοῦ14 καὶ ἐγκατελείφθη;15 ἢ τίς ἐπεκαλέσατο αὐτόν, καὶ ὑπερεῖδεν αὐτόν;16

Consider the generations of old and observe: Whoever trusted in the Lord and remained disappointed? or whoever persevered in his fear and was abandoned? Or whoever called on him and was ignored?17

In the summons to consult the tradition, the authority being appealed to is mentioned, that is, “the generations of old.” These generations of old are made up first and foremost of the ancestors of the people of Israel. But who are these ancestors? According to the sage, they are the “fathers”18 of the people (cf. Sir 44:1b: “our fathers in their generations”). Men of mercy (Heb.), glorious men (Gk.), whose experiences are an inexhaustible source of teaching and, at the same time, an effective incentive for the new generations (Sir 44:1–8, 16–

|| the fullness of the fear of God. In his words, this stylistic innovation highlights that faith in God is more important than the undergoing of testing (cf. Haspecker, Gottesfurcht, 241 n. 1). 11 Cf. Crenshaw, “Theodicy,” 47–48. 12 Ziegler, Sapientia, 134–35. 13 In Syr., the verb is active: “and abandoned him?” For Syr., we follow Calduch-Benages et al., Wisdom. 14 Lat.: in mandatis eius. 15 In Syr., the verb is active: “and rejected him?” 16 Syr.: “and did not answer him?”. On the one hand, Syr. seems better suited to the context (calling/answering), but, on the other hand, the use of the conventional “answer” takes away expressive force from the question. 17 Lit.: “and he has overlooked him.” 18 And where are the mothers of Israel? Cf., in this connection, Calduch-Benages, “Absence,” 301–17.

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50:21).19 Together with this illustrious list of very well-known national heroes, there is also an endless parade of the anonymous faithful. In Di Lella’s words, they are “the[se] ‘forgotten’ heroes of the faith,”20 men and women who, in the silence of their daily life have woven together the threads of that same history (Sir 44:9–15). Both groups, the famous heroes and the unknown heroes, form part of Israel’s past, a past which the young student must constantly recall if he wishes to understand the present and the future of the people to whom he belongs (cf. Deut 32:7; 4:32). Instead of employing a significant passage of scripture or referring explicitly to the biblical text, the sage prefers to appeal to tradition, making use of a more suggestive method than the preceding ones, that is, the rhetorical question. In this case, there is a series of three rhetorical questions linked by the same disjunctive conjunction “or” and arranged in parallel form. In the face of the first question (“Whoever trusted in the Lord and remained disappointed?”), there is no room for doubt. The response which arises immediately: “No one!” is confirmed by the history of Israel. Psalm 22 opens the road to the past (vv. 5–6): “Our fathers trusted (‫ )בטח‬in you, they trusted (‫ )בטח‬in you, and you delivered them. They called on you and were saved, they trusted (‫)בטח‬ in you and were never confounded.” These verses form part of the prayer which the psalmist, perhaps a just man, a prisoner and threatened with death, in the face of imminent danger, raises to the Lord imploring salvation. Submerged in despair, he intends to move the Lord by reminding him of his salvific interventions on Israel’s behalf. In the expression “our fathers,” it is not difficult to glimpse the figures of the patriarchs (Abraham, Jacob, Joseph) and of Moses guiding the people through the desert.21 In their lives, all passed through tribulation and testing. All trusted in the Lord, and no one remained cheated. The Lord’s action was decisive: he saved them from all their dangers. So then, in the light of Ps 22:5–6, in the person “who trusts in the Lord” (Sir 2:10), we see the face of the patriarchs of Israel whose experiences and examples were handed down from fathers to sons, from generation to generation (cf. Ps 78:3–4); and, through these famous figures, we discover the paradigmatic experience of human suffering embodied in the person of the psalmist. The pain, the danger, the injustice, the disaster and the trials do not destroy the unshakable certainty that the Lord never abandons people.

|| 19 The opposite opinion is held by Minissale, Siracide (Ecclesiastico), 47. 20 Skehan and Di Lella, Wisdom, 501. 21 Cf. Ravasi, Salmi, 1:412.

Ben Sira’s Teaching on Prayer: The Example of the Generations of Old | 41

We pass on now to the second question (“Or, whoever persevered in his fear and was abandoned?”). Two scriptural texts express the same idea implicit in this question. The first is Ps 37:25. In instructing the young man on the lot of the just and the ungodly, the psalmist— an experienced elder—has recourse to his personal experience: “I was young, now I am old, and I never saw a just man forsaken” (‫זדיק נעזב‬, δίκαιον ἐγκαταλελειμμένον). His long life has proved that the Lord never abandons the just (cf. vv. 28, 33). On the contrary, as a reward for his faithfulness, the Lord assures him and his descendants the possession of the land. The second text is Job 4:7. Eliphaz replies to Job’s excruciating lament and reminds him, naively, of the validity of the classical doctrine of retribution: “Recall: which innocent person ever perished? And where were the just destroyed?”. These two texts present us, through contrast, with the drama of Job. “Through contrast” because the experience of Job challenges the theory of the old teacher of the psalm and of Eliphaz the Temanite. A just and honest man (Job 12:4),22 Job suffers atrociously in his own flesh his abandonment by his God. Are the example of Job and Sir 2:10 really on the same wavelength? Ben Sira himself gives us the answer. In his Praise of the Ancestors, he speaks of Job as of “the one who observed all the ways of justice” (Sir 49:9). He compares him with Noah and Daniel, two well-known models of integrity. According to the prophet Ezekiel (cf. Ezek 14:14, 20), Noah, Daniel and Job were able to be saved on account of their justice.23 Like Noah in the flood (Gen 7) and Daniel in the lions’ den (Dan 6), Job had to endure so terrible a test that it led him to rebel against the Creator and curse the day of his own birth. However, in the end, although engulfed by such a calamity and, especially, despite the silence of God, Job accepts his suffering as a supreme manifestation of the divine will and observes with amazement that, in truth, God has not abandoned him at any stage. Although his nature is mysterious and incomprehensible to the human mind, God remained at Job’s side throughout the time of his tribulation. This is precisely the teaching which Ben Sira instils into his disciples: the Lord never abandons the just. He subjects them to trials and tribulations, but, at the appropriate moment, he puts out his hand to restore them to freedom, unharmed and enriched (cf. Sir 2:1–6; 36[33]:21).24 The third and last question of the series (“Or, whoever called on him and was ignored?”) finds an echo in the Praise of the Ancestors (Sir 46:1–47:11). In

|| 22 Cf. Gen 6:9 where the same things are claimed for Noah. 23 Wahl, “Noah, Daniel und Hiob,” 542–53. 24 Calduch-Benages, “Trial Motif,” 135–51.

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these chapters, the sage traces the figure of three historical characters who, in moments of great tribulation, “called on the Lord (Most High).” None of their prayers was ignored; on the contrary, all had a favourable response. We refer to Joshua, Samuel and David. We should note that the passages devoted to these figures of people praying have been the object of a careful analysis in the doctoral thesis of Andrzej Demitrów (2011).25 In what follows, we shall dedicate special attention to each of these passages.

3 Joshua (Sir 46:4–6d) The first person praying mentioned in the Praise of the Ancestors is Joshua. In Sir 46:1–10, Ben Sira describes him not only as someone who prays but also as a prophet and warrior. According to Jeremy Corley—the scholar who has dealt with this passage several times— “The poem on Joshua and Caleb occurs at a significant place within Ben Sira’s Praise of the Ancestors (Sir 44:1–50:24).”26 It is precisely this passage which sees the beginning of Sir 46:1–49:16, known as the prophetic section of the Praise of the Ancestors. As Alon Goshen-Gottstein has aptly noted, this section is in contrast with Sir 44:17–45:26 (the Torah section). Whereas, in the latter section, the emphasis is placed on the gifts which God has made to Israel, in the former, special attention is given to the response of the prophets and kings to the divine call.27 Moreover, it is to be noted that Sir 46:1–49:16 refers to the eight books of the former and latter prophets in their canonical order.28 As we have indicated above, the portrait of Joshua offered by Ben Sira is not monochrome. Different aspects of his personality are pointed out. In the first verse, Joshua, son of Nun (‫)יהושע בן נון‬, is described both as a mighty warrior (lit.: ‫ )גבור בן חיל‬and as a prophet;29 a prophet, however, whose words are not

|| 25 Demitrów, Quattro oranti. 26 Corley, “Warrior,” 212. By the same author, cf. “Assimilation,” 57–77; “Difference,” 30–55. See also Elßner, Josua und seine Kriege, 22–56; idem, “Josua bei Jesus Sirach,” 77–95; Koskenniemi, Miracle-Workers, 26–31; Farber, Images, 142–48 and the unpublished thesis of Teresa Brown, Sinners, 74–80. 27 Goshen-Gottstein, “Praise,” 250 cited in Corley, “Warrior,” 212. 28 Joshua (46:1–10), Judges (46:11–12), Samuel (46:13–47:11), Kings (47:12–49:6), Isaiah (48:20–25), Jeremiah (49:7), Ezekiel (49:8–9) and the Twelve Prophets (49:10), cf. Corley, “Assimilation,” 69. 29 Cf. Josephus, Ant. 4.165.

Ben Sira’s Teaching on Prayer: The Example of the Generations of Old | 43

recalled, only his miracles. The Hebrew text of MS B employs a particular expression to refer to his prophetic activity, that is, “servant of Moses in prophecy (‫)משרת משה בנבואה‬.”30 However, despite this apparent attempt at equality in describing Joshua’s double role, “the rest of the passage”—asserts Zev Farber— “deals almost exclusively with Joshua’s role as conqueror, emphasizing his military persona.”31 His name (‫יהושע‬, “God saves”) defines his function as liberator and conqueror. The following verses (vv. 2–3) contain a kind of summary of Joshua’s victories. In v. 2, Ben Sira refers to the conquest of Ai which is narrated in ch. 8 of the book of Joshua, and, in v. 3, the hero is presented as one who fought the battles of the Lord. On the one hand, the phraseology is similar to that employed in Josh 10:14, where the one who fights against Israel’s enemies is not Joshua but God; on the other hand, the expression “the battles of the Lord” refers to 1 Sam 18:17; 25:28 in connection with David.32 The theological reason for Joshua’s military success is made clear in vv. 4a– 6d; and it is precisely in these verses that our hero assumes the characteristic features of one who prays. Since the Hebrew text of MS B is very fragmentary, we shall make use (with a single exception) of Segal’s reconstruction33 which is made basically on the back of the Greek version.

[‫יום אחד ]היה לשנים‬

‫הלא בידו עמד השמש‬

4ab

[‫כאכפה ל]ו אויבים מסביב‬

‫כי קרא אל אל עליון‬

5ab

34‫באבני‬

‫ויענהו אל עליון‬

5cd

[‫ובמורד האביד קמים‬

‫]וישלך ע[ל ]עם אויב‬

6ab

‫כי צופה ייי מלחמתם‬

‫למען ]דע[ת כל גוי חרם‬

6cd

[‫]ברד וא[ל]גביש‬

4a Was it not by his hand that the sun stopped? 4b One day [lasted like two]! 5a He called on God the Most High,35

|| 30 Gk. reads καὶ διάδοχος (“successor”) Μωυσῆ ἐν προφητείαις and Syr. creates a paraphrase: “according to the prophecy, he was preserved to be the great Moses.” According to Corley (“Warrior,” 218), in the place of ‫משרת משה‬, Gk. would have read ‫( משנה משה‬cf. 2 Chr 28:7). 31 Farber, Images, 142. 32 Cf. Elßner, Josua und seine Kriege, 38. 33 Segal, Sēper, 317–18 (we record the text without vocalization). 34 In MS B, ‫( באבני‬construct form) is the last word in 5c. (Contra Segal), we shift it to the beginning of 5d. 35 For the divine name, Gk. reads τὸν ὕψιστον δυνάστην (the powerful Most High); Syr. simply “the Lord.”

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5b 5c 5d 6a 6b 6c 6d

when he was pressed, surrounded by enemies.36 And the Lord the Most High answered him37 with stones [of hail and crystals of ice].38 [And he threw himself on the enemy people] [and destroyed the rebels in the descent], so that every nation vowed to extermination might know that Yhwh watched over their battles.39

The episode described in v. 4 evokes one of Joshua’s four miracles narrated in the book that bears his name,40 only two of which are recorded in Ben Sira’s text. Here we have the miracle of the sun which stops at Joshua’s command and enables the Israelites to win the battle of Gibeon (Josh 10:12–13). However, Ben Sira does not confine himself to reporting the episode just as it is presented in the book of Joshua; he rereads it in order to offer a new interpretation. Firstly, he changes the order of events. Whereas in Josh 10, the miracle of the hail is mentioned first (v. 11) and then that of the sun (v. 12), in Sir 46, the miracle of the sun (v. 4ab) precedes that of the hail (v. 5d). Secondly, the sage makes a summary of Josh 10:12–14, taking up only the essential items (he omits, for example, the mention of the moon) and emphasising the depredations of the enemies. Thirdly, he places Joshua’s prayer between the two miraculous interventions (v. 5a), thus awarding it a central position in the account. In this way, Ben Sira discovers a new face of Joshua, one hitherto hidden. The warrior strong in battle suddenly becomes a man of prayer. The picture of Joshua in an attitude of prayer is rare in the book of Joshua. The only exception comes in Josh 7:6–9,41 where, on the occasion of Achan’s sin, Joshua intercedes for the people before God. In Josh 10, on the other hand, there is no explicit mention of any intercession by Joshua in the battle of Gibeon. Nevertheless, it is probable, as Corley observes, that Ben Sira interpreted

|| 36 Gk.: ἐν τῷ θλῖψαι αὐτὸν ἐχθροὺς κυκλόθεν (“when his enemies pressed around him”). Taking account of the dimensions of the lacuna in the manuscript, Morla prefers to read ‫מסביב‬ (cf. Smend, Weisheit, 441) or else ‫( איבים מסביב‬Morla, Manuscritos, 302). 37 Because of the suspected repetition of ‫( אל עליון‬cf. 5a), Morla hypothesises an original: ‫ויענהו באבני ברד‬, cf. Syr. (Manuscritos, 303). 38 Syr.: “and he made sulphur come down from heaven.” According to Morla, the original text of 5d would be: ‫“( ובגבורת אלגביש‬and with the violence of the hail”), which would fit well in the damaged space of the manuscript (Manuscritos, 303). 39 Lat. seems a little disorientated: quia contra Deum pugnare non est facile and Syr. translates freely: “that their own Lord fought with them.” 40 Cf. Koskenniemi, Miracle-Workers, 27. 41 Cf. also 4 Ezra 7:107 and the following Qumran texts: 4QTest 21 (4Q175) and the “Psalms of Joshua” (4Q378; 4Q379).

Ben Sira’s Teaching on Prayer: The Example of the Generations of Old | 45

Josh 10:12 (“Then Joshua spoke to the Lord…”) “as a sign of Joshua’s intercessory activity.” Be that as it may, the motif of prayer before battle, introduced by the sage in Sir 46:5, recalls the stories of King Asa (2 Chr 14:10) and King Jehoshaphat (2 Chr 20:6–12),42 who address fervent prayers to the Lord before facing their powerful enemies in battle.43 Thus, Ben Sira’s rereading places the account of Joshua in a new perspective, i.e., the perspective of one oppressed by enemies whose prayer is heard by the Lord. In Sir 46:5, Joshua’s prayer is arranged in three stages: the calling on God (v. 5a), formulated with the technical term ‫ קרא אל‬followed by the divine name (‫אל )עליון‬, the situation of oppression caused by the enemy (v. 5b), and God’s response (v. 5cd). The same structure is found in the psalms of individual supplication where the worshipper, threatened by mortal danger, seeks support in a cry addressed to the Lord (cf. Pss 3; 4; 22; 35; 83; 102, among many others). In these psalms, the certainty that only God offers salvation is found everywhere. In fact, God never withdraws himself from the supplications or the desperate cry of the worshipper. On the contrary, he hears it, responds to it and comes to help with his action of deliverance.44 This spiritual experience was not foreign to Ben Sira. Two examples of this will be sufficient: in Sir 35:14–26, there is a prominent picture of a merciful God who extends his ear to the cry of the poor and oppressed (for example, the orphan and widow) and promptly gives them the justice denied to them by the cruel and violent; in Sir 51:1–12, full of gratitude, the same Ben Sira recalls that the Lord listened to his desperate prayer while he struggled between life and death, freeing him from the tenacious adversaries who wished to kill him. Joshua’s prayer was also heard, and he was freed from his enemies thanks to a miraculous hailstorm ordered by God who enabled him to win the battle and bring salvation to Israel (Sir 46:6a-d).

4 Samuel (Sir 46:16–18) The second praying figure mentioned in the Praise of the Ancestors is Samuel. Like Joshua, Samuel too is a person with many faces. Ben Sira presents him as || 42 Cf. Corley, “Warrior,” 229; idem, “Assimilation,” 65–66. 43 According to Farber, “the element of Joshua’s calling out to God is added by Ben Sira, perhaps in order to paint a picture of control. Joshua invites God into the battle, or, at least, requests God’s assistance” (Images, 145). 44 Cf. Demitrów, Quattro oranti, 73–75.

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prophet, Nazirite, priest, judge, military leader and intercessor. His portrait appears in the brief section devoted to the Judges which follows the description of Joshua and Caleb (Sir 46:1–10). After a brief collective elogium where no particular name is mentioned (Sir 46:11–12), the memory of the Judges is expanded through Samuel (Sir 46:13–20),45 the last (and most famous) of this group of figures who, arising after the death of Joshua, governed the tribes of Israel before the monarchy. Samuel’s portrait is made up of three sections: vv. 13–15 present him as a prophet and judge of Israel; vv. 16–18 describe him as one who prayed; and, finally, vv. 19–20 summarise his exceptional activity on behalf of Israel which continued even after his physical death (this was his last miracle!). “Lover of his people and pleasing to his Creator” (v. 13).46 Thus begins the elogium of Samuel. Right from the beginning, Ben Sira indicates the two fundamental features of our character, that is, his relationship with God and with his people. According to Renzo Petraglio, Samuel’s prophetic and priestly functions, his role as judge and all his activity connected with the establishment of the monarchy and the anointing of the princes have their roots in his relationship with God.47 The following verses (vv. 14–15) are a kind of commentary on the summary presented in the opening verse. The image of Samuel as judge is illustrated in v. 14 through the allusion to 1 Sam 7:15–17, a brief and schematic summary of Samuel’s judging activity at Bethel, Gilgal and Mizpah. In v. 15, Samuel’s prophetic function, carried out with fidelity and authenticity, echoes the language of 1 Sam 3:19–20 and 1 Sam 9:9, 11, 18–19. In the former text, Samuel is accredited as a prophet of God, and, in the second, he is presented as a seer. We would now like to pause on vv. 16–18. Situated exactly at the centre of the passage, these verses give particular prominence to Samuel’s prayers and God’s response. In the following table, we record the Hebrew text of MS B. Where the damaged parts are concerned, above all in v. 16, we always follow Segal’s retroversion48. ‫]כאכפה לו איבי[ו מסביב‬

‫וגם ה]וא קרא א[ל ]א[ל‬

16ab

[‫בעלתו ]טלה ח[ל]ב‬

16c49

|| 45 On this pericope, cf. Petraglio, “Siracide,” 287–302; Marböck, “Samuel,” 205–17; Corley, “Portrait,” 31–56; idem, “Assimilation,” 57–77. 46 For the different reconstructions of 13a, Corley, “Portrait,” 33, esp. n. 11. 47 Petraglio, “Siracide,” 294. 48 Segal, Sēper, 321 (we record the text without vocalization). 49 Basing himself on the conjecture of Smend (Weisheit, 446), Corley reconstructs 16d (which is lacking also in the versions) with a phrase taken from 1 Sam 7:9: ‫“( עלה כליל לייי‬as a whole burned offering to YHWH”), cf. Corley, “Portrait,” 43.45.

Ben Sira’s Teaching on Prayer: The Example of the Generations of Old | 47

16a 16b 16c 17a 17b 18a 18b

‫בפקע אדיר נשמע קולו‬

[‫]וירעם משמים ייי‬

17ab

‫ויא]בד את כל[ סרני פלשתים‬

‫ויכנע נציבי צר‬

18ab

And he also50 called on God, when he was in tribulation, with his enemies around him,51 offering in sacrifice a sucking lamb. And the Lord thundered from heaven, his voice was heard52 with a powerful clamour. And he subdued the leaders of his enemies and made all the princes of the Philistines to perish.53

In Petraglio’s words, “L’art narratif de notre auteur est très efficace.”54 He begins the elogium of Samuel with a standard expression standard (“And he also called on God”) which he had already employed in connection with Joshua (Sir 46:5) and which he is to use again in the poem on David (Sir 47:5). The only difference to be noted is the omission of the divine attribute “Most High” in our passage. In this way, the sage establishes a close connection among the three figures. To these texts, we could add Sir 48:20 where Ben Sira transforms the prayer of Hezekiah—or of the king along with the prophet Isaiah—into a prayer of the entire community of Jerusalem. The situation of extreme danger and the sacrifice of a sucking lamb mentioned in v. 16bc obviously refer to the events recounted in 1 Sam 7:7–14: in the face of the looming threat of a Philistine attack at Mizpah, the Israelites beg Samuel to intercede for them with the Lord. His prayer, together with the offering of a holocaust, ensures that Israel prevails over its enemies. Samuel’s prayer of intercession is distinguished from that of Joshua (and also from those of the other worshippers) on account of its cultic dimension.55 This is its novelty and,

|| 50 The words “he also,” present in Syr. but not in Gk., refer to Sir 45:5a in connection with Joshua. 51 In the light of Prov 16:26 (‫)אכף־כי עליו פיהו‬, Morla proposes, in addition to that of Segal, the following reconstruction of the stich: ‫( באכף עליו אויביו מסביב‬Manuscritos, 308). In Syr. Samuel becomes the subject of the action: “and also he beat the enemies from all the surrounding area.” 52 Obviously, Gk.: ἀκουστὴν ἐποίησεν (“made hear”) has read ‫ הישמע‬instead of ‫( נשמע‬cf. Morla, Manuscritos, 308). 53 The expression “leaders of his enemies” has been read by Gk. as a reference to the city of Tyre, probably because of the orthographical likeness of the two words: enemy (‫ ) ַצר‬and Tyre (‫)צֹר‬. Syr. actually reads: “all the leaders of Tyre.” 54 Petraglio, “Siracide,” 295. ET: “The narrative art of our author is very effective.” 55 Cf. Marböck, “Samuel,” 210; Urbanz, Gebet, 64; Demitrów, Quattro oranti, 191–92.

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at the same time, its power. According to Werner Urbanz, “Das Gebet, begleitet von einem Opfer, erscheint hier effektiv zu sein.”56 In fact, the Lord’s reaction is not slow and the fervent prayer receives a devastating response (v. 17). Petraglio comments, “Le seul élément qu’on ne retrouve pas dans la Bible est le ‘déchirement’ dans le quel la voix de Dieu se fit entendre. […]. Ce qui est important, c’est Dieu qui se manifeste dans ce déchirement; le reste, les ennemis et leur puissance (v.16b), ce n’est qu’un détail pour donner du relief à l’action de Dieu qui répond à son prophète.”57 Once again, the scheme “prayer of the worshipper – situation of oppression – God’s response” worked, and Samuel, in his role of powerful intercessor, managed to crush the enemies of his people (v. 18).

5 David (Sir 47:4–5) In the spirit of Joshua and Samuel, King David is presented as the third great praying figure in the Praise of the Ancestors. Practically ignoring Saul, and after a quick mention of the prophet Nathan (Sir 47:1), Ben Sira concentrates on the figure of David (Sir 47:2–11).58 We should note that his story is recalled by leaving out the various vicissitudes which he suffered on account of the hostility of Saul (1 Sam 18:8–30) and the revolt of his son Absalom (2 Sam 15–19). Even his notorious sin, his adultery with Bathsheba (2 Sam 11), is recalled only indirectly by means of a mild generic expression: “The Lord pardoned his sins” (Sir 47:11). Thus, by silencing the less noble aspects in the king’s life, Ben Sira has painted an overall positive picture. The poem begins with an introductory verse in which the choice of David is compared to the separation of the fat of the sacrificed animals (Sir 47:2) to signify David’s total belonging to the Lord.59 This cultic metaphor marks the tone of the entire composition right from the beginning. In the words of Beentjes, “The

|| 56 Urbanz, Gebet, 64. ET: “The prayer accompanied by an offering appears to be effective.” 57 Petraglio, “Siracide,” 296. ET: “The only element which one does not find in the Bible is the ‘tearing sound’ in which God’s voice makes itself heard. [...] What is important is that it is God who manifests himself in this tearing sound; the rest, the enemies and their power (v. 16b) is only a detail to give relief to the action of God who responds to his prophet.” 58 Cf. the following studies: Marböck, “Davids Erbe,” 43–49; Kleer, Sänger, 131–77; Xeravits, “Figure,” 27–38; Wright, “Use,” 201–5; Beentjes, “Portrayals,” 167–69; Demitrów, Quattro oranti, 229–365; Marttila, “David,” 29–48, and, recently, Rose, “Lob,” 351–73. 59 Palmisano, Siracide, 449.

Ben Sira’s Teaching on Prayer: The Example of the Generations of Old | 49

real intention of Ben Sira’s portrayal of David is already revealed in the second line where the election of David is worded in cultic terminology.”60 In fact, instead of exalting the military ability and political astuteness of the monarch, Ben Sira prefers to emphasise his contribution to the organisation of the cult, especially as author of the psalms, as well as his faith and piety (Sir 47:8–10). According to Xeravits,61 vv. 3–7 recount “David’s prehistory.” They focus on his victories over his enemies (human and animals), highlighting his “playful” way of attaining them. Of particular interest for our argument are vv. 4–5 which we record in the following table according to the text of MS B. Here too, we make use of Segal’s reconstruction62 in cases where the text is damaged, though, by contrast with the passages studied earlier, this part of the manuscript is fortunately found in better condition.

‫ויסר ]חרפת[ עולם‬

4a 4b 4c 4d 5a 5b 5c 5d

‫בנעוריו הכה ]ג[בור‬

4ab

‫וישבר ]תפא[רת גלית‬

‫בהניפו ידו על קלע‬

4cd

‫ויתן בימינו עז‬

‫כי קרא אל אל עליון‬

5ab

‫ולהרים את קרן עמו‬

‫להדף את איש יודע מלחמות‬

5cd

In his youth he killed the giant63 and took away the shame of his people,64 while he put his hand to the sling and shattered the pride of Goliath. Since he called on the Lord, the Most High, and he gave power to his right hand, to kill the veteran warrior and raise again the horn65 of his people.

Following the account of 1 Sam 17 chronologically,66 Ben Sira rereads the episode of the fight between the giant, Goliath, and David when the latter was a

|| 60 Beentjes, “Portrayals,” 167. 61 Xeravits, “Figure,” 29. 62 Segal, Sēper, 323 (we record the text without vocalization). 63 In Gk., the whole of v. 4 is formulated as a rhetorical question introduced by οὐχί. 64 With Gk. and Syr., we read ‫ עם‬instead of ‫עולם‬. See also Alonso Schökel, Eclesiástico, 315; Skehan and Di Lella, Wisdom, 522, 524; Marböck, “Davids Erbe,” 43; Zapff, Jesus Sirach, 346; Marttila, “David,” 33, 34; Rose, “Lob,” 355. However, Kleer (Sänger, 132.134) and Demitrów (Quattro oranti, 237–38, 279–82) follow MS B. 65 The raised horn is a symbol of power and glory (cf. 1 Sam 2:1; Ps 18:3). 66 For the terminological contacts between the two texts, cf. Kleer, Sänger, 150.

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young shepherd. As expected, he reads it in his own way. Without recounting the details of the story, he mentions only some elements (and adds others) in view of the message which he intends to transmit. For example, from the very beginning (v. 4a), the reader is informed of the final outcome of the struggle: paradoxically, the young lad prevails against the giant. After this information, which is a little hurried, v. 4b reveals the significance of the deed achieved by the shepherd boy. Instead of benefiting the glory of David, the slaying of the giant freed Israel from the shame (‫ )חרפה‬which it would have otherwise incurred at the hand of the Philistines. Verse 4c then hints at the way in which he destroyed Goliath. With the sling and with the stone, that is, with a simple weapon, David overcame the Philistine. Consequently, the pride/glory (‫)תפארת‬ of Goliath ended in pieces. Kleer comments, “Das Zerbrechen (‫ )שבר‬des Rhums Goliats nimmt bereits das Zerbrechen (‫ )שבר‬des Horner der Philister vorweg, was wiederum dem Erhöhen des Hornes des Volkes Israel in V 5d und dem Erhöhen des Hornes Davids (V 11b) korrespondiert.”67 Having reached this point, the reader could have understood that David managed to beat the giant thanks to his own powers alone. However, in reality, it was not so. The victory is not to be attributed to his shrewdness or his greater agility but, as we shall see, to the intervention of the Lord. Verse 5, considered by several scholars as the theological centre of 47:3–7,68 offers the key to understanding Ben Sira’s interpretation of the event. Linking up with a previous text through a causal ‫כי‬, he offers his explanation. The text says that David “called on the Lord the Most High.”69 So then, in the eyes of Ben Sira, the extraordinary defeat of Goliath is God’s response to the prayer which David made to him before the battle. By putting David’s prayer at the centre of the account, the sage shifts the attention of the reader (who is probably more interested in the course of the fight) towards the personal relationship of the future king with God.70 In the words of Kleer, “Hier zeichnet Ben Sira in seinem Davidbild einen Zug, der

|| 67 Kleer, Sänger, 150. ET: “The shattering of Goliath’s fame already anticipated the shattering of the horn/might of the Philistines which, on the other hand, corresponded to the increase in the horn of the people of Israel in v. 5d and the increase of the horn of David (v. 11b).” 68 Cf. Marböck, “Davids Erbe,” 45; Demitrów, Quattro oranti, 285; Marttila, “David,” 38. 69 However, as Benjamin Wright notes, “he actually never prays in the narrative [i.e., in 1 Sam 17]; he simply claims in his speech to Goliath that God will enable him to defeat the giant” (“Use,” 230). Cf. also Demitrów, Quattro oranti, 286–87 and Marttila, “David,” 38–39. 70 Cf. Demitrów, Quattro oranti, 286.

Ben Sira’s Teaching on Prayer: The Example of the Generations of Old | 51

ihm wichtiger ist als die bloß äußere Ruhmestat, nämlich Davids Gottesverhältnis und seine Frömmigkeit.”71 As happened previously with Joshua and Samuel, the Lord heard David’s prayer and strengthened his right hand so that he could not only defeat Goliath—no longer called by name but as a “man expert in war” (‫—)איש יודע מלחמות‬ but also and above all restore power to his people (v. 5cd). Thus, it was not David’s strength which procured him the victory but the power which God gave in response to his prayer.

6 Conclusion Ben Sira’s teaching about prayer is not the exclusive fruit of personal experience (Sir 39:5; 51:1–12) as it is guaranteed and supported by a long tradition of praying figures who serve as models to be followed by his young students. Recourse to the generations of old responds to a pedagogic objective, that is, to encourage his disciples to persevere tirelessly in faith. In fact, they must always remember that the Lord does not disappoint those who trust in him, does not abandon those who fear him, and does not ignore those who call upon him (cf. Sir 2:10). The three figures from the past presented by Ben Sira as practitioners of prayer are Joshua, Samuel and David (we have deliberately left out Hezekiah/Isaiah/the inhabitants of Jerusalem). Taking his inspiration from the ancient accounts which he knew really well, the sage reread the past through new spectacles. With great freedom and skill, he modified his sources and handled their language creating new texts that were able to transmit his teaching with authority (whether the teaching of tradition or his own contribution). “By a process of canonical assimilation”— Corley’s words72—Ben Sira employs the same formula “calling on God, (the Most High)” followed by a divine response in his presentation of Joshua, Samuel and David. All three heroes find themselves in a situation of grave danger but, following their request for help, this is overturned thanks to divine intervention. Even with variations in form (the hail for Joshua, the thunder for Samuel, and the gift of strength for David), God’s response was always effective.

|| 71 Kleer, Sänger, 151. ET: “Here, in his picture of David, Ben Sira paints a feature which is more important to him than mere external fame, namely, David’s relationship with God and his piety.” 72 Corley, “Assimilation,” 64.

52 | Nuria Calduch-Benages

In conclusion, the example of the generations of old indicates, on the one hand, the importance of calling on God in trust in the circumstances of life, especially in situations of danger, and, on the other hand, the certainty that the worshipper’s prayer will not be wasted; on the contrary, it will he heard by God and receive an actual response. This is what happened to Joshua, Samuel and David, and this is what will happen to every disciple who follows their example.

Bibliography Alonso Schökel, Luis. Proverbios y Eclesiástico. Los Libros Sagrados 8.1. Madrid: Cristiandad, 1968. Beentjes, Pancratius C. “Portrayals of David in Deuterocanonical and Cognate Literature.” Pages 165–81 in Biblical Figures in Deuterocanonical and Cognate Literature. Edited by Hermann Lichtenberger and Ulrike Mittmann-Richert. Deuterocanonical and Cognate Literature Yearbook 2008. Berlin: de Gruyter, 2009. Brown, Teresa R. “Sinners, Idols-Worshippers and Fools among the Men of Hesed: Ben Sira’s Pedagogy in Praise of the Fathers (Sir 44–50)”. Ph.D. diss., Graduate Theological Union, Berkeley, CA, 1998. Calduch-Benages, Nuria. En el crisol de la prueba. Estudio exegético de Sir 2,1–18. ABE 32. Estella (Navarra): Verbo Divino, 1997. Calduch-Benages, Nuria. “Trial Motif in the Book of Ben Sira, with Special Reference to 2,1–6.” Pages 135–51 in The Book of Ben Sira in Modern Research. Proceedings of the First International Ben Sira Conference 29–31 July 1996 Soesterberg, Netherlands. Edited by Pancratius C. Beentjes. BZAW 255. Berlin: de Gruyter, 1997. Calduch-Benages, Nuria. “The Absence of Named Women from Ben Sira’s Praise of the Ancestors.” Pages 301–17 in Rewriting Biblical History. Essays on Chronicles and Ben Sira in Honor of Pancratius C. Beentjes. Edited by Jeremy Corley and Harm van Grol. DCLS 7. Berlin: de Gruyter, 2011. Calduch-Benages, Nuria, Joan Ferrer, and Jan Liesen. La sabiduría del escriba. Edición diplomática de la Peshitta del libro de Ben Sira según el Códice Ambrosiano, con traducción española e inglesa. The Wisdom of the Scribe. Diplomatic Edition of the Peshitta of the Book of Ben Sira according to Codex Ambrosianus, with Translations in Spanish and English. Rev. 2nd ed. Biblioteca Midrásica 26. Estella (Navarra): Verbo Divino, 2015. Corley, Jeremy. “Joshua as a Warrior in Hebrew Ben Sira 46:1–10.” Pages 207–48 in Visions of Peace and Tales of War. Edited by Jan Liesen and Pancratius C. Beentjes. Deuterocanonical and Cognate Literature Yearbook 2010. Berlin: de Gruyter, 2010. Corley, Jeremy. “Canonical Assimilation in Ben Sira’s Portrayal of Joshua and Samuel.” Pages 57–77 in Rewriting Biblical History. Essays on Chronicles and Ben Sira in Honour of Pancratius C. Beentjes. Edited by Jeremy Corley and Harm van Grol. DCLS 7. Berlin: de Gruyter, 2011. Corley, Jeremy. “The Portrait of Samuel in Hebrew Ben Sira 46:13–20.” Pages 31–56 in Biblical Figures in Deuterocanonical and Cognate Literature. Edited by Hermann Lichtenberger and

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Ulrike Mittmann-Richert. Deuterocanonical and Cognate Literature Yearbook 2008. Berlin: de Gruyter, 2009. Corley, Jeremy. “No Small Difference when Introducing Samuel in Sirach 46,13.” Pages 30–55 in Figures who Shape Scriptures, Scriptures that Shape Figures. Essays in Honour of Benjamin G. Wright III. Edited by Géza G. Xeravits and Greg Schmidt Goering. DCLS 40. Berlin: de Gruyter, 2018. Demitrów, Andrzej. Quattro oranti nell’Elogio dei Padri (Sir 44–49). Studio dei testi e delle tradizioni. Theological Collection of Opole 124. Opole: University of Opole, 2011. Elßner, Thomas R. Josua und seine Kriege in jüdischer und christlicher Rezeptionsgeschichte. Theologie und Friede 37. Stuttgart: Kohlhammer, 2008. Elßner, Thomas R. “Zu Josua bei Jesus Sirach. Der erste Vers im Lob auf dem Sohn Nuns (Sir 46,1–8).” Pages 77–95 in Gewalt im Spiegel alttestamentlichen Texte. Edited by Norbert Clemens Baumgart and Martin Nitsche. ETS 43. Würzburg: Echter, 2012. Farber, Zev. Images of Joshua in the Bible and Their Reception. BZAW 457. Leiden: Brill, 2016. Gilbert, Maurice. “La prière des sages d’Israël.” Pages 227–43 in L’expérience de la prière dans les grandes religion. Edited by Henri Limet and Julien Ries. Homo religiosus 5. Louvain-LaNeuve: Centre d’Histoire des Religions, 1980. Gilbert, Maurice. “Prayer in the Book of Ben Sira. Function and Relevance.” Pages 117–35 in Prayer from Tobit to Qumran. Inaugural Conference of the ISDCL at Salzburg, Austria, 5–9 July 2003. Edited by Renate Egger-Wenzel and Jeremy Corley. Deuterocanonical and Cognate Literature Yearbook 2004. Berlin: de Gruyter, 2004. Goshen-Gottstein, Alon. “Ben Sira’s Praise of the Fathers: a Canon-Conscious Reading.” Pages 235–67 in Ben Sira’s God. Proceedings of the International Ben Sira Conference, Durham – Ushaw College 2001. Edited by Renate Egger-Wenzel. BZAW 321. Berlin: de Gruyter, 2002. Haspecker, Josef. Gottesfurcht bei Jesus Sirach. Ihre religiöse Struktur und ihre literarische und doktrinäre Bedeutung. AnBib 30. Rome: Editrice Pontificio Istituto Biblico, 1967. Kleer, Martin. “Der liebliche Sänger der Psalmen Israels“. Untersuchungen zu David als Dichter und Beter der Psalmen. BBB 108. Bodenheim: Philo, 1996. Koskenniemi, Erkki. The Old Testament Miracle-Workers in Early Judaism. WUNT 2.206. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2005. Marböck, Johannes. “Davids Erbe in gewandelter Zeit (Sir 47,1–11).” TQ 139 (1980): 43–49. Marböck, Johannes. “Samuel der Prophet, sein Bild im Väterlob Sir 46,13–20.” Pages 205–17 in Ein Herz so weit wie der Sand am Ufer des Meeres. Festschrift für Georg Hentschel. Edited by Susanne Gillmayr-Bucher, Annett Giercke, and Christina Niessen. ETS 90. Würzburg: Echter, 2008. Marttila, Marko. “David in the Wisdom of Ben Sira.” SJOT 25 (2011): 29–48. Minissale, Antonino. Siracide (Ecclesiastico). Versione, introduzione, note. Nuovissima versione della Bibbia 23. Rome: Paoline, 1980. Morla, Víctor. Los manuscritos hebreos de Ben Sira. Traducción y notas. ABE 59 Monografías. Estella: Verbo Divino, 2012. Newman, Judith H. “The Formation of the Scribal Self in Ben Sira.” Pages 227–38 in «When the Morning Stars Sang». Essays in Honor of Choon Leong Seow on the Occasion of his SixtyFifth Birthday. Edited by Scott C. Jones and Christine Roy Yoder. BZAW 500. Berlin: de Gruyter, 2017. Palmisano, Maria Carmela. Siracide. Introduzione, traduzione e commento. Nuova versione della Bibbia dai testi antichi 34. Cinisello Balsamo (Milan): San Paolo, 2016.

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Petraglio, Renzo. “Le Siracide et l’Ancien Testament: Relectures et tendances.” Apocrypha 8 (1997): 287–302. Ravasi, Gianfranco. Il libro de Salmi. Commento e attualizzazione 1: Salmi 1–50. Repr. Bologna: Centro Editoriale Dehoniano, 2015. Reif, Stefan C. “Prayer in Ben Sira, Qumran and Second Temple Judaism.” Pages 321–41 in Ben Sira’s God. Proceedings of the International Ben Sira Conference Durham - Ushaw College 2001. Edited by Renate Egger-Wenzel. BZAW 321. Berlin: de Gruyter, 2002. Rose, Martin. “David im Lob der Väter (Sir 47,1–11). Ein «Spiel» mit Manuskripten.” Pages 351– 73 in Nächstenliebe und Gottesfurcht. Beiträge aus alttestamentlicher, semitischer und altorientalischer Wissenschaft für Hans-Peter Mathys zum 65. Geburtstag. Edited by Hanna Jenni and Markus Saur in collaboration with Oskar Kaelin, Samuel Sarasin, and Stephanie Zellweger. AOAT 439. Münster: Ugarit-Verlag, 2016. Segal, Moshe Z. Sēper ben-Sîrā' haššālēm. 4th ed. Jerusalem: Bialik Institute, 1997. Skehan, Patrick W., and Alexander Di Lella. The Wisdom of Ben Sira. A New Translation with Notes, Introduction and Commentary. AB 39. New York: Doubleday, 1987. Smend, Rudolf. Die Weisheit des Jesus Sirach erklärt. Berlin: Reimer, 1906. Urbanz, Werner. Gebet im Sirachbuch. Zur Terminologie von Klage und Lob in der griechischen Texttradition. Herders Biblische Studien 60. Freiburg: Herder, 2009. Urbanz, Werner. “Die Gebetsschule des Jesus Sirach. Bemerkungen zu Inhalten, Subjekten und Methoden des Gebets im Sirachbuch.” PzB 18 (2009): 31–48. Urbanz, Werner. “Emotionen mit Gott – Aspekte aus den Gebetsaussagen im Sirachbuch.” Pages 133–58 in Emotions from Ben Sira to Paul. Edited by Renate Egger-Wenzel and Jeremy Corley. Deuterocanonical and Cognate Literature Yearbook 2011. Berlin: de Gruyter, 2012. Wahl, Harald Martin. “Noah, Daniel und Hiob in Ezechiel XIV,12–20 (21–3). Anmerkungen zum traditionsgeschichtlichen Hintergrund.” VT 42 (1992): 542–53. Wright, Benjamin G. “The Use and Interpretation of Biblical Tradition in Ben Sira’s Praise of the Ancestors.” Pages 183–207 in Studies in the Book of Ben Sira. Papers of the Third International Conference on the Deuterocanonical Books, Shime‘on Centre, Pápa, Hungary, 18–20 May, 2006. Edited by Géza G. Xeravits and József Zsengellér. JSJSup 127. Leiden: Brill, 2008. Xeravits, Géza G. “The Figure of David in the Book of Ben Sira.” Hen 23 (2001): 27–38. Zapff, Burkard M. Jesus Sirach 25–51. Die Neue Echter Bibel. Kommentar zum Alten Testament mit der Einheitsübersetzung, Würzburg: Echter, 2010. Ziegler, Joseph, ed. Sapientia Iesu Filii Sirach. Septuaginta. Vetus Testamentum Graecum 12.2. Rev. 2nd ed. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1980.

Jeremy Corley

Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur Theology in Ben Sira 17:25–18:14 Abstract: The call to repentance in Ben Sira 17:25–18:14 matches the liturgical theology of the penitential days from Rosh Hashanah to Yom Kippur, expressed in the much later liturgical poem entitled Unetanneh Toqeph. Motifs from Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur appear in the Syriac text of Sir 18:1 (“all the world is on trial”), while the Syriac of Sir 18:7 declares: “If they repent, they will be amazed.” Parallels also exist with the Neilah prayer that closes the synagogue liturgy for the Day of Atonement, and both Sir 17:29 and 18:12 speak of God’s atonement. Keywords: Atonement, Ben Sira, piyyut, Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur

1 Introduction The calendar of appointed festivals in the book of Leviticus briefly mentions the Festival of Trumpets, which later became Rosh Hashanah (Lev 23:23–25), and at more length the Day of Atonement, Yom Kippur (Lev 23:26–32), while Lev 16:1– 34 provides a detailed description of the Yom Kippur ritual. In addition, the book of Numbers outlines the offerings prescribed for the Festival of Trumpets (Num 29:1–6) and the Day of Atonement (Num 29:7–11). The Leviticus regulations for Yom Kippur end with the statement: “This shall be for you an eternal statute, to make atonement over the sons of Israel” (Lev 16:34), and an identical phrase appears in the Genizah Hebrew text of Ben Sira’s portrait of Aaron: “He chose him from everyone living … to make atonement over the sons of Israel” (Sir 45:16).1 The Mishnah includes a tractate entitled Rosh Hashanah and another dealing with the Day of Atonement (Yoma), while tractate Ta’anit deals with fast days more generally. Since Ben Sira places notable emphasis on the temple liturgy and the Aaronic priesthood, it is not surprising that scholars have sought parallels in his book to elements found in rabbinic liturgy. Many scholars have proposed that

|| 1 For post-biblical Genizah texts relating to Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, see Reif, Texts, 151–210. In this essay, all biblical translations (including Ben Sira) are mine, unless indicated otherwise. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110630282-005

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the sage alludes to the Day of Atonement within the portrait of the high priest Simeon (Sir 50:5–10), since Ben Sira’s exclamation beginning ‫ נהדר‬- ‫“( מה‬how splendid” Sir 50:5) finds a parallel in the piyyut Emet Mah Nehdar (– ‫אמת – מה‬ ‫“ נהדר‬truly how splendid”) by Jose ben Jose in the Musaph prayer for Yom Kippur.2 Elsewhere in Ben Sira’s book, a phrase in Sir 36:1 also has parallels in the liturgy of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur.3 In addition, Moshe Segal recognized that Sir 18:8, 12 exhibits parallels with the Neilah prayer at the conclusion of the Yom Kippur service.4 Developing Segal’s insight, the present article will suggest the possibility that the call to repentance in Sir 17:25–18:14 alludes to the penitential days from Rosh Hashanah to Yom Kippur. This passage ends one of the longest sections in Ben Sira’s work (Sir 15:11–18:14) dealing with “God, Sin, and Mercy,” to give it Maurice Gilbert’s title.5 The conclusion to this long section has several similarities to two rabbinic prayers, associated with the Days of Awe culminating in Yom Kippur: the Neilah (‫ )נעילה‬prayer and the rabbinic piyyut entitled Unetanneh Toqeph (‫“ ונתנה – תקף‬We will celebrate the mighty holiness of this day”). The latter poem, attested among 8th century Cairo Genizah documents, forms part of the liturgy for Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur.6 Since Sir 17:25 issues a call to repentance, my suggestion for interpreting the whole of Sir 17:25–18:14 is that the liturgical context for this passage, and perhaps the entire long poem (Sir 15:11–18:14), is Yom Kippur and its preceding ten Days of Awe, starting at Rosh Hashanah. For example, Sir 17:29 and 18:12 both refer to “atonement” (ἐξιλασμός), using the same word found in the phrase ἡμέρα ἐξιλασμοῦ (“Day of Atonement” Lev 23:27–28). To be sure, the grandson elsewhere translates ‫“( סליחה‬forgiveness” Sir 5:5) as ἐξιλασμός, but this term is also a theme of the days leading up to Yom Kippur, where some of the prayers are termed Selichot (‫)סליחות‬.7 Moreover, the unusual term “overthrow”

|| 2 Schechter and Taylor, Wisdom, 63–64; Gurtner, “House,” 199; Segal, Seper, 343–44; Lehmann, “Yom Kippur,” 119; Roth, “Ecclesiasticus,” 172–74. On this piyyut, see Swartz and Yahalom, Avodah, 343–48. 3 Segal, Seper, 226; Reif, “Ben Sira,” 333 n. 36. 4 Segal, Seper, 109–10. Here the Neilah prayer will be cited from Singer, Prayer Book, 362–63. 5 Gilbert, “God,” 118. Because the Hebrew text of Sir 17:25–18:14 is lost, this article will mainly use the Greek, and will indicate when the Syriac version is quoted. 6 Elbogen, Liturgy, 279; Idelsohn, Liturgy, 220. Here this piyyut will be cited from Adler, Service, 146–47. On the scriptural allusions in this liturgical poem, see Brettler, “Perspective,” 83– 87. According to Elbogen, Liturgy, 444 n. 35, “this poem seems to come from the very beginnings of the piyyut”—possibly 6th century CE. 7 Elbogen, Liturgy, 177.

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(καταστροφή), found in the phrase: “He sees their overthrow and recognizes that it is evil” (Sir 18:12), echoes the prophetic warning of Nineveh’s imminent overthrow (Jonah 3:4), taken from a reading found in the Yom Kippur liturgy (b. Meg. 31a).

2 Call to repentance (Sir 17:25–32) 25 Turn back to the Lord and leave aside sins; pray in his presence and diminish offense. 26 Return to the Most High and turn away from wrongdoing, and very much hate abomination. 27 Who will praise the Most High in Hades, instead of those living and giving thanks? 28 From a dead person, as from one who does not exist, thanksgiving has perished; someone living and healthy will praise the Lord. 29 How great is the Lord’s mercifulness, and atonement for those who return to him. 30 For not everything is possible among human beings, because a human being is not immortal. 31 What is brighter than the sun? Even this fails. And flesh and blood will plan wickedness. 32 The power of the height of heaven, he himself punishes, and all human beings are earth and ashes.

These verses call for human beings to repent because God is both powerful and merciful. Ben Sira introduces his forceful summons to repentance in Sir 17:24: “Yet to those repenting he gives a return, and he encourages those abandoning endurance.” To be sure, a call to repentance could be given at other times by prophetic figures such as Jeremiah or Ezekiel (Jer 3:22; Ezek 18:30), and a sinner could pray a penitential psalm to plead for divine mercy on various occasions (Ps 51:1–4). Nevertheless, the sage’s strong call to repentance would especially fit the Days of Awe in the season from Rosh Hashanah to Yom Kippur. As motivation for humans to repent (and perhaps for God to have mercy), the sage asks: “Who will praise the Most High in Hades, instead of those living and giving thanks?” (Sir 17:27). This verse expresses the view of Hebrew writers before the Maccabean era that after death there is no worthwhile life in which people can praise God (Pss 88:10–12; 115:17; Isa 38:18–19).8 A concern for the praise of God

|| 8 Matching earlier Jewish wisdom texts (Job 14:7–12; Qoh 3:19–21), the Hebrew original of Ben Sira’s book lacks a clear expectation of an individual afterlife (Sir 10:11; 14:16; 38:21–23).

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also appears in Paragraph 3 of Unetanneh Toqeph: “For according to thy Name, so is thy praise” (echoing Ps 48:11). In 17:29 the sage exclaims: “How great is the Lord’s mercifulness, and atonement for those who return to him!” The mention of God’s great provision of “atonement” (ἐξιλασμός) in this verse and Sir 18:12 suggests a possible allusion to the Day of Atonement. The sentiment of Sir 17:29 also echoes Ps 103:8– 10, taken from one of the psalms used on Yom Kippur (Sop. 19:2).9 Commenting on the connection of Psalm 103 with the Days of Awe, Stefan Reif states: “Although human life is short and relatively insignificant in the broader universe over which God has control, there is divine compassion for those who have sinned, and his love will ensure that forgiveness will be granted.”10 By way of contrast to divine forgiveness, the fact of mortality sets limits to human mercy (cf. Ps 103:13–18). Thus, Sir 17:30 asserts: “For not everything is possible among human beings, because a human being is not immortal.” Moreover, Ben Sira suggests that human powers and thoughts are weaker than the sun’s light, which can be eclipsed: “What is brighter than the sun? Even this fails. And flesh and blood will plan wickedness” (Sir 17:31). Although the observation about the sun can be taken as a literal statement, possibly Ben Sira is hinting at the mortality of important human leaders, who were often compared to the sun, just as the high priest Simeon is portrayed as being “like the sun” (‫)כשמש‬. Such a statement leads easily to the echo in Sir 17:32 of the language of Gen 18:27, whereby human beings are merely “earth and ashes.” A parallel to Sir 17:31–32 appears in Paragraph 3 of Unetanneh Toqeph: “In truth thou art their Creator, who knowest their nature, that they are flesh and blood. As for man, he is from the dust, and unto the dust will he return.” Within Sir 17:32, the ambiguous verb ἐπισκέπτομαι (“review, inspect, visit, punish”) probably represents the Hebrew verb ‫ פקד‬in the sense of “punish,” as in Sir 35:21: “until the Most High punishes.” The Greek form of Sir 17:32 (“the power of the height of heaven, he himself punishes”) has echoes of passages in Isaiah and Job, referring to a rebellion by angels. For instance, we may compare Isa 24:21: “On that day, the Lord will have a visitation upon the host of the height in the height, and upon the kings of the ground on the ground” (cf. Isa 14:12–14; Job 4:18–19). If God can find fault even with the angels, how much more so with mortals (cf. Job 15:15–16; 25:5–6)! The Syriac version of Sir 17:32– 18:2 speaks more clearly of divine judgment: “God judges the host of heaven and also human beings who are dust and ashes. All the world is on trial togeth|| 9 Elbogen, Liturgy, 127. 10 Reif, Texts, 209.

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er, and the Lord alone is justified.” A close parallel to Sir 17:32–18:2 occurs in Paragraph 1 of Unetanneh Toqeph: “Verily it is thou alone who art judge and arbiter, who knoweth and art witness …. The angels are dismayed; fear and trembling seize hold of them, as they proclaim, Behold, the Day of Judgment! The host of heaven is to be arraigned in judgment. For in thine eyes they are not pure.”

3 God’s power and human limitations (Sir 18:1–7) 1 The one living for eternity created all things altogether; 2 the Lord alone will be considered just.11 4 No one has sufficient capability to proclaim his works; and who can fathom his great deeds? 5 The power of his majesty—who can enumerate? And who can further narrate his mercies? 6 It is not possible to lessen or to add, and it is not possible to fathom the Lord’s marvels. 7 When a human being finishes, then he begins, and when he rests, then he will fall short.

Here the Greek text refers to creation, which was often connected to Rosh Hashanah: “The one living for eternity created all things altogether” (Sir 18:1). Rabbi Eliezer taught that the world was made in the month of Tishri (= at Rosh Hashanah), although Rabbi Joshua taught that the creation occurred in the month of Nisan (b. Rosh Hash. 10b–11a). Whereas the Greek text refers to creation, the Syriac of 18:1 speaks of God’s role as judge: “All the world is on trial together,” which leads more smoothly into the next line speaking of God’s sole innocence.12 This affirmation is apposite for the days leading up to Yom Kippur, as Paragraph 1 of Unetanneh Toqeph states: “Verily it is thou alone who art judge and arbiter.” In rabbinic thought, the theme of divine judgment is a major aspect of the season from Rosh Hashanah to Yom Kippur. Indeed, the Mishnaic tractate Rosh Hashanah declares that the New Year is one of the four times in the year when the world is judged: “On New Year’s day all that come into the || 11 Lucianic witnesses here add: “And there is no other besides him, steering the cosmos with the span of his hand, and all things are obedient to his will; for he is king of all things by his power, separating among them holy things from profane things.” See Bussino, Additions, 245– 59. Interestingly, the Neilah prayer for Yom Kippur also employs the common divine title of king: “Beside thee we have no King who pardoneth and forgiveth”; cf. Singer, Prayer Book, 363. 12 Peters, Buch, 149.

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world pass before him like flocks of sheep [‫( ”]כבני – מרון‬m. Rosh Hash. 1:2).13 Moreover, the Talmudic tractate Rosh Hashanah teaches: “All are judged on Rosh Hashanah and their sentence is signed on Yom Kippur” (b. Rosh Hash. 16a).14 In a comparable fashion, Pseudo-Philo reports God’s words to Moses about the Festival of Trumpets: “In as much as I watched over creation, may you also be mindful of all the earth. At the beginning of those days, when you present yourselves, I will declare the number of those who are to die and who are to be born” (LAB 13:6).15 With two rhetorical questions, the Syriac text expresses God’s greatness in a single verse: “Who is the one who is able to declare his works? Or who will enumerate his mighty deeds?” (18:4, placed before 18:1). The Greek, however, preserves a longer text of 18:4–5: “No one has sufficient capability to proclaim his works; and who can fathom his great deeds? The power of his majesty—who can enumerate? And who can further [or: fully] narrate his mercies (ἐλέη)?” Since the context will move to a consideration of God’s mercy, and since Ben Sira’s poem has echoes of Yom Kippur, this reference to mercy here is not out of place.16 Thinking of God’s majesty and mercy leads Ben Sira to reflect on the limitations in human knowledge and understanding. According to the Greek of Sir 18:7, “When a human being finishes, then he begins, and when he rests, then he will fall short,”17 but here the Syriac differs somewhat: “At the completion of human beings, they are beginning, and if they repent, they will be amazed”— presumably at the generosity of God’s mercy. While the Greek reads “he rests” (= ‫)ישבת‬, the Syriac has “they repent” (= ‫)ישובו‬,18 perhaps referring to the repentance preceding Yom Kippur. Despite the difference of wording, however, the basic sense is clear. The statement “when human beings have finished” or “cease” may be an allusion either to Sabbath rest or to the end of a calendrical year. The Sabbath concludes one week and then the new week begins at the end of the Sabbath, while Rosh Hashanah marks the beginning of a new year, after the old year has finished.

|| 13 Or: “like legions of soldiers.” Translation from Danby, Mishnah, 188. 14 Stökl Ben Ezra, Impact, 121. 15 Harrington, “Pseudo-Philo,” 321; cf. Stökl Ben Ezra, Impact, 210. 16 Unlike Smend, Weisheit, 163, and Peters, Buch, 149, I see no need to replace the reading of the major uncials, “mercies” (ἐλέη), with a reading from MS 307, “great deeds” (μεγαλεῖα), or from MS C, “works” (ἔργα). 17 Where GBS reads ἀπορηθήσεται (“he will be perplexed”), GAC reads ἀπορρηθήσεται (“he will fall short”). 18 For the suggestion of a singular verb (‫)ישוב‬, see Smend, Weisheit, 164; Segal, Seper, 109.

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4 Limitation of human mortality (Sir 18:8–10) 8 What is a human being, and what is his usefulness? What is the good of him, and what is the evil of him? 9 As for the number of days of a human being— a hundred years are great. 10 Like a drop of water from the sea and a grain of sand, so are a few years within the day of eternity.

After reflecting on the greatness of the eternal God, the sage considers human weakness and mortality, with a clear echo of the Psalter (Pss 8:6; 144:3).19 Because of the emphasis on the brevity of human life in Sir 18:9–10, Ps 8:6 is less close to the context than Ps 144:3–4: “O Lord, what is a human being that you regard him, a mortal that you think of him? A human being resembles a breath; his days are like a passing shadow.” Admittedly, Ben Sira has been answering an objection from a hypothetical opponent, posed in the Genizah Hebrew text of Sir 16:17: “What is my soul among the totality of the spirits of all humankind?’” Ben Sira’s response will be to compare God to a diligent shepherd who searches for the lost sheep (18:13–14). The wording of 18:8 varies between the versions, since the Greek has: “What is a human being, and what is his usefulness? What is the good of him, and what is the evil of him?” By way of contrast, the Syriac reads: “What are human beings? And what is their loss, and what is their profit? And what is their goodness, and what is their evil?” As Segal observes, the series of questions in 18:8 (whether Greek or Syriac) is reminiscent of comparable questions included within the Neilah prayer at the conclusion of the Yom Kippur liturgy: “What are we? What is our life? What is our piety? What our righteousness? What our helpfulness? What our strength? What our might?”20 In 18:8, the Greek question: “what is his usefulness (χρῆσις)?” may be a corruption of the question represented in the Latin: “what is his grace (gratia = χάρις = ‫”?)חסד‬21 The Latin form echoes Isa 40:6: “All flesh is grass, and all its grace (‫ )חסד‬is like the flower of the field.” A similar question appears in the Neilah prayer concluding the Yom Kippur service: “What is our piety/grace? (‫)מה – חסדנו‬.”

|| 19 Skehan and Di Lella, Wisdom, 285. 20 Segal, Seper, 109. Prayer quoted from Singer, Prayer Book, 362. These questions are based on b. Yoma 87b; cf. Elbogen, Liturgy, 127. 21 Smend, Weisheit, 164; Segal, Seper, 109; Marböck, Sirach 1–23, 220. In addition, Hart, Ecclesiasticus, 144, proposes that the Syriac question is a different corruption: “what is their loss (= ‫”?)חסר‬

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The limited nature of humanity is most obvious in the limited human lifespan (cf. Qoh 6:12). Although the duration of a human life is a “number of days” (18:9), God lives “for eternity” (18:1). The mention here of a “number of days” (as in 17:2) would fit the season of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. Indeed, Paragraph 2 of Unetanneh Toqeph states: “As a shepherd …, so dost thou cause to pass, and number, tell and visit every living soul, appointing the measure of every creature’s life and decreeing their destiny. On the first day of the year it is inscribed, and on the Day of Atonement the decree is sealed, how many shall pass away and how many shall be born, who shall live and who shall die, who at the measure of man’s days and who before it.” Whereas Ps 90:10–12 commends the lifespan of seventy or eighty years as sufficient, Ben Sira here asserts: “As for the number of days of a human being—a hundred years are great” (Sir 18:9).22 Indeed, one of the Sayings of the Fathers declares: “At a hundred a man is as one that has [already] died and passed away and ceased from the world” (m. Avot 5:21).23 To express the brevity of a human lifespan, the Greek uncials of 18:10 declare: “Like a drop of water from the sea and a grain of sand, so are a few years within the day of eternity.” Similarly to Sir 1:2, the sage speaks of a drop of seawater, a grain of sand on the seashore, and the day or days of eternity. Ben Sira 18:10 compares a human life to a drop in the ocean of God’s eternity and a grain of dust, employing imagery from Isaiah: “Behold, the nations are like a drop from a bucket, and are accounted as dust on the scales; behold, he takes up the isles like fine dust” (Isa 40:15). Thereafter, employing a biblical expression for what is innumerable, Ben Sira makes a comparison to the sand on the seashore (e.g., Ps 78:27; 139:18), as when Jacob recalls God’s promise to Abraham: “I will make your offspring like the sand of the sea, which cannot be counted from being numerous” (Gen 32:13). By this idiom, Ben Sira indicates that the shortness of the human lifespan is like one grain of sand on a whole seashore. The sage finally refers to the eternity of God’s existence, echoing Elihu’s statement: “The number of his years is unfathomable” (Job 36:26). The sentiment of Sir 18:10 is reminiscent of Paragraph 3 of the rabbinic piyyut Unetanneh Toqeph, describing the transience of life for a human being. “He getteth his bread with the peril of his life; he is like a fragile potsherd, as the grass that withereth, as the flower that fadeth, as a fleeting shadow, as a passing cloud, as the wind that bloweth, as the floating dust, yea, and as a dream that flieth away.”

|| 22 Skehan and Di Lella, Wisdom, 281; Corley, “Tripartite,” 175; Corley, “Divine,” 353. 23 Danby, Mishnah, 458.

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5 God’s mercy toward humankind (Sir 18:11–14) 11 Therefore the Lord is patient toward them and pours out upon them his mercy. 12 He sees their overthrow and recognizes that it is evil; therefore he multiplies his atonement. 13 A human being’s mercy is toward his neighbor, but the mercy of the Lord is toward all flesh, Reproving and instructing and teaching, and bringing back, as a shepherd {brings back} his flock. 14 He has mercy on those accepting instruction and those {who are} eager for his judgments.

For Ben Sira, the limited lifespan of human beings becomes a motive for God’s compassion, in line with the psalmist’s declaration that recalls Gen 2:7 (Ps 103:13–14): “As a father has compassion on sons, the Lord has compassion on those who fear him, for he himself knows our fashioning; it is remembered that we are dust.” The sage explains the reason for God’s compassion toward human beings: “he sees their overthrow and recognizes that it is evil” (18:12). The Syriac here uses a word cognate to Hebrew ‫“( אחרית‬end”), matching the noun found in the Yom Kippur Neilah prayer: “Thou knowest that our latter end (‫ )אחריתנו‬is [the maggot and] the worm, and hast therefore multiplied the means of our forgiveness.”24 However, the Greek here employs a term found only 18 times in the LXX, καταστροφή (“overthrow” or “destruction”), which can sometimes refer to death (3 Macc 4:4). However, specifically in connection with repentance, there may be an allusion to Jonah’s summons to the Ninevites that after a limited time, “Nineveh will be overthrown” (καταστραφήσεται Jonah 3:4). Jonah’s warning of Nineveh’s imminent overthrow occurs within a reading used in the Yom Kippur liturgy (b. Meg. 31a).25 Moreover, Jonah’s song of praise for being kept alive (Jonah 2:9) agrees with the statement of Sir 17:27–28 that thanksgiving is only possible when one is living. A more general thematic parallel exists, since the openings of the book of Jonah and Sir 15:11–18:14 (i.e., Jonah 1; Sir 15:11–20) both describe how disobedience leads to punishment, whereas

|| 24 Segal, Seper, 110. Prayer quoted from Singer, Prayer Book, 362–63. The mention of worms here (and in Sir 7:17; 10:11) parallels the Yom Kippur Neilah prayer; cf. Gilbert, “Immortalité,” 276–78. 25 In addition, Sir 16:19 borrows from Jonah 2:6 the phrase “the bases of the mountains.” The Mishnaic Tractate Ta’anit also refers to Jonah twice in connection with fast days (m. Ta’an. 2:1 quotes Jonah 3:10; m. Ta’an. 2:4 alludes to Jonah 2:1–2).

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the conclusions of the texts (Jonah 4:11; Sir 18:13–14) both speak of divine compassion. Ben Sira 18:13 begins by noting the natural but limited human inclination to be neighborly, just as Sir 13:15 HA declares: “All flesh loves its kind, and every human being (loves) one resembling him.” Ben Sira then concludes this passage by mentioning God’s much greater mercy, just as he ends his poem on testing with the same motif of the divine mercy (Sir 2:18).26 While Ben Sira later calls God the “Merciful One” (‫ רחום‬Sir 50:19), so too here he recalls God’s selfrevelation as compassionate: “The Lord, the Lord, a God merciful and gracious (‫)רחום – וחנון‬, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness” (Exod 34:6). Within Jewish liturgical tradition, the Thirteen Attributes listed in Exod 34:6–7 became the nucleus for prayers for forgiveness, especially on Yom Kippur, and the Talmudic tractate Rosh Hashanah declares: “There is a covenant that the Thirteen Attributes do not return unanswered” (b. Rosh Hash. 17b).27 Interestingly, when Pseudo-Philo refers to Yom Kippur, reporting God’s words to Moses, he calls it “a fast of mercy” (LAB 13:6).28 God’s merciful protection is now expressed through the scriptural image of a shepherd (Ps 23:1; 80:2). The sage has already admitted that human beings are indeed like a drop in the ocean within a vast cosmos (18:10), just as the imaginary opponent charged that humans are insignificant within the immense cosmos (16:17). Ben Sira now responds by referring to God’s active care for humankind. To make this point, Sir 18:13 declares that God causes them to turn back [= repent], or he brings them back, as a shepherd would do for a straying sheep (Ps 80:4). It is possible that Ben Sira here reverses the idea of sheep being lined up for judgment and taken away for slaughter (Jer 12:3; Zech 11:4). In fact, the Mishnaic tractate Rosh Hashanah speaks of the New Year as one of the times in the year when the inhabitants of the world are judged like sheep: “On New Year’s day all that come into the world pass before him like flocks of sheep” (m. Rosh Hash. 1:2).29 In contrast to this notion, Ben Sira’s deployment of shepherd imagery serves to affirm that God does indeed care for his creatures. Just as a shepherd knows his flock, so God knows the people he has made, even individually. Moreover, just as a shepherd will search for a lost sheep, so God will seek out those who have gone astray, in order to bring them back (Ezek 34:11–12).

|| 26 Calduch-Benages, “El ser humano,” 112. 27 Elbogen, Liturgy, 178. 28 Harrington, “Pseudo-Philo,” 321. 29 Danby, Mishnah, 188.

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Although in principle God’s mercy is available to “all flesh” (Sir 18:13), the next verse seems somewhat to restrict it to those who obey his commandments, in other words, the people of Israel: “He has mercy on those accepting instruction, and those {who are} eager for his judgments.”30 Here Segal offers this interpretation: “But he has mercy only on those who receive his instruction and return in repentance.”31 The mention here of God’s “judgments” (κρίματα) echoes Sir 17:11–12, where the term refers to the Torah given on Mount Sinai: “he allotted to them the law of life; he established an eternal covenant with them, and he showed them his judgments.”32 A similar message appears at the conclusion of the book’s opening poem, describing God’s gift of wisdom to humanity (Sir 1:9–10): “He poured her out upon all his works, among all flesh in accordance with his giving, and he supplied her to those who love him.” Even if wisdom is in principle available to the whole of humankind, it is given particularly to those who love God—in other words, the people of Israel who keep Moses’ great command to “love the LORD your God” (Deut 6:5).33

6 Parallels to rabbinic texts for Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur At this stage, it may be helpful to readers to provide a table of parallels between Sir 17:25–18:14 and the two rabbinic texts already mentioned: the Yom Kippur Neilah prayer and the piyyut entitled Unetanneh Toqeph. First, we present the Neilah prayer rearranged in the order of Ben Sira’s text, to indicate the conceptual parallels. 34 Phrases from the Neilah prayer

Ben Sira 17:25–18:14

“Beside thee we have no King who pardoneth and forgiveth.”

“And there is no other besides him;… for he is king of all things by his power” (Sir 18:2–3 Lucianic MSS)

|| 30 In biblical usage (e.g., Prov 3:11), the notion of instruction (παιδεία = ‫ )מוסר‬also carries the nuance of discipline or correction; cf. Calduch-Benages, “El ser humano,” 119. 31 Segal, Seper, 110 (my translation). 32 Skehan and Di Lella, Wisdom, 282. 33 Goering, Wisdom’s Root, 89–90. 34 Prayer quoted from Singer, Prayer Book, 362–63. Hebrew and English texts of nine other piyyutim for Yom Kippur are included in Swartz and Yahalom, Avodah.

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Phrases from the Neilah prayer

Ben Sira 17:25–18:14

“Thou of thy love hast given us, O Lord our “At the completion of human beings, they are God, this Day of Atonement to be the end of, beginning, and if they repent, they will be as well as the season of pardon and foramazed” (Sir 18:7 Syriac). giveness for all our iniquities, that we may cease from the violence of our hands, and may return unto thee.” “What are we? What is our life? What is our piety [or: grace]? What our righteousness? What our helpfulness? What our strength? What our might?”

“What is a human being, and what is his usefulness? What is the good of him, and what is the evil of him?” (Sir 18:8).

“The days of their lives are vanity before thee.” “As for the number of days of a human being— a hundred years are great. Like a drop of water from the sea and a grain of sand, so are a few years within the day of eternity” (Sir 18:9–10). “O do thou, in thy abounding compassion, have mercy upon us.”

“Therefore the Lord is patient toward them, and pours out upon them his mercy” (Sir 18:11).

“Thou knowest that our latter end is [the maggot and] the worm, and hast therefore multiplied the means of our forgiveness.”

“He sees their overthrow and recognizes that it is evil; therefore he multiplies his atonement” (Sir 18:12).

“Thy right hand is stretched out to receive the “Reproving and instructing and teaching, and penitent; thou hast taught us, O Lord our God, bringing back, as a shepherd {brings back} his to make confession unto thee of all our sins.” flock” (Sir 18:13). … “that we may return unto thee to do the statutes of thy will with a perfect heart.”

“He has mercy on those accepting instruction, and those {who are} eager for his judgments” (Sir 18:14).

Now we refer to the later poem for Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, Unetanneh Toqeph. Among several motifs matching Sir 17:25–18:14, the most striking conceptual parallels to Unetanneh Toqeph are the following:35 Unetanneh Toqeph

Ben Sira 17:25–18:14

Paragraph 1: Verily it is thou alone who art judge and arbiter, who knoweth and art witness…. The angels are dismayed; fear and trembling seize hold of them, as they proclaim, Behold, the Day of Judgment! The host

“God judges the host of heaven and also human beings who are dust and ashes. All the world is on trial together, and the Lord alone is justified” (Sir 17:32–18:2 Syriac).

|| 35 Adler, Service, 146–47.

Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur Theology in Ben Sira 17:25–18:14 | 67

Unetanneh Toqeph

Ben Sira 17:25–18:14

of heaven is to be arraigned in judgment. For in thine eyes they are not pure. Paragraph 2: All who enter the world dost thou cause to pass before thee as a flock of sheep. As a shepherd seeketh out his flock and causeth them to pass beneath his crook, so dost thou cause to pass, and number, tell and visit every living soul, appointing the measure of every creature’s life and decreeing their destiny.

“The mercy of the Lord is toward all flesh, reproving and instructing and teaching, and bringing back, as a shepherd {brings back} his flock” (Sir 18:13).

Paragraph 2: On the first day of the year it is inscribed, and on the Day of Atonement the decree is sealed, how many shall pass away and how many shall be born, who shall live and who shall die, who at the measure of man’s days and who before it.

“As for the number of days of a human being— a hundred years are great” (Sir 18:9).

Paragraph 3: For according to thy Name, so is “Who will praise the Most High in Hades, thy praise. Thou art slow to anger and ever instead of those living and giving thanks?” (Sir ready to be reconciled. 17:27). “The power of his majesty—who can enumerate? And who can further narrate his mercies?” (Sir 18:5). Paragraph 3: Thou desirest not the death of the sinner, but that he turn from his way and live. And even until the day of his death thou waitest for him; and if he return thou dost straightaway receive him.

“Therefore the Lord is patient toward them, and pours out upon them his mercy” (Sir 18:11).

Paragraph 3: In truth thou art their Creator, who knowest their nature, that they are flesh and blood. As for man, he is from the dust, and unto the dust will he return.

“What is brighter than the sun? Even this fails. And flesh and blood will plan wickedness. The power of the height of heaven, he himself punishes, and all human beings are earth and ashes” (Sir 17:31–32).

Paragraph 3: He getteth his bread with the “Like a drop of water from the sea and a grain peril of his life; he is like a fragile potsherd, as of sand, so are a few years within the day of the grass that withereth, as the flower that eternity” (Sir 18:10). fadeth, as a fleeting shadow, as a passing cloud, as the wind that bloweth, as the floating dust, yea, and as a dream that flieth away. Paragraph 4: But thou art the King, the living and everlasting God. Thy years have no measure, nor hath the length of thy days any end. None can conceive the chariots of thy glory.

“The one living for eternity created all things altogether; the Lord alone will be considered just… No one has sufficient capability to proclaim his works; and who can fathom his great

68 | Jeremy Corley

Unetanneh Toqeph

Ben Sira 17:25–18:14 deeds?” (Sir 18:1–4).

To be sure, some of the parallels are closer than others, but cumulatively they suggest that Ben Sira’s text reflects the atmosphere of the penitential days from Rosh Hashanah to Yom Kippur.

7 Conclusion The present article has observed ways in which the call to repentance in Sir 17:25–18:14 matches the liturgical theology of the penitential days from Rosh Hashanah to Yom Kippur, expressed in the later rabbinic poem entitled Unetanneh Toqeph (‫)ונתנה – תקף‬. Significant parallels also exist with the Neilah (‫ )נעילה‬prayer that closes the synagogue liturgy for the Day of Atonement. Yom Kippur motifs appear in the Syriac text of Sir 18:1 (“all the world is on trial”), while the Syriac of Sir 18:7 speaks of the value of repentance: “If they repent, they will be amazed.” An allusion to Yom Kippur may be present in Sir 17:29 and 18:12, which both speak of the greatness of God’s “atonement” (ἐξιλασμός). Overall, a liturgical setting in the days from Rosh Hashanah to Yom Kippur fits the themes of divine judgment and mercy within the passage. Ben Sira balances a stress on justice with the biblical tradition of God’s mercy, emphasizing the response of repentance in view of human mortality. For the sage, according to a paradox of Jewish theology, celebrated at Yom Kippur, the Creator of the world is just but also merciful.36

Bibliography Adler, Hermann. Service of the Synagogue: New Year. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1906. Brettler, Marc. “A Biblical Perspective.” Pages 83–87 in Who by Fire, Who by Water: Un’taneh Tokef. Edited by Lawrence A. Hoffman. Woodstock, VT: Jewish Lights, 2010. Bussino, Severino. The Greek Additions in the Book of Ben Sira. AnBib 203. Rome: Gregorian & Biblical Press, 2013.

|| 36 My thanks are due to Maurice Gilbert and Bradley C. Gregory for helpful comments on an earlier draft of this article.

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Calduch-Benages, Nuria. “‘El ser humano se compadece de su prójimo; el Señor, de todo viviente’ (Si 18,13ab). La misericordia en el Sirácida,” EstBib 75 (2017): 103–25. Corley, Jeremy. “Divine Creation and Human Mortality from Genesis to Ben Sira.” ITQ 81 (2016): 343–61. Corley, Jeremy. “Tripartite Creation in Sirach 16:26–17:4.” Studia Biblica Slovaca 7 (2015): 155– 84. Danby, Herbert. The Mishnah. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1933. Elbogen, Ismar. Jewish Liturgy: A Comprehensive History. Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1993. Gilbert, Maurice. “God, Sin and Mercy: Sirach 15:11–18:14.” Pages 118–35 in Ben Sira’s God: Proceedings of the International Ben Sira Conference, Durham, Ushaw College, 2001. BZAW 321. Edited by Renate Egger-Wenzel. Berlin: de Gruyter, 2002. Gilbert, Maurice. “Immortalité ou résurrection? Faut-il choisir? Témoignage du judaïsme ancien.” Pages 271–97 in Le Judaïsme à l’aube de l’ère chrétienne, ed. Philippe Abadie and Jean-Pierre Lémonon. LD 186. Paris, Cerf, 2001. Goering, Greg Schmidt. Wisdom’s Root Revealed: Ben Sira and the Election of Israel. JSJSup 139. Leiden: Brill, 2009. Gurtner, Daniel M. “The ‘House of the Veil’ in Sirach 50.” JSP 14 (2005): 187–200. Harrington, Daniel J. “Pseudo-Philo.” Pages 297–377 in Old Testament Pseudepigrapha. Vol. 2. Edited by James H. Charlesworth. New York: Doubleday, 1985. Hart, John Henry Arthur. Ecclesiasticus: The Greek Text of Codex 248. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1909. Idelsohn, Abraham Z. Jewish Liturgy and Its Development. New York: Holt, 1932. Lehmann, Manfred R. “Yom Kippur in Qumran.” RevQ 3 (1961): 117–24. Marböck, Johannes. Jesus Sirach 1–23. HThKAT. Freiburg i.B.: Herder, 2010. Peters, Norbert. Das Buch Jesus Sirach. EHAT 25. Münster in Westfalen: Aschendorff, 1913. Reif, Stefan C. Jewish Prayer Texts from the Cairo Genizah: A Selection of Manuscripts at Cambridge University Library, Introduced, Transcribed, Translated, and Annotated, with Images. Cambridge Genizah Studies Series 7. Leiden: Brill, 2016. Reif, Stefan C. “Prayer in Ben Sira, Qumran and Second Temple Judaism.” Pages 321–41 in Ben Sira’s God: Proceedings of the International Ben Sira Conference, Durham, Ushaw College, 2001. BZAW 321. Edited by Renate Egger-Wenzel. Berlin: de Gruyter, 2002. Roth, Cecil. “Ecclesiasticus in the Synagogue Service.” JBL 71 (1952): 171–78. Schechter, Solomon, and Charles Taylor. The Wisdom of Ben Sira. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1899. Segal, Moshe Z. Sēper ben-Sîrā’ haššālēm. 3rd. ed. Jerusalem: Bialik Institute, 1972. Singer, Simeon. The Authorised Daily Prayer Book. 2nd ed. London: Eyre & Spottiswoode, 1962. Skehan, Patrick W., and Alexander A. Di Lella. The Wisdom of Ben Sira. AB 39. New York: Doubleday, 1987. Smend, Rudolf. Die Weisheit des Jesus Sirach erklärt. Berlin: Reimer, 1906. Stökl Ben Ezra, Daniel. The Impact of Yom Kippur on Early Christianity. WUNT 163. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2003. Swartz, Michael D., and Joseph Yahalom, eds. Avodah: An Anthology of Ancient Poetry for Yom Kippur. University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2005.

Kristin De Troyer

“When she ended her prayer …” A Study of the Relationship between the Hebrew and the Greek Texts of the Book of Esther Abstract: This article proposes that the OG translator of Esther used the rare occurrences of theologically charged vocabulary in the Masoretic text to provide an explicitly religious interpretation of the Esther story. His contributions are so creative that one may view him as an author as well as a translator. Since Esther 4 is the place where a possible religious interpretation could be harvested, the OG translator made this text the basis for his story in which Esther and Mordecai fast and pray to God. Keywords: Hebrew and Greek story of Esther; religious interpretation; Septuagint; mourning rituals

1 Introduction “When she ended her prayer…” The translator of the OG version of Esther employs this phrase as a transition from quoting the prayers of Mordecai (Add C: 1– 11) and Esther (Add C:12–30)1 to describing Esther’s going to the king (Add D:1– 16). The phrase “When she ended her prayer…” occurs in Add D:1 of the Greek text, but not in the Hebrew Masoretic text (cf. Esth 5:1). The prayers of the two main characters, Mordecai and Esther, are outstanding additions in the OG version, given that a religious streak seems to be absent from the MT rendering of the Esther story. Comparing the respective structures of the OG and the MT demonstrates how the OG translator skillfully reworked the MT. Chapter 4 recounts a dialogue between Esther and Mordecai regarding the decree that Haman issued. Mordecai encourages Esther to speak to the king on behalf of the Jews. Esther overcomes her initial reluctance, gathers her courage and takes action. Before her departure she counsels Mordecai, “Go and gather all the Jews who are in Susa and fast on my behalf; for three days and nights do not eat or drink” (OG 4:16a). || 1 Note that all numbering of chapters, additions and verses is according to the Göttingen critical edition: see Hanhart, Esther. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110630282-006

72 | Kristin De Troyer

She also pledges to participate in the same initiative: “… and my maids and I will also go without food” (4:16b). “After that,” she proclaims: “I will go to the king …” (4:16cα). Mordecai carries out her directives (4:17).2 The OG text approximates the MT up to 4:17. After that point, the OG goes its own way, both by inserting Add C, the prayers of Mordecai and Esther, and also by rewriting the beginning of 5:1–2 MT into what is now labeled as Add D:1–16. MT 4:1–17 / / 5:1–2

OG 4:1–17 Add C:1–11 Add C:12–30 Add D:1–16

dialogues Esther-Mordecai Mordecai’s prayer Esther’s Prayer Esther’s going to the king

The addition of the prayers and the transitional sentence in Add D:1 “When she ended her prayer…” are components in a religious rewriting of the Esther story. The OG author explicitly speaks of God at three points: in Mordecai’s prayer (C:1, 2, 4, 5, 7, 8, 10); in Esther’s prayer (C:12, 14, 16, 18, 22, 23, 25, 29, 30); and in salient junctures in the regular story (viz., the small plus of the OG in 4:8, and again in 6:1). He mentions God’s actions (D:8: God changes the spirit of the king), God’s rule (E:16) and God’s justice (E:4). Furthermore, he describes the king as an angel of God (D:13) and labels God as a living God (6:13, also in E:16). Adding these references to God occasionally creates funny situations. For instance, D:8 reads: “Then God changed the spirit of the king to gentleness.” But the author/translator continues “and in alarm he sprang from his throne and took her in his arms…” The reader of course knows that the subject of D:8b is not God, but the king; otherwise it would have been God who sprang up and took Esther in his arms. Similarly, in 6:1 OG, we read, “the Lord took sleep from the king,” but the text continues: “so he gave orders to bring the book and read to him.” Again the change in subject is presumed but not explicit. It is clear that the OG author/translator, while weaving God into the story, at times neglects to clarify the subject. Comparing the two versions prompts the question: is the translator of the OG responsible for inserting God into the story, or can one already read the MT as a religious document? In this debate, two verses are often quoted as proof that indeed the MT is a religious text: Esth 4:14 and 4:16. In 4:14, Mordecai claims that relief and deliverance will come to the Jews ‫ממקם אחר‬, “from a different place”. Regarding this phrase, Gerleman writes: “Mardochai rechnet aber

|| 2 Note that the parallel between Esther’s command and Mordecai’s execution of the command is stronger in the OG than in the MT, as the same verb (βαδίσας) is used in both 4:16 and 4:17.

“When she ended her prayer …” | 73

mit der Möglichkeit, daß die Juden auch ohne Esthers Hilfe gerettet werden können.”3 Similarly: “Es ist wohl kaum zu bestreiten daß Mardochaios hintersinnige Worte die Möglichkeit einer göttlichen Führung offenlassen, jedoch wie immer im Estherbuch, ohne Gott zu nennen.”4 Timothy K. Beal summarizes: “The phrase ‘from another quarter’ (…) has captured imaginations for millennia. Many have read within it a subtle allusion to God and divine deliverance.”5 Similarly, the mourning and fasting in 4:16 are religious acts. Jon D. Levenson, for instance, actually uses the mourning and the fasting as an argument in the debate over whether or not MT Esther is a religious book: “In Esther, the mention of them [the rites of mourning] and of fasting later in the same chapter (vv. 3 and 16) is as close to traditional religious practice as the book of Esther ever gets, …”6 Similarly, in 4:14, Levenson reads the opening words of the question “who knows…” as supporting a more theological reading. He notes that these opening words “…preface a guarded hope that penitential practice may induce God to relent from his harsh decree, granting deliverance where destruction had been expected” (with references to 2 Sam 12:22, Joel 2:14 and Jonah 3:9).7 In this article I focus on prayer in the OG of Esther. In doing so, I consider two categories of inquiry, one concerns Esther’s devotional practices and the other pertains to the roots of the theological aspects of the story. What practice or practices prepared Esther for her audience with the king: (a) prayer; (b) fasting and prayer; or (c) fasting (Esth 4:16 MT)? Did the religious flavor of the text originate with the OG translator or was it already implicit within the MT version?

2 Praying to God Aside from the obvious prayers in Add C, the OG of Esther contains various references to praying or calling upon God. In Add A, the whole righteous nation cries out to God (A:9). Whereas in the case of Add A, one may question whether this crying (καὶ ἐβόησαν πρὸς τὸν θεόν) is equivalent to praying, nevertheless in Add F, this crying (F:6b) surely leads to their being saved (F:6c) and rescued by || 3 Gerleman, Esther, 106. 4 Ibid., 107. 5 Beal, Esther, 65. 6 Levenson, Esther, 78. 7 Ibid., 81.

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God (F:6c). Moreover, by describing Esther as “fearing God” and keeping his laws, the OG emphasizes that Esther does more than merely follow Mordecai’s instructions to not reveal her kindred or her people (2:20 OG, cf. MT). In the MT of Esth 4:8, Mordecai gives the eunuch a copy of the decree mandating the destruction of the Jews in Susa, so that he might show it to Esther, explain it to her, and charge her to go to the king to make supplication to him and entreat him for her people. To this, the author/translator of the OG adds a perceptive motivational element: “Remember,” he said, “the days when you were an ordinary person, being brought up under my care—for Haman, who stands next to the king, has spoken against us and demands our death. Call upon the Lord; then speak to the king in our behalf, and save us from death” (4:8d OG). Note the sequence here: first call on God, and then, go to the king. This precise sequence recurs in the sections of the text, which follow. First Mordecai and Esther call upon God in their prayers (Add C), and subsequently Esther goes to the king (Add D). Thus the extra motivational sentence in 4:8 OG seems to have been elaborated in two long sections of text. Of course, one might also view the additional sentence in 4:8 OG as a preparation for the insertions of OG Add C and OG Add D. Indeed, the Greek reflects a nice parallel between the two texts: 4:8 OG ἐπικάλεσαι τὸν κύριον καὶ λάλησον τῷ βασιλεῖ …

Prayer of Esther and Mordecai Add C Esther’s going to the king Add D

Add D:2 summarizes Esther’s praying in these terms: “Τhen,… after invoking the aid of the all-seeing God and Savior…” (καὶ γενηθεῖσα ἐπιφανὴς ἐπικαλεσαμένη τὸν πάντων ἐπόπτην θεὸν καὶ σωτῆρα). This text is positioned after Add C and at the beginning of Add D. Here the author/translator deliberately uses the same expression as in 4:8 OG: calling to God. Moreover, in Add D:1, this calling to God is identified as praying: “On the third day, when she ended her prayer…” (καὶ ἐγενήθη ἐν τῇ ἡμέρα τῇ τρίτῃ ὡς ἐπαύσατο προσευχομένη). In the OG, prayer is closely related to fasting. The MT highlights the centrality of fasting in Esther’s assuring Mordecai that she and her maids will undertake the fast that Esther counsels Mordecai to request of the Jewish community in Susa (4:16 MT). Hence, the treatment of fasting in the OG version requires examination.

“When she ended her prayer …” | 75

3 Fasting In 4:16 Esther instructs Mordecai, “Go, gather all the Jews in Susa and hold a fast on my behalf, and neither eat nor drink for three days, night and day. I and my maids will also fast as you do.” The instruction is rather simple:

‫לך‬ ‫כנוס‬ ‫וצומו‬ ‫ואל־תאכלו ואל־תשתו‬ ‫גם־אני ונערתי אצום כן‬ ‫ובכן אבוא אל־המלך‬

MT

OG βαδίσας ἐκκλησίασον καὶ νηστεύσατε καὶ μὴ φάγητε μηδὲ πίητε κἀγὼ δὲ καὶ ἅβραι μου ἀσιτήσομεν καὶ τότε εἰσελεύσομαι πρὸς τὸν βασιλέα

go and gather and fast and do not eat or drink also I and my maidens will fast like that and then I will go to the king

go and gather and fast and not eat nor drink and also I and my maidens will go without food and then I will go in to the king

The execution is rather short: MT

‫ויעבר מרדכי‬ ‫ויעש‬ ‫ככל אשר־צותה עליה אסתר‬

OG καὶ βαδίσας Μαρδοχαῖος ἐποίησεν ὄσα ἐνετείλατο αὐτῷ Εσθηρ

Mordecai went away and did everything that Esther had commanded him

And Mordecai went away and he did all that Esther had commanded him.

Esther, thus, insists on fasting before she goes to the king. Esther is not alone in this practice as Mordecai and the Jews in Susa must join her in fasting. For Esther the fast is clearly a prerequisite that enables her to approach the king. In the MT as in the OG, Esther clearly states that they all have to fast, and then she will go to the king. Given that both the MT and OG describe fasting from food and drink for three days and three nights, we may inquire into the precise nature of a fast.

76 | Kristin De Troyer

Fasting is a component of ritual mourning. The section, which ends with Esther’s commitment to fasting, begins with a series of gestures associated with mourning: “When Mordecai learned all that had been done, Mordecai tore his clothes and put on sackcloth and ashes, and went through the city, wailing with a loud and bitter cry” (Esth 4:1 MT). Levenson writes: “These efforts begin with Mordecai’s engaging in well-attested rites of mourning, tearing his clothes, donning sackcloth, putting on ashes, and wailing publicly.”8 Bechtel describes Mordecai as manifesting “a traditional Middle-Eastern gesture of mourning.”9 In Gen 37:34a, Jacob tears his garments and puts on sackcloth. The next verb in Gen 37:34b summarizes the event: Jacob mourned for his son (‫)אבל‬. Similarly, David instructs Joab and all the people with him to tear their clothes, put on sackcloth and mourn (2 Sam 3:31). The tearing of clothes and donning of sackcloth are also found in 2 Sam 21:10; 1 Kgs 20:27; 2 Kgs 6:30; 19:1; Neh 9:1; Ps 29:12; Isa 20:2; 22:12; 37:1; 58:5; Jer 4:8; 6:26; 49:3; Lam 2:10; Ezek 7:18; 27:31; Dan 9:3; Joel 1:8, 13; Amos 8:10; Jonah 3:5, 6, 8. Tearing clothes and putting on sackcloth definitively function within a context of mourning. However, of all the texts mentioned above, only in the following six cases is mourning explicitly mentioned along with fasting: Ahab fasts while lying in sackcloth (1 Kgs 21:27); the returnees from the exile to Yehud assemble wearing sackcloth and undertake a fast (Neh 9:1); the psalmist mentions wearing sackcloth in parallel with fasting (Ps 35:13); Third Isaiah asserts the primacy of social justice over the ritual wearing of sackcloth and fasting practices (Isa 58:5); Daniel seeks an answer by prayer and supplication with fasting and sackcloth and ashes (Dan 9:3); in response to Jonah’s proclamation, the Ninevites proclaimed a fast and donned sackcloth (Jonah 3:5). Esth 4:1–2 mentions Mordecai’s wearing of sackcloth whereas fasting is attributed to the Jews throughout the provinces of Persia (4:3). Hence, while fasting may not be an a priori element of mourning, it may be included in such rituals. Moreover, of all the texts, which contain the element of putting on sackcloth, only the following also have an element of praying to or calling on God. When under siege by Ben-hadad of Aram, the king of Israel not only wears sackcloth (2 Kgs 6:30), but also utters a brief prayer: “So may God do to me, and more, if the head of Elisha, son of Shaphat stays on his shoulders today” (2 Kgs 6:31). King Hezekiah tears his clothes, puts on sackcloth (2 Kgs 19:1a) and then goes to the house of God (2 Kgs 19:1b//Isa 37:1); shortly thereafter, he voices a prayer (2 Kgs 19:15–19//Isa 37:14–20). When the returnees to Yehud assemble, || 8 Levenson, Esther, 78. 9 Bechtel, Esther, 44.

“When she ended her prayer …” | 77

they wear sackcloth and worship as some cry out to God, while others voice a short prayer (Neh 9:1–5). The psalmist prays while dressed in sackcloth (Ps 35:13). Jeremiah beckons the people of Judah to wail and utter the words of a prayer (Jer 4:8); he also prescribes ritual mourning (Jer 6:26; cf. Joel 1:8; Amos 8:10). Fasting, sackcloth and ashes accompany Daniel’s prayer (Dan 9:3). Finally, the Ninevites cover themselves in sackcloth as they cry out mightily to God (Jonah 3:8). In light of this survey, it is noteworthy—but not unexpected— that in MT Esther, there is no element of praying attached to mourning or the wearing of sackcloth. In short, fasting or prayer may accompany mourning but this is not necessarily the case. Moreover, recent scholarship calls into question the previously held assumption that the rites of mourning and fasting had a religious undertone.10 As Timothy K. Beal writes: “Sackcloth and/or ashes and loud cries can signify a fairly wide range of reactions to catastrophe or news of forthcoming catastrophe in the Hebrew Bible, from mourning to repentance to protest. These actions do not necessarily carry religious connotations, however.”11 Similarly, whereas in past scholarship fasting was often immediately associated with religion,12 one must now acknowledge that prayer may accompany fasting without this being true in all cases.13 Fasting alone may or may not be a religious act. But, as Bechtel writes with regard to Esther: “Her reference to fasting acknowledges that she is relying on others—and perhaps God, though the reference is oblique—for success.”14 Hence rites of mourning do not make a significant contribution to the religious texture of the Esther story. Nevertheless, in Esth 4:1 MT loud wailing in bitterness accompanies the tearing of the clothes and investiture with sackcloth and ashes. This element of wailing merits consideration.

|| 10 For instance, Johannes Schildenberger writes: “Diese Gebräuche, verbunden mit Fasten, waren aber nicht nur Ausdruck der Trauer, sondern auch der Buße, womit man Gott versöhnen wollte.” See Miller and Schildenberger, Die Bücher, 80. 11 Beal, Esther, 59. 12 For instance, Schildenberger: “Dieses Fasten kann hier nur einen religiösen Zweck haben, der aber entsprechend der Darstellungsweise von E1 nicht ausdrücklich genannt wird.” See Miller and Schildenberger, Die Bücher, 86. 13 See also Gerleman, Esther, 107: “Fast immer geht es [das Fasten] mit dem Beten zusammen, das hier aber nicht erwähnt wird.” 14 Bechtel, Esther, 50.

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4 What is wailing? In Esth 4:1 MT Mordecai tears his clothes, puts on sackcloth and ashes, and then goes through the city, wailing with a loud and bitter voice. The verb used in 4:1 is ‫זעק‬. In the Tanak, not all wailing is religious in tone. Examples of an outcry (‫ )זעק‬that is not religious include Sisera’s directing his chariots (Judg 4:13; cf. 4:10; 6:35 [2x]; 2 Chr 18:31) and various leaders rallying their people (1 Sam 14:20; cf. 1 Kgs 22:32 [but, see 2 Chr 18:31]). By contrast a religious undertone is apparent in Samuel’s crying out to the Lord (1 Sam 7:9; 15:11) and Jehoshaphat doing the same in different circumstances (2 Chr 18:31). A religious connotation is also apparent the description of David crying out and mourning over Absalom (2 Sam 19:4). Such background suggests that it is an open question whether or not Mordecai’s wailing in Esth 4:1 bears a religious connotation. Whereas Mordecai wails with a loud and bitter voice, the people wear sackcloth and ashes as they fast, weep and lament (Esth 4:3). Again the question is, what sort of wailing and lamenting is this? Is it simply an expression of personal discontent or may it express a legal action of lodging a complaint? After all, in 4:2, Mordecai goes up to the entrance of the king’s gate, a place for formally lodging complaints: “When no water is given them, they go to Persia with their womenfolk and stand before the doors of the king’s palace, crying and howling.”15 However, we must note two features: (a) Mordecai is wailing and goes through the city (Esth 4:1); and (b) the people in the provinces are not sitting at the king’s gate (4:3; cf. 4:2). So, what is the nature of the weeping and lamenting on the part of Jewish community (Esth 4:3)? When looking at the noun weeping (‫ )בכי‬in Esther 4:3 I note its resemblance to the weeping in Isa 22:12, where God had called recalcitrant Jerusalem to weeping and mourning (cf. Joel 2:12). However, it is noteworthy that Isaiah chastises Jerusalem for festively rejoicing instead of mourning over the offenses of Jerusalem. In analogous fashion, Malachi asserts that the rupture of marriages among the families of Yehud provokes God to reject the ritualized weeping of the community (Mal 2:13). In the post-exilic texts of Isa 65:19 and Jer 31:9, the people’s weeping is replaced by joy. Finally, we notes various occasions when the weeping seems without result (Jer 3:21; 31:15; Judg 21:2; 2 Kgs 20:3; Isa 38:3; Jer 5:5). In most of these cases, the weeping exhibits a religious connotation as an element that accompanies the community’s invocation of God, even in the absence of a response on God’s part.

|| 15 Herodotus, Hist., Book III, §117, similarly §119.

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Similarly, the lamenting of Esth 4:3 MT (‫ )מספד‬may recall Amos 5:16 insofar as it bears strong religious connotations. However, in Amos 5:16, the lamenting is more the result of God’s revenging actions than a practice that may lead to God. The people lament at the prospect of God’s judgment upon them. The mourning and the fasting, and perhaps, Mordecai’s wailing could be interpreted as either religious or not; but the weeping and lamenting clearly have a religious connotation. Hence to a small degree, one may countenance the MT as possibly having religious undertones. The OG maintains the ambiguity of the MT in most of its text. For instance, the nouns in Esth 4:3 may point to a religious act, but they do not need to. After the posting of the decree in in every province, there is crying (κραυγή) and lamentation (κοπετός) and great mourning (καὶ πένθος μέγα). Κραυγή is used both in a religious and a non-religious way in the Septuagint. The element of mourning, κοπετός, bespeaks an expression of grief; in rare occurrences it an action that God calls for (Isa 22:12; Jer 6:26). Finally, in the Septuagint, the noun πένθος occurs in contexts of mourning; among these are religious contexts in which God actively creates situations that lead to mourning (e.g., Amos 5:16; 8:10; Bar 4:9; Lam 5:15) or where God ends the days of mourning (Isa 60:20; Jer 38:13). In Add C:13, Esther puts on her clothes of mourning, whereas in 9:22 the days of mourning have been turned into a holiday. Similarly, in the case of fasting, the OG employs the verb νηστεύω to render ‫ צום‬in the MT (4:16). In the OG, νηστεύω often—but not always16—indicates religious fasting (Judg 20:26; 1 Sam 7:6; 2 Sam 12:16, 22; Neh 1:4; Jdt 4:13; 8:6; Zech 7:5; Isa 58:3; Jer 14:12 and Bar 1:5). Occasionally the OG makes subtle clarifications in the MT. For instance, in Esth 4:1, the translator chose to render the verb ‫ זעק‬with βοάω. By using this Greek verb, the translator connects Mordecai’s crying out with the crying out by the righteous people in A:9, and thereby ascribe a religious tone to Mordecai’s crying out. Moreover, in 4:8, when Mordecai talks to Esther, the translator adds Mordecai’s command that Esther “call upon the Lord” (ἐπικάλεσαι τὸν κύριον). Esther needs to “call upon the Lord, and then speak to the king.” Hence, Esther’s crying is a calling out to God! In other words, whereas in the MT, Mordecai only instructed Esther to go to the king and entreat him for her people, the translator adds an additional element to the story, namely, before Esther makes an en-

|| 16 The verb νηστεύω is also used in a context of mourning, which may or may not be interpreted as religious.

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treaty to the king, she has to call upon God. The translator has thus added one more action to the sequel: Esther must beseech God. But that is not all that needs to happen. In 4:16, Esther instructs Mordecai to gather all the Jews and fast from food and drink. Esther promises to do the same, before she goes to the king. In revising the passage, the translator cashes in on the mention of God (4:8 OG). This religious context provides for the easy insertion of a prayer, which is often connected with fasting.

5 Conclusion Adele Berlin reads chapter 4 as a theological high point in the story of Esther: God is most present and most absent in this chapter. Religious practice and the mention of God’s name come closest to the surface here, and are most obviously suppressed. It is hard to read about fasting, mourning, and crying out without seeing God as the addressee to whom all these actions are directed. It is hard to plead for salvation from anyone but God. It is hard to imagine that salvation could come “from another place” without seeing this as a veiled reference to God.17

I do not see that much theology in the MT book of Esther. However, the MT conveyed enough interpretive substance for the OG translator to change the character of the story. MT Esther 4 provides descriptions of various actions: Mordecai mourns and cries out with a loud voice (4:1). Through the mediation of Hathach, Mordecai instructs Esther to go to the king (4:8). Esther, then, adds her conditions and inserts the element of fasting into the sequel (4:16). The result is that Esther first fasts (4:16) and then goes to the king (5:1). The OG translator does more than simply translate. He reworks the text of 4:8. The translator first turns Mordecai’s wailing into religious wailing (4:1). Then he adds that before going to the king, Esther needs to call upon God (4:8d). This theological element allows the translator for a slightly different flavor in 4:16 OG, where Esther brings up the element of fasting. Given the religious element in 4:1 and 4:8 OG, the fasting in 4:16 can now however be interpreted as religious. This, in turn, allows the translator to insert a prayer of Esther into the sequel (C:12–30). The sequence is now: fast, pray and then go, precisely as what is reported in 4:17, C:12–30 and D:1–16.

|| 17 Berlin, Esther, 44.

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That Mordecai is also depicted as praying can only be explained by the fact that Esther reported that she and her maids would do likewise (4:16). Esther’s doing “likewise” surely indicates that not only Esther, also Mordecai, prays. By expanding upon the possible theological reading in 4:1, the direct theological addition in 4:8 and the possible religious interpretation of fasting in 4:16, the translator opted to add a sequel to the events leading up to Esther’s going to the king—a sequel, which was foretold in 4:8: Esther needs to call on God. And that is precisely what Esther does in C:12–30: she prays. And then, “…when she ended her prayer…” she went to the king (D:1-6).

Bibliography Beal, Timothy K. Esther. Berit Olam. Studies in Hebrew Narrative & Poetry. Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 1999. Bechtel, Carol M. Esther. Interpretation: A Bible Commentary for Teaching and Preaching. Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox, 2002. Berlin, Adele. Esther. The JPS Bible Commentary. Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society of America, 2001/5761. Gerleman, Gillis. Esther. 2nd ed. BKAT 21. Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag, 1982. Hanhart, Robert. Esther. Septuaginta. Vetus Testamentum Graecum 8.3. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1983. Herodotus. The Histories of Herodotus of Halicarnassus. Translated by Harry Carter. New York: Heritage Press, 1958. Levenson, John D. Esther. OTL. Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox, 1997. Miller, Athanasius, and Johannes Schildenberger. Die Bücher Tobias, Judith und Esther. Die Heilige Schrift des Alten Testamentes 4.3. Bonn: Hanstein, 1940.

Michael W. Duggan

Rediscoveries in Judaism: The Temple and the Return to Israel in 2 Macc 1:10–2:18 Abstract: The second festal letter in 2 Maccabees elaborates on the significance of the temple cleansing in the epitome by rewriting the death of Antiochus IV Epiphanes and recasting the profile of Judas Maccabeus. Imaginative storytelling unfolds the history of the temple as a continuum that runs from the exodus to the Hasmonean era. The contemplation of the past opens up to the future with the prospect of all Jews returning to Israel. Playful narrative techniques about finding what had been hidden invite the audience to anticipate the future as they orient their gaze toward Jerusalem and celebrate the festival of temple cleansing. Keywords: 2 Maccabees; Jerusalem; temple; Hellenistic Judaism; narrative technique; Hasmonean era

1 Introduction In the two letters (2 Macc 1:1–9; 1:10–2:18), which introduce the abbreviated version of the five volume work by Jason of Cyrene, the Jewish community in Jerusalem encourages the Jews in Egypt to celebrate the eight day festival of booths in the month of Chislev as a commemoration of the reclaiming and restoration of the temple by the forces of Judas Maccabeus in the winter of 164 BCE (1:9, 18; 2:16). A close examination of each letter discloses a diversity of lessons that the Jewish populace in Egypt may draw from the epitome (2 Macc 2:19– 15:39). The first letter initially highlights the importance of Torah observance, worship, adherence to God’s will, prayer and reconciliation (1:2–6), and then directs attention to the offenses of the priest Jason (1:7–8; cf. 4:7–26; 5:5–10). The second letter contextualizes the purification of the temple against the broad horizon of Israel’s history by depicting the lineage of the sacred precincts and sacrificial offerings through temple-related descriptions of Nehemiah, Jeremiah,

|| In researching and writing this paper on the centrality of Jerusalem for all Jews in the Hellenistic era, I contemplated the lifelong contribution that Prof. Stefan Reif has made to Jewish Studies. His inspiring scholarship and gracious friendship are treasures beyond words.

https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110630282-007

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Solomon and Moses, thereby connecting the temple purification by Judas Maccabeus back to the Second Temple, the exile, the First Temple and the exodus (1:18–2:12). Remarkably deft literary contours distinguish the persuasive techniques of the second letter from the comparatively pragmatic focus on religious observance and Jason’s offenses in the first letter. A compelling story line that connects the present to Israel’s pre-settlement era constitutes the heart of the second letter (1:11–2:15). This engaging account reflects an authorial concern to narrate an enchanting story. Stylistically it bears affinity to the epitomist’s intent to abridge the work of Jason of Cyrene in a manner that captivates his audience (cf. 2:24–25; 15:38–39). As such, the second letter provides a fine lead into the epitome. Moreover, the author’s pride in the library collections of Nehemiah and Judas illustrates an appreciation for literature that accompanies the invitation for the Jews in Egypt to access the holdings in Jerusalem (2:13–15). The second letter reinterprets the content of the epitome in order to confirm the Mosaic and Solomonic pedigree of the Jerusalem temple in the Hasmonean era and to identify it as the ultimate destination for Jews in the diaspora as well as in Judea. In doing so the document contributes a unique future-oriented perspective to 2 Maccabees. I intend to disclose the literary elements that contribute to this intra-historical eschatology in the second letter. My analysis consists of five steps: (1) presentations of the dating of the letter, its structure, and literary genre of the story; (2) an examination of the three statements about the return of Jews to Israel (1:27–29; 2:7, 18); (3) an investigation of “the rediscovery of what had been hidden” as a motif related to these aspirations; (4) a reflection on the significance of portraying Nehemiah as the builder of the Second Temple; and (5) a concluding summary of the contribution the second letter makes to 2 Maccabees.

2 Dating, structure, and literary genre of the story in the second festal letter The first letter, which contains the only dates in the two letters that prefix the epitome (2 Macc 1:1–9; 1:10–2:18), originated in 124 BCE and summarizes another letter, which the Jews in Jerusalem sent to their fellow Jews in Egypt in 143

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BCE (1:7–8).1 The timeframe of the second letter is a matter of speculation due to its lacking a precise date and determinative internal evidence. In my opinion, the absence of any reference to Judas’s on-going military campaigns against the Seleucid occupation of Israel indicates that the letter dates to well after the death of Judas in 161 BCE (9:1–10:9; cf. 10:10–15:36).2 I view the second letter as originating between 135 and 124 BCE, therefore prior to the first letter, in the first decade after John Hyrcanus assumed the office of high priest (1:10–2:18).3 The second festal letter consists of a greeting, two stories and a final exhortation: 1. Salutation (1:10) 2. Story 1: The assassination of Antiochus IV Epiphanes (1:11–17) 2.1. Introductory comment: God’s salvific work (1:11–12) 2.2. The assassination narrative (1:13–16) 2.3. Concluding doxology (1:17) 3. Story 2: The works of Nehemiah (1:18–2:18) 3.1. Introduction: invitation to celebrate the festival of temple purification (1:18) 3.2. Nehemiah’s sacrificial fire links the Second Temple to the First Temple (1:19–2:12) 3.2.1. Nehemiah oversees the recovery of the fire at the Second Temple (1:18–36) 3.2.2. Jeremiah preserves the fire and hides the temple furnishings (2:1–8) 3.2.3. Solomon and Moses and the origins of the fire at the First Temple (2:9–12) 3.3 The libraries of Nehemiah and Judas (2:13–15) 4. Final exhortation: invitation to celebrate the festival of temple purification (2:16–18) The introduction of the senders and recipients and the concluding exhortation are basic components of a letter (1:10; 2:16–18; cf. 11:16–21, 27–33, 34–38). Within this conventional format, the narrative consists of two stories: (a) the assassination of Antiochus IV Epiphanes (1:11–17); and (b) the deeds of Nehemiah (1:18–2:15). Authorial interpretations of events frame each narrative and arise nowhere else in the document. They introduce the death of Antiochus as God’s

|| 1 On the basis of textual variants, Schwartz (2 Maccabees, 524–29) dates this letter to 143 BCE (1:7), the year when Simon initiated a new era of Hasmonean rule by gaining autonomy for Judea (1 Macc 13:41–42). 2 See Goldstein (II Maccabees, 157–64), who dates the second letter to 103–102 BCE. 3 Cf. Doran (2 Maccabees, 62–63), who ascribes the second letter to the eras of either John Hyrcanus or Alexander Janneus. Parker (“The Letters,” 387–90) dates it shortly after 100 BCE.

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salvific work in defeating the leader who had attacked Jerusalem and conclude the episode with a doxology in praise of the judgment that God has brought upon the impious (1:11–12, 17). Invitations to celebrate the temple purification by Judas frame the Nehemiah narrative (1:18; 2:16–18). The request for the Jews of Egypt to take part in the festival of the temple cleansing includes an additional reference to the festival of fire in commemoration of Nehemiah, the builder of the Second Temple and its altar of sacrifice (1:18). At the end of the letter, temple purification provides the inclusion for the concluding exhortation, which begins with the invitation to join in the festival of this event and ends with the assertion that “[God] has purified this place” (τὸν τόπον ἐκαθάρισεν, 2:16–18). The final word of the letter, καθαρίζω (“to purify” 2:18; cf. 10:3, 17; 14:36), confirms that the central concern of the letter is establishing the festival of temple cleansing within the liturgical calendar of Jews in the diaspora as in Israel. While the narrative introduces Nehemiah as the builder of the Second Temple and its altar of sacrifice, the story focuses on his discovery and handling of the sacrificial fire. This activity connects Nehemiah to Jeremiah, Solomon and Moses as they share in common experiences of the temple fire that originates with God. The transmission of sacrificial fire discloses the history of the temple in a manner that serves to certify the Second Temple as maintaining continuity with the First Temple. The agents who manage and witness the fire embody Israel’s history in reverse: Nehemiah after the exile (1:18–36), Jeremiah during the exile (2:1–8), Solomon before the exile (2:9–10, 12) and Moses in the wilderness era (2:11). In this schema, the history of the temple is the history of Israel and fire is the thread of continuity for these histories. The fire that consumed Moses’s sacrificial offering provides the precedent for the fire that had the same effect on the offerings Solomon made at the dedication of the First Temple (2:9– 11). This is the fire that Jeremiah instructed the exiles to preserve (2:1). Nehemiah recovered the residue of this fire by tasking the operation to the descendants of the priests who had hidden it in a dry cistern during the exile (1:19–20, 33). He then arranged for the first sacrificial offering to be consumed by the fire that ignited when the sun shone on the residue (1:21–22; cf. 1:30–32). Hence the fire at the Second Temple originated in the fire that the Lord had sent upon Solomon’s offering at the First Temple (cf. 2:9–10, 12). The company of Nehemiah named the residue nephthar which means “purification,” thereby alluding to the subsequent cleansing of the temple by Judas Maccabeus (1:36; cf. 1:18; 2:16, 18). This subtle indication suggests that the lineage from Moses to Solomon to Jeremiah to Nehemiah continues in the temple in the Hasmonean era, which Judas Maccabeus inaugurated. The two references to

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the festival of booths confirm the link between the First Temple and the Second Temple in the Hasmonean period. The celebration of Judas’s temple cleansing conforms to the pattern of “the festival of booths,” which is also alluded to in “the eight days” duration of the First Temple dedication by Solomon that actually took place during the festival of Sukkot (1:18; cf. 2:12; 1 Kgs 8:2; 2 Chr 7:8–9; Lev 23:33–36). While the narrative illustrates the legitimacy of the Second Temple by confirming its bond-by-fire to the First Temple, it also indicates the relative inferiority of the postexilic sanctuary in comparison to the Solomonic original. Although human hands did not ignite the initial sacrificial fire at the Second Temple, nevertheless, the agency of the sun acting on a thick liquid is not equivalent to the Lord’s direct intervention in sending fire to consume the sacrifice at the dedication of the First Temple (1:21–22; cf. 2:10). Moreover, while Jeremiah’s preserving of the sacrificial fire sustains the continuity from the First Temple to the Second Temple, his hiding of the tent, the ark of the covenant and the altar of incense highlights the absence of sacred elements from the holy of holies in the postexilic era that had been present in the most sacred precincts of Solomon’s Temple (2:4–7; cf. 1 Kgs 8:4–9; 2 Chr 5:5–10). The sequencing of the two stories in the second festal letter follows the pattern in the epitome where the death of Antiochus IV Epiphanes leads into the festival of the temple purification (1:13–16, 18; cf. 9:1–10:9). These accounts concur in locating the king’s death in Persia and interpreting his demise as God’s retribution for his assaults on “the holy city,” Jerusalem (1:11–12; cf. 9:5, 13–14). More significantly, according to the letter, the king dies by assassination while the epitome depicts him as dying in torment brought on by a fatal disease (2 Macc 1:13–16; cf. 9:5–7). The narrative of the Persian priests trapping him in the temple of Nanea and stoning him to death includes imaginative details, consistent with his profile in the epitome. His intention to marry the goddess reflects his pretension to be God’s equal (1:14; cf. 9:8, 12) and his determination to plunder the temple treasury repeats his earlier actions at the Jerusalem temple (1:14–15; cf. 5:15–17). Finally, the decapitation and dismembering of the king’s corpse reflects the disgrace that Judas inflicts on Nicanor in the climax of the epitome (1:16; cf. 15:31–35). The temple settings—first in Persia and then in Jerusalem—link the two stories, as both sanctuaries are environs in which God preserves Jerusalem and the Jewish people (1:11–12, 26; 2:17). Moreover, Persia is the birthplace of Nehemiah and the realm of the king who sends him to Israel and later commemorates his lighting of the sacrificial fire to inaugurate the Second Temple (1:20, 33–35). Hence, the second festal letter begins in the eastern diaspora and ends in Israel

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and thereby encompasses a breadth of Jewish environs in the Hellenistic world. The stories comprise an enchanted précis of Israel’s history from Moses to Judas Maccabeus, which cultivates a collective memory for all Jews, whether they live in the diaspora or in Israel.

3 The return of all Jews to Israel The three statements about the prospect of all Jews returning to the land of Israel are without parallel elsewhere in 2 Maccabees (1:27–29; 2:7, 18). These texts, more than others, incorporate the Jewish diaspora into the story of Israel. In describing the future homecoming of all Jews to Israel, each text employs various synonyms of the verb “to gather” with God as the explicit or implicit subject (ἐπισυνάγω: ἐπισυνάγαγε, 1:27; συναγάγῃ ὁ θεος ἐπισυναγωγὴν, 2:7; ἐπισυνάξει, 2:18). The final convergence of all Jews upon their native land is a work of God and not solely of human decisiveness. These texts provide an intrahistorical eschatological dimension to the letter as they arise first, in the community’s prayer on the occasion of the initial sacrificial offering at the Second Temple, then, in Jeremiah’s declaration about future discovery of the temple furnishing in the cave on Mount Nebo, and finally, in the aspiration that concludes the letter.

3.1 The Prayer of the Community Descriptions of the wondrous igniting of the naphtha residue frame the community’s prayer, which the priest, Jonathan, leads with responses from Nehemiah and the people (1:21–23, 30–32). The prayer consists of three parts: (1) an invocation listing the divine attributes (1:24–25a); (2) a review of the Lord’s fidelity to Israel (1:25b); and (3) and a series of petitions (1:26–29). I focus on the final six invocations, which begin and end with appeals for God to gather all Jews in Israel (1:27–29).4 These appeals frame four entreaties, the first two of which call for the liberation of Jews, and the second two for the thwarting of their gentile oppressors. Α verbal imperative governs each of the

|| 4 For an analysis of the divine attributes, particularly in relation to the epitome, see Reiterer, Praying, 123–39.

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six invocations. The petitions resonate with the language of the exodus and the return from exile and sometimes coincide with material in the book of Judith.5 A. Gather (ἐπισυηάγαγε) our scattered people (1:27a) 1a. Free (ἐλευθέρωσον) those who are slaves of the gentiles (1:27b) 1b. Look upon (ἐπιδε) those who are rejected (1:27c) 2a. Let the gentiles know (γνώστον) you are God (1:27d) 2b. Punish (βασάνισον) the oppressors (1:28) A’ Plant (καταφύτευσον) your people (1:29).

The petitions begin with a plea that the Lord would “gather our dispersion” (έπισυνάγαγε τὴν διασποράν ἡμων 1:27a). While the possessive pronoun (“our”), the singular form of the noun and the imperative form of the verb are unique to the community’s prayer, the text reflects Ps 146:2 LXX, The Lord is building Jerusalem And gathers the dispersions of Israel

Οἰκοδομῶν Ιερουσαλημ ὁ κύριος Καὶ τὰς διασπορὰς τοῦ Ισραηλ ἐπισυνάξει.

The “dispersion” (διασπορά) is the traditional term for the scattering of the people from Judah at the time of the exile (Deut 28:25 LXX; 30:4; Isa 49:6 LXX; Jer 15:7; 41[34]:17 LXX). The vocabulary of the Jews dispersing from Israel and subsequently reassembling there is Deuteronomic. “Even if your dispersion (διασπορά) is from one end of the heavens to the other, from there the Lord your God will gather (συνάγω) you” (Deut 30:4 LXX).6 The resonances surface in Achior’s description of Israel’s population as composed of Jews, who returned from the diaspora to Jerusalem and the temple to settle in the hill country (Jdt 5:19). The verb “to free” (ἐλευθερόω) occurs only three times in the LXX. In addition to this petition, the epitomist speaks of Judas and his troops liberating Jerusalem (2 Macc 2:22; cf. 1:27; Prov 25:10). The word is emblematic of the Israelites’ exodus from slavery in Egypt (cf. e.g., Exod 3:7–8; 20:2). In her speech to the elders of Bethulia, Judith asserts that the slavery of Jews to gentile overlords, who would occupy their land, is offensive to the Lord (Jdt 8:22). The plea for the Lord “to look upon” (ἐφοράω) Jews who suffer oppression recalls Lord’s decisive “looking upon” Israel to deliver them from Egypt (1:27c;

|| 5 Moore (Judith, 67–70) dates the book to the last years of John Hyrcanus (135–104 BCE) or the early years when Alexander Janneus ruled Israel (103–78 BCE), perhaps contemporaneous with the second festal letter. 6 Deut 30:4ab LXX: ἐάν ῇ ἡ διασποά σου ἀπ᾽ἂκρου τοῦ οὐρανοῦ ἓως ἂκρου τοῦ οὐρανοῦ, ἐκεῖθεν συνάξει σε κύριος ὁ θεός σου.

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cf. Exod 2:25). The epitome picks up this strand to begin the reversal of fortunes in Jerusalem and Israel as the people pray that the Lord would look upon them (ἐφοράω 2 Macc 8:2; cf. 7:6). The description of the Jews as “rejected and despised” reflects the humiliation of the exiles (Isa 49:7).7 The deliverance of Israel would reveal to the gentile oppressors that the Lord is God (1:27c). This theme derives from Hezekiah’s prayer in the temple as Sennacherib’s forces surrounded Jerusalem, Solomon’s petition at the dedication of the First Temple, and the effect of the exiles returning to Judah according to Deutero–Isaiah (Isa 37:20; 1 Kgs 8:60; Isa 40:5; 45:3; 49:26b). In 2 Maccabees, Antiochus IV Epiphanes is the gentile adversary whose afflictions provoke him to acknowledge that the Lord of Israel is God, but at a point in time that is too late to save him (2 Macc 9:12, 17–18). Retributive theology associates the petition to afflict the adversaries in the festal letter with the fate of Antiochus IV Epiphanes in the epitome. The verb “to punish” (βασανίζω, 2 Macc 1:28) describes both the torture that the king inflicted upon the Jews and also the affliction he eventually suffered in return (9:6; 7:13, 17). The arrogance of oppressors points to the disposition, which Antiochus manifested in his attacks on the temple but which also, by the king’s own admission, hastened his death (ὑπερηφανία 1:28; cf. 5:21; 7:36; 9:7, 11). The petition, that the Jews be “planted in your holy place,” echoes Moses’s song at the Sea of Reeds (2 Macc 1:29; cf. Exod 15:17). In the prayer, the term “your holy place” synthesizes the location that the song describes in a series of three appositions: “the mountain of your inheritance,” “the dwelling” of God, and “the sanctuary” that God had made. Therefore, “the holy place” refers primarily to Mount Zion and the temple in Jerusalem; it is used in this sense once in the epitome (2 Macc 8:17; cf. Ps 24:3; 68:5) However, in view of the term at the end of the letter, “the holy place” refers most fully to the land of Israel (2 Macc 1:29, ὁ τόπος ὁ ἅγιος; cf. 2:17, ὁ ἅγιος τόπος). In the song, the verb “to plant” refers to the land rather than to the temple edifice (Exod 15:17). The verb is a traditional reference for the Lord’s action in the settling the Israelites in the land of Canaan (Ps 44:3; 80:8–9; cf. Jer 11:17). In Nathan’s prophecy about the Davidic covenant, the planting of the people is the prerequisite for Solomon’s building of the temple (2 Sam 7:10; cf. 1 Chr 17:9). Jeremiah employs the verb to describe the reestablishment of the exiles in their own land (31:28; 32:41; cf. 1:10; Ezek 36:36).

|| 7 Goldstein, II Maccabees, 179.

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3.2 The instruction of Jeremiah When Jeremiah informs his companions about the importance of no one knowing where the temple furnishings were hidden, he attaches an element of eschatological revelation to the prospect of the ultimate return of Jews from the diaspora to Israel (2 Macc 2:7–8). He describes the Lord’s gathering of his people into the land as a demonstration of divine mercy (ἳλεως γίνομαι, 2:8). The theme resonates with the declaration, “I shall be merciful,” which the Lord addressed to survivors of Nebuchadnezzar’s invasion of Judah (Jer 27:20 LXX, ἳλεως ἐσομαι = Jer 50:20). In Second Isaiah the Lord promises abiding mercy to the exiles who return to Judah (Isa 54:10 LXX, εἴπεν γὰρ κύριος Ἴλεως σοι). The merciful pardoning of Judah’s offenses is emblematic of Jeremiah’s new covenant, which is written on the heart of every Judahite (Jer 38:34 LXX, ἳλεως ἐσομαι ταῖς ἀδικίαις = Jer 31:34; cf. 2 Macc 2:3; cf. Jer 31:33). In the epitome the manifestation of divine mercy marks the turning point in the fortunes of the temple and Jerusalem, when Judas Maccabeus and his forces come on the scene (2 Macc 8:5; cf. 2:22). The story of Jeremiah sets the record straight about why the tent, the ark and the altar of incense were in the holy of holies of the First Temple but not of the Second Temple (1 Kgs 8:4–9; 2 Chr 5:5–10). Since there is no account of these furnishings being transported to Babylon in the exile or returned to Judah after the exile, they seemed to have been lost (2 Chr 36:10, 18–19; cf. Ezra 5:14– 15; 6:5). The festal letter asserts that, far from being lost, they were hidden by Jeremiah. The prophet actually prevented them from being in Second Temple in order to endow them with eschatological significance (2 Macc 2:4–8).8 Since Moses had overseen the construction of the ark and the tent, it is appropriate that Jeremiah, the prophet like Moses, conceal them on the mountain where Moses died after viewing the promised land (Deut 34:1–6; cf. 10:1–5; Lev 26:1– 37; 36:1–37; Exod 33:7–11).9 By hiding these furnishings, Jeremiah offers the hope that eventually, the temple will fully embody the character of the original holy place (2 Macc 2:3, 8; cf. Deut 34:5–7). The ark, the tent and the altar of incense are absent from the Second Temple in a manner that makes them symbols of the ultimate future when God will gather together the people whose defining characteristic is Torah observance (2 Macc 2:2; cf. Deut 31:9–13, 14).

|| 8 See Doran, 2 Maccabees, 56–57. 9 The identification of Jeremiah as a “prophet like Moses” derives especially from the correspondences between his call and that of Moses (Deut 18:15, 18; cf. Jer 1:4–10; Exod 3:1–4:17). See Holladay, Jeremiah 1, 24, 29–30, 34–36.

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The content of 2 Macc 2:1–6 reflects traditions about Jeremiah in the Hellenistic era. The prophet’s warning the exiles against contemplating the idols of silver and gold in Babylon reflects the opening admonition in Letter of Jeremiah (2:2; cf. Ep Jer vv. 4–6). A text of the Apocryphon of Jeremiah, 4Q385b most closely reflects the portrayal of Jeremiah in the second festal letter. The fragment consists of two columns about Jeremiah’s activities during the exile: column 1 describes Jeremiah making a journey to Babylon and column 2 reports on his teaching his fellow exiles in Egypt.10 The content of column 1 exhibits these parallels to 2 Macc 2:1–6: (a) Jeremiah leads a company of exiles, including priests, from Judah to Babylon; (b) he transports vessels from the temple in Jerusalem to the land of exile; and (c) he instructs his companions to keep “the covenant of the God of their fathers” (‫ )ישמרו את ברית אלהי אבותיהם‬when they reside in the foreign land (4Q385b I, 2, 5–9). While 4Q385b I contains no parallels to the eschatological aspects of Jeremiah’s activities in the festal letter (cf. 2 Macc 2:6–7), a combination of three other texts points to various traditions concerned with the hiding of furnishings from the holy of holies in the First Temple during the exile and the promise of their eventual disclosure either in the restoration of Jerusalem or in the messianic age (cf. 2:6–7).11 The fourth fragment from Eupolimus’s On the Kings in Judea, which is preserved in Eusebius’s Preparatio Evangelica 9.39.2–5, concludes with the assertion that Jeremiah preserved the ark of the covenant. “Then [Nebuchadnezzar] seized Jerusalem and captured Jonachim the king of the Jews. He took as tribute gold and silver and bronze in the Temple and sent them to Babylon, except for the ark and the tablets in it. This Jeremiah preserved.”12 Second Baruch, which looks back on the destruction of the Temple in 70 CE, describes an angel burying in the earth elements from the holy of holies including priestly robes, the ephod, the mercy seat and the altar of incense in order to hide them from strangers (2 Bar. 6:4–9). Furthermore, Fourth Baruch, which dates to the second century CE, depicts the Lord instructing Jeremiah to bury temple vessels from the temple in the earth, where they will remain until the messianic age: “Guard the vessels of [the Temple] service until the coming of the beloved one” (4 Bar. 3:11).13 Although both 2 Baruch and 4 Baruch are post-Hasmonean com|| 10 See Dimant, “An Apocryphon.” 11 See Kalimi, Fighting, 208–11. 12 Fallon, “Eupolemus,” 871. Fallon (pp. 862–63) dates the original text by Eupolemus to 158/7 BCE and upholds the likelihood that the author was the delegate who negotiated the treaty with Rome on behalf of Judas Maccabeus (1 Macc 4:17–31; cf. 2 Macc 4:11). 13 Robinson, “4 Baruch,” 418–19. Robinson (p. 414) estimates that 4 Baruch was composed shortly before or after the revolt of Simon Bar Kochba.

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positions, the traditions, which speak of the hiding of sacred furnishings from the holy of holies and their rediscovery in an eschatological age, may have originated in the second or first century BCE, perhaps in connection with the increased focus on angelology and apocalyptic motifs at that time. In any case, a comparative reading of these texts, serves to underline the intra-historical perspective of the wording in 2 Macc 2:7–8. The festal letter views the future in terms of the return of all Jews to Israel rather than in view of a messianic age. The return of all Jews to Israel marks the time when the Lord will bring to light the sacred furnishings that Jeremiah had hidden. The disclosure of the divine glory associates the era of the exodus with the dedication of the First Temple. The descent of glory upon the tent of meeting as the cloud filled the tabernacle had manifested the divine presence on the desert floor where the Israelites lived and moved in the wilderness (Exod 40:35–40). The cloud and divine glory filled the temple when the priests placed the ark, the tent and the sacred vessels in the holy of holies (1 Kgs 8:11; 2 Chr 5:14; 7:2). These events marked the consecration of the sacred precincts (1 Kgs 9:3; 2 Chr 7:16). In summary, the description in the second festal letter suggests that when all Jews return to Israel, the temple will regain its original stature as the habitation of divine presence with the sacred furnishings restored to the holy of holies (2 Macc 2:8, 9–12).

3.3 The conclusion of the letter At the end of the letter, the Jewish leaders speak to their fellow Jews in Egypt in a direct address that consists of three parts: (a) an encouragement to observe the festival of temple purification (2:16); (b) a summary God’s saving actions in the past (2:17); and (c) the confession of hope that, in the foreseeable future, Jews from the diaspora will return to Israel as the culmination of God’s work (2:18). The tension between what God has already done and what God has not yet completed endows the temple purification festival with an eschatological dimension. The assertion that “God has saved all his people and has returned the inheritance to all” breaks down distinctions between Jews in the diaspora and those in Israel (2:17). Moreover, the leaders in Jerusalem identify themselves with all diaspora Jews when they express the hope that “God… will gather us” from across the world into Israel (2:18). Their vision of the future echoes both the appeal of the community “Gather together our scattered people” and also the duration for the hiding of the temple furnishings, “until God gathers his people

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together” (1:27; 2:7). Hence, the first-person plural object “us” is synonymous with “our scattered people” and “his [God’s] people” (2:18; cf. 1:27; 2:7).

4 The discovery of things hidden Jeremiah describes God’s work as twofold: to gather the Jewish people and to display the temple furnishings that are stored in the cave on Mount Nebo (2:7– 8). Literary brilliance shines through the intertwining of these events, as the discovery of things hidden actually constitutes a confirmation of the promise that all the Jews will return to land of Israel. The stories of Antiochus, Nehemiah and Jeremiah are all about temples, secret places, and the disclosure of what had been concealed. Each episode is an adventure of hiding and seeking. The priests of Nanea remove a secret door hidden in the temple ceiling in order to surprise Antiochus and his companions with the fatal deluge of stones (1:16, κρυπτὴν θύραν). Devout priests of the temple in Jerusalem, on their way to exile, “secretly hid” the remnants of fire from the altar of sacrifice (1:19, λαθαίρως κατακρύτειν). Jeremiah takes the furnishings of the First Temple and hides them in a cave, which he insists remain unknown (2:7–8, ἄγνωστος ὁ τόπος ἔσται). In the stories of Nehemiah and Jeremiah, the place of hiding such elements is made sacred and sealed (1:34, περιφράσσω; 2:5, ἔμφρασσω). In both cases the respective materials are deposited in a way that prevents anyone from knowing their whereabouts (1:19; 2:6). Nevertheless, apparently the lineage of priests maintained a memory of the cistern where their forebears had deposited the fire (1:20). A seam in the story gives an alternative account wherein Jeremiah is presented as responsible for hiding the fire on one hand and the temple materials on the other (2:1, 5). Hence the prophet is the agent who connects the destiny of the temple fire to that of the temple furnishings. The stage is set for the contrasting outcome in each case of concealment. The Jewish priests follow Nehemiah’s directions in order to find the residue from the altar of sacrifice at the First Temple. Subsequently, the Persian king encompasses the place of discovery after the fashion of a shrine (1:33–34). By contrast, Jeremiah hides the ark, the tent and the altar of incense and forbids his companions to mark the pathway to the location in order to prevent search parties from discovering them (2:7a). The discovery of the tent, the ark and the altar of incense is an eschatological occurrence within history, which will happen when all Jews return to Israel (2:7–8). The promise that this event will actually take place is confirmed by the fact that the previously unknown place of the fire residue had been found thanks to Nehemiah (1:19–20). Hence the focus on fire

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and furnishings in the combined activities of Nehemiah and Jeremiah contributes substance to the prospect of all Jews gathering in Israel (1:27; 2:8, 18).

5 Nehemiah, Judas Maccabeus and the temple The narrative fittingly concludes with Judas’s recovery of texts that had been lost during the war that he had prosecuted against the Seleucid armies (2:15). As Nehemiah found the fire that had been hidden during the exile, so Judas collected the writings that had disappeared during the imperial occupation of Jerusalem (cf. 1 Macc 1:56–58; 2 Macc 6:1–11). Moreover, the role of Nehemiah’s library faintly alludes to Israel as the gathering place for all Jews, as the leaders in Jerusalem invite the Jews in Egypt to come north to access the collection instead of offering to send the texts to Egypt (cf. 1:27; 2:8, 18). Throughout the narrative, Nehemiah is the prototype of Judas. The story begins by connecting the temple purification by Judas with the construction of the sacrificial altar and the temple by Nehemiah (1:18) and ends by describing Nehemiah’s library as the model for Judas’s collection of documents following his military conflicts (2:14–15). In a supplementary manner, one may note that according to the letter, both Judas and Nehemiah are government officials. The salutation links Judas to the senate (γερουσία) in Jerusalem and the narrative presents Nehemiah as the Persian king’s emissary to Israel (1:10; cf. 1:20). How are we to account for the unique portrayal of Nehemiah as the model for Judas in the second festal letter? I suggest that the fact that Nehemiah is a lay leader provides the nucleus of a response to this perplexing question. The most evident traces of tradition from the Nehemiah Memoir in the festal letter are Nehemiah’s role as the delegate of the king of Persia, his constructing the walls around Jerusalem, and his exercising authority over priests at the temple (cf. Neh 2:1–7:4; 13:4–31).14 The story attributes the reconstruction of the Second Temple and its purification to Nehemiah and Judas, both of whom lack the prophetic and priestly pedigree of Jeremiah and the Davidic lineage of Solomon (cf. Jer 1:1–3; 2 Sam 7:12–16). Consistent with the epitome, the second festal letter does not ascribe a priestly lineage to the family of Judas Maccabeus (cf. 1 Macc 2:1–4). Second Maccabees makes no allusions to the reigns of the Hasmonean || 14 In current scholarly parlance, the “Nehemiah Memoir” refers to the portions of the biblical text of Nehemiah that were written in the first person (Neh 1:1–7:5; 12:31–32, 37–40, 43; 13:4– 31). See Wright, Building Identity. On possible connections between the Nehemiah Memoir and the second festal letter, see Bergen “Nehemiah,” 260–67.

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high priests Jonathan, Simon and John Hyrcanus (cf. 1 Macc 10:21; 13:41–42; 16:23–24). Onias III, of the Oniad priestly lineage, is the singularly heroic high priest in the epitome, in contrast to Jason, Menelaus and Alcimus, who collaborate with the Seleucids (2 Macc 3:1–4:34). Beyond the story of Onias III, the epitome only describes devout priests at the service of Judas, the defender of the temple (14:31–33; 15:31–34). The account of the temple purification in the epitome does not mention the participation of priests (10:1–8; cf. 1 Macc 4:42–51). Nehemiah’s relationship to priests in the second festal letter is similar to that of Judas in the epitome insofar as he directs them in finding and handling the naphtha and the priests pray in thanksgiving for what God has accomplished through him (2 Macc 1:19–36; cf. 14:34–36; 15:31, 34). The letter does not mention priests helping Nehemiah built the Second Temple and its altar (1:19). This account uniquely associates the temple with a layperson even as it contradicts the versions in Ezra and 1 Esdras, which attribute the construction to the combined efforts of Zerubbabel and the priest, Jeshua (Ezra 3:1–4:5; 1 Esd 4:42–6:2; 6:22–7:15). The building of the temple in the Persian era by Nehemiah provides the precedent for the purification of the temple in the Hellenistic era by the layperson Judas (2 Macc 1:19; 2:16; cf. 10:1– 8). The narrative strategy here serves to emphasize that the temple belongs to the people and thereby serves as the “holy place,” which is the ultimate point of convergence that beckons all Jews to return to Israel (cf. 1:27, 29; 2:18). The festal letter disengages the temple from explicit Hasmonean associations and thereby may infer an irenic posture toward opponents of the temple administration, such as those who viewed Jonathan and his successors as illegitimate high priests (e.g., 1QpHab 8:8–13; 8:16–9:2; 9:9–12; 11:4–8, 12–15; 12:2–10; 1 Macc 10:61; 11:21, 25–26; Josephus, Ant. 13:372).

6 Conclusion The second festal letter is a work of historical imagination that aims to enhance appreciation for the Jerusalem temple among the Jews in Egypt. The letter expands upon the relatively brief account of the temple cleansing by Judas Maccabeus in the epitome (2 Macc 10:1–8). It does so in three ways: (a) by offering an alternative version of the death of Antiochus IV Epiphanes; (b) by contextualizing Judas’s accomplishment as the latest episode in temple history as shaped by the works of his forebears Nehemiah, Jeremiah, Solomon and Moses; and (c) by endowing the festival of temple cleansing with an orientation toward

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the future when all Jews will return to Israel as they are drawn to the sacred precincts. The letter is an exercise in rewriting history. Compared to the epitome, it offers alternative perspectives on divine activity and on the profiles of Antiochus IV Epiphanes, Jeremiah, and Judas Maccabeus. The single source of fire, which originated with God at the dedication of the First Temple and reignited the sacrificial offerings at the Second Temple, certifies the continuity of temple history. According to the letter, occurrences of direct divine intervention are limited to Israel’s origins in the exodus and Solomonic era whereas the epitome locates them sporadically at the temple and on the battlefields in support of Judas Maccabeus and his troops (2:9–11; cf. 3:24–28; 5:2–4; 10:29–31; 11:8–11). The facetious account of pagan priests assassinating Antiochus IV Epiphanes indicates that Seleucid rulers were intent on robbing pagan temples as well as the Jerusalem temple (1:14; cf. 3:4–14). The letter portrays Jeremiah as the custodian who preserves the sacrificial fire and sacred furnishings of the First Temple during the exile while the epitome identifies him as the transcendent figure who gives Judas the golden sword in a dream (2:18–8; cf. 15:14–16). The letter demilitarizes both Judas and Israel. The epitome depicts Judas as the military hero, but the letter portrays him as the guardian of the historical record, the government official who founded a national archive that contains the documentary evidence for Israel’s recent history. While the epitome describes the temple as threatened by siege and the landscape of Israel as a theatre of warfare, the letter profiles the temple as the environment in which God’s revelation to Solomon and Moses endures to the present and Israel as the land where all Jews will eventually make a home. Nehemiah, the temple builder and library founder, is the model for Judas, the restorer of the temple precincts and developer of the national archives. Just as the portrayal of Judas in the letter differs from his profile in the epitome, so the presentation of Nehemiah in the letter scarcely resembles the protagonist in the book of Nehemiah. In the festal letter, biblical references or allusions are evident in the descriptions of Solomon, Moses, and Jeremiah but they are absent from the story of Nehemiah (1:19–23, 30–36; 2:1–6, 10–12; cf. Jer 31:31–34; 2 Chr 7:1; Lev 9:23–24, 10:16–19). The portrait of Nehemiah is emblematic of the author’s ingenuity in depicting the temple as belonging to the Jewish people. As a Jew from the eastern diaspora, Nehemiah constructed the Second Temple in a manner that maintained the tradition of Jeremiah, Solomon and Moses. Nehemiah embodies the fact that Second Temple Judaism originated in the diaspora. By casting Nehemiah as the prototype for Judas, the author frees the temple from associations with the Hasmonean high priests and identifies it with lay-

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people as the ones who built and then reclaimed it. In this way, the author encapsulates the history of the temple in a manner that beckons Jews of the diaspora to contemplate Israel as their home in the future by the mercy of God (1:27; 2:8, 18).

Bibliography Bird, Michael F. 1 Esdras: Introduction and Commentary on the Greek Text in Codex Vaticanus. Septuagint Commentary Series. Leiden: Brill, 2012. Bergen, Theodore A. “Nehemiah in 2 Maccabees 1:10–2:18.” JSJ 28 (1997): 249–70. Bickerman, Elias J. “A Jewish Festal Letter of 124 B.C.E. (2 Macc 1:1–9).” Pages 408–31 in vol. 1 of Studies in Jewish and Christian History: A New Edition in English including The God of the Maccabees. Introduced by Martin Hengel. Edited by Amran Tropper. Ancient Judaism and Early Christianity 68. Leiden: Brill, 2007. Dimant, Devorah. “An Apocryphon of Jeremiah from Cave 4 (4Q385B = 4Q385 16).” Pages 11–30 in New Qumran Texts and Studies: Proceedings of the First Meeting of the International Organization for Qumran Studies 1992. Edited by George J. Brooke. STDJ 15. Leiden: Brill, 1994. Doran, Robert. 2 Maccabees. Hermeneia. Minneapolis: Fortress, 2012. Fallon, Francis T. “Eupolemus: A New Translation and Commentary.” Pages 861–72 in vol. 2 of The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha. Edited by James H. Charlesworth. Garden City NY: Doubleday, 1985. Holladay, William L. Jeremiah 1. Hermeneia. Philadelphia: Fortress, 1986. Kalimi, Isaac. Fighting Over the Bible: Jewish Interpretation, Sectarianism and Polemic from Temple to Talmud and Beyond. BRJ 54. Leiden: Brill, 2017. Lange, Armin. “2 Maccabees 2:13–15: Library or Canon?” Pages 155–67 in The Books of the Maccabees: History, Theology, Ideology. Edited by Géza G. Xeravits and Jószef Zsengellér. JSJSup 118. Leiden: Brill, 2007. Moore, Carey A. Judith, A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary. AB 40. Garden City NY: Doubleday, 1985. Parker, Victor. “The Letters in II Maccabees: Reflections on the Book’s Composition.” ZAW 119 (2007): 386–402. Reiterer, Friedrich V., “Praying to God Passionately: Notes on the Emotions in 2 Maccabees.” Pages 117–44 in Ancient Jewish Prayers and Emotions: Emotions Associated with Jewish Prayer in and around the Second Temple Period. Edited by Stefan C. Reif and Renate Egger-Wenzel. DCLS 26. Berlin: de Gruyter, 2015. Schorch, Stefan. “The Libraries in 2 Maccabees 2:13–15, and the Torah as a Public Document in Second Century BC Judaism.” Pages 169–80 in The Books of the Maccabees: History, Theology, Ideology. Edited by Géza G. Xeravits and Jószef Zsengellér. JSJSup 118. Leiden: Brill, 2007. Schwartz, Daniel R. 2 Maccabees. CEJL. Berlin: de Gruyter, 2008. Wacholder, Ben Zion. “The Letter from Judah Maccabee to Aristobulus: Is 2 Maccabees 1:10b– 2:18 Authentic?” HUCA 49 (1978): 89–133.

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Wright, Jacob L. “1 Esdras and the Damnatio Memoriae Nehemiae.” Pages 145–63 in Was 1 Esdras First? An Investigation into the Priority and Nature of 1 Esdras. Edited by Lisbeth S. Fried. AIL 7. Atlanta: SBL Press, 2011. Wright, Jacob L. Rebuilding Identity: The Nehemiah-Memoir and its Earliest Readers. BZAW 348. Berlin: de Gruyter, 2004.

Renate Egger-Wenzel

Did Judith Go to the Miqweh? Abstract: The two bathing scenes in the book of Judith are clearly connected, and compose a unit (Jdt 10:3; 12:8–9). Both episodes refer to a full-body immersion (περικλύζομαι, βαπτίζω) at twilight, which has to be concluded before dawn according Jewish sources. As the text uses the typical terminology “descending” into the house for a bath in the first place, and “ascending” from spring water in the second for purity reasons (καθαρά), with a prayer being uttered, it is most likely that the author meant to convey the idea that Judith was running a miqweh at home. This would explain the otherwise highly questionable use of precious liquid under the circumstances of a siege when water was rationed. The book’s author describes his main character Judith within a proto-Pharisaic setup. A Jewish audience would have appreciated the culticritual hints in the text, but the Hellenistic or Roman reader would have understood the bathing scenes as profane ones and considered the heroine as obsessive about her diet. Keywords: bath; immersion; miqweh; stepped pool; pure/purity

1 Introduction Already when I wrote my article “Judith’s Path from Grief to Joy” in 2010 I was puzzled about a note in Jdt 10:3: “she washed herself, all around the body, with water” (NETS). The heroine Judith indulges herself with a generous bath while in Bethulia, “the cisterns were emptied out, and they were unable to drink their fill of water for a single day, for they were giving them to drink in measure. And their infants lost heart, and the women and the young men failed from thirst, and they were falling in the streets of the city and in the passages of the gates, and there was no longer strength in them” (Jdt 7:21–22). What is going on here? Does Judith, who is described as an exceedingly God-fearing woman (ἐφοβεῖτο τὸν θεὸν σφόδρα, Jdt 8:8), secretly keep water in order to indulge herself without feeling any responsibility for the inhabitants of her town? On the contrary, a high degree of communal responsibility is indicated by her decision to take a || It is a great privilege for me to contribute to this Festschrift in honor of Prof. Stefan C. Reif on the occasion of his 75th birthday, an outstanding scholar, long time member of the ISDCL’s advisory board and dear friend.

https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110630282-008

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severe personal risk to save them from being conquered and presumably raped and murdered by Holofernes’s army. Thus, what does the text of Jdt 10:3 tell us? Obviously connected to this passage is also Jdt 12:8–9 where again Judith on three consecutive nights takes a bath outside the enemy’s camp to keep herself pure. Skimming quickly through some commentaries1 I was amazed to find not even a hint of the possibility of a ritual immersion, especially in Jdt 10:3. Only recently Yonatan Adler joined earlier commentators on Jdt 12:7 who connect Judith’s bath during her stay outside Holofernes’s camp with ritual immersion and describes it as “purificatory in nature”2 and he also cites archeological evidence from the late Second Temple period. This article will therefore deal with both texts, address the criteria relating to ritual immersion according to the Bible and the mishnaic background, and elaborate some relevant elements within the book of Judith.

2 Time frames3 The two bathing scenes in the book of Judith occur within a specific range of time: in Jdt 9:1 and 12:9. In the first occurrence, at the beginning of a new paragraph, the author of the story tells us that the heroine begins her preparations to rescue Bethulia, and subsequently Jerusalem with its Temple, by performing rites of mourning. She humbles herself, strips herself of her clothes and prays. All this happens “in the evening” (ἑσπέρα). Additionally, the text specifies that the scene takes place on the roof top of Judith’s house at the same time as the incense offering in the Temple of Jerusalem is carried out (ἄρτι προσφερόμενον ἐν Ιερουσαλημ εἰς τὸν οἶκον τοῦ θεοῦ τὸ θυμίαμα).4 In order to gain a clear idea about this specific “time” one must take into account Exod 30:8: Aaron lights the lamps in the late afternoon at twilight be|| 1 Without mention: Miller, Bücher; Enslin, Book of Judith, 127: “washed her body all over with water”; Bullard and Hatton, Handbook, 402: “a long clause in Greek. It is deliberately drawn out and sensuous: ‘she washed her body all over with water’”; Otzen, Tobit and Judith, 72: “bathes and anoints her body”; Moore, Judith, 200: “Lit. ‘washed her body’”; Gera, Judith, 331: “There was a water shortage in Bethulia!”; Schmitz and Engel, Judit, 318: “Sie nimmt ein Vollbad (wörtlich »sie umwogte ihren Körper mit Wasser«), was angesichts des lebensbedrohlich knappen und streng rationierten Wassers erstaunlich ist...” 2 Adler, “Hellenistic Origins,” 4. 3 See Schmitz and Engel, Judit, 56, 317, referring especially to Bogaert who worked on a wide range of time specifications. 4 Cf. Dan 6:11; Pss 55:18; 119:164.

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fore dark (‫ ֵבּין ָה ֲ ְר ַבּיִ ם‬/ὀψέ)5 and then offers the fragrant incense on the golden altar. For the same procedure, 2 Chr 13:11 uses slightly different wording: ‫וּב ֶ ֶרב־‬ ָ 6 ‫ ָבּ ֶ ֶרב‬/δείλης. This means that the sequence is opened by a cultic reference in Jdt 9:1, before Judith starts her prayer and prepares to leave for the enemy’s camp. She takes her bath, makes herself as attractive as possible and orders her accompanying maid to carry “vegan/kosher” food7 with her. Everybody acknowledges her beauty. Before they leave, a humble Judith recites a quick prayer, and they then set out from the town. The heroine gets an admiring reception and is led to Holofernes. According to 11:5 it is already night (ἐν τῇ νυκτὶ ταύτῃ) when she gets the chance to address the general, telling him that, as his slave, she will not “report falsehood to my lord.” Judith flatters him and promises him that he will attain his goal as long as he follows her advice. She explains to the general that she has abandoned her people and has come over to the enemy because they are about to sin against God, seeking, as they will, permission to eat the priests’ tithe (τὰς δεκάτας τοῦ οἴνου καὶ τοῦ ἐλαίου, ἃ διεφύλαξαν ἁγιάσαντες τοῖς ἱερεῦσιν τοῖς παρεστηκόσιν ἐν Ιερουσαλημ ἀπέναντι τοῦ προσώπου τοῦ θεοῦ ἡμῶν, 11:13). Judith states that she has foreknowledge and will pass on this message to Holofernes (κατὰ πρόγνωσίν μου καὶ ἀπηγγέλη μοι, καὶ ἀπεστάλην ἀναγγεῖλαί σοι, 11:19): “For your slave is devout and serving the God of heaven night and day (νυκτὸς καὶ ἡμέρας), and now I shall remain with you, my lord…” (11:16). Her only conditions are that she be permitted to leave the camp at night (κατὰ νύκτα) for a close ravine in order to pray (11:17),8 and to eat her own food and thus to avoid committing any sin (ἵνα μὴ γένηται σκάνδαλον, 12:2). Judith would receive God’s message, when her people duly sinned, and would swiftly pass on the information to Holofernes so that he would be able to set forth with his troops. She would lead him “through the midst of Judea until you come before Ierousalem, and I shall set your seat in its midst” (11:19). No question, her

|| 5 Cf. m. Yoma 3:5: ‫ ָה ַ ְר ַבּיִ ם‬. 6 Cf. Ps 141:2; Luke 1:9–10; Rev 5:8; 8:3–4. 7 Jdt 10:5: “a skin of wine and cruse of oil, and she filled a bag with barley meal and fig cake and pure bread (ἄρτων καθαρῶν).” The author especially stresses that Judith packed the food in “all her vessels” (πάντα τὰ ἀγγεῖα αὐτῆς) in order to show that she completely separates herself from any impurity. 8 At this point of the story there is no disclosure that Judith wants to maintain her purity by bathing every night.

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speech is ambiguous and deceptive,9 but everybody is “awestruck by her wisdom” (ἐθαύμασαν ἐπὶ τῇ σοφίᾳ αὐτῆς 11:20). Holofernes accepts Judith’s conditions and allocates to her and her maid a tent10 for themselves (12:5). There the heroine sleeps until midnight and arises towards the morning watch (μέχρι μεσούσης τῆς νυκτός· … πρὸς τὴν ἑωθινὴν φυλακήν). These time specifications need explanation: the middle of the night might not mean exactly 00:00h but describes the time when it is darkest, not taking into account a full moon. It is the time equidistant between dusk in the evening and dawn in the morning. The psalmist says: “At midnight I shall rise to give thanks to You” (Ps 119:62). Maybe Judith does the same when she sleeps only until then and gets up later “towards the morning watch” (cf. Exod 14:24).11 It is at this time that it is hardest for a guard to keep awake in an army camp, which is why they then change the guards for the final time during the night. There is a discussion12 in the literature (b. Ber. 3a–b) as to whether one has to assume here a three-watch (cf. Judg 7:19; Jub. 49:10, 12), or four-watch system (cf. Mark 13:35), as in the Greco-Roman period. But the significance of this is negligible. Judith can only walk outside the camp to the ravine at dusk. Both, she and her maid need to recognize their way to the well. On the other hand, it still has to be dark enough so that no guard can watch a bathing woman in her nakedness or spy on her as she flees back to Bethulia on the fourth night. Only during the first night watch (between 2 and 4 a.m.) does Judith send a message to Holofernes so that the bodyguards (τοῖς σωματοφύλαξιν, 12:7)13 will not prevent her from leaving the camp against his wishes. But on the following three nights the two women just walk out without being hindered. This habit then enables them to flee after Holofernes’s beheading. The three-day ritual reminds the reader of other important sets of “three days” in the Bible, which are times of decision and rescue. In Gen 40:13, Joseph tells Pharaoh’s cupbearer that he will be freed from prison after three days and in Josh 2:16, 22, Rahab advises the Israelites where to go into hiding for three days so as not to be caught. Jonah is expectorated from the fish after three days and nights, which “convinces” him to go on God’s mis|| 9 Cf. Moore, Judith, 203, 211; Gera, Judith, 352, 359 “duplicitous irony”; Schmitz and Engel, Judit, 330–31. 10 Schmitz and Engel, Judit, 316, assume that this is Holofernes’s treasure room. 11 Schmitz and Engel, Judit, 344: “Dies ist mehr als nur eine ungefähre Zeitangabe: Die Morgenwache (zwischen 3 und 6 Uhr) ist in der Bibel mit dem Rettungshandeln Gottes verbunden.” 12 Cf. Enslin, Book of Judith, 145; Bullard and Hatton, Handbook, 441; Moore, Judith, 219; Gera, Judith, 372. 13 Are they his bodyguards or hers?

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sion to Nineveh (Jonah 1:17; cf. Matt 12:40).14 Not to forget Jesus’s resurrection after three days (Luke 24:46–47). But the closest parallel is obviously found in the book of Esther.15 All Jews of Persia are threatened with murder on the thirteenth day of Adar through Haman’s initiative (Esth 3:13). Mordecai asks Esther for help. Knowing that only the king can change the situation, she decides to approach him even if that is forbidden under the threat of death (cf. 4:11). In preparation for such a courageous undertaking she gives order that the Jews of Susa should fast for her, neither eating nor drinking night and day for three days (‫ ְשׁ ֶשׁת יָ ִמים ַליְ ָלה וָ יוֹם‬/ἐπὶ ἡμέρας τρεῖς νύκτα καὶ ἡμέραν). She and her maids will do the same and according to the LXX she prays. If she perishes, she perishes (Esth 4:16). Both Esther and Judith risk their lives while trying to rescue their people. Certainly the most important three-day preparation is the one that the Israelites undertake at Mount Sinai in order to commit themselves to God’s covenant. Moshe has to consecrate them (‫וְ ִק ַדּ ְשׁ ָתּם‬/ἅγνισον αὐτοὺς) and the people have to wash their garments (‫וְ ִכ ְבּסוּ ִשׂ ְמ ָתם‬/πλυνάτωσαν τὰ ἱμάτια Exod 19:10, 14)16 in preparation for the divine epiphany (Exod 19:10–16) so that they can receive the Ten Commandments. The washing or changing of garments is often combined with the purification of a person through water. Certain limitations of time, from one to seven days, are also mentioned for these rituals. Going back to Judith’s story, the frame around the bathing scenes reaches its closure in Jdt 12:9. During the morning watch the heroine goes into the ravine close to Bethulia, she takes a bath in a spring, prays and returns to the tent. Then she fasts the whole day and takes her meal “toward evening” (πρὸς ἑσπέραν, 12:9).

|| 14 Cf. Matt 27:63//Mark 8:31; 9:31; 10:34. 15 Cf. Moore, Judith, 213–16; Gera, Judith, 330–32, 344. ֶ ‫וְ ִה ַטּ ֲהרוּ וְ ַה ֲח ִליפוּ ִשׂ ְמ ֵת‬/ 16 Cf. Gen 35:2: Jacob’s household prepares for the meeting with Esau (‫יכם‬ καθαρίσασθε καὶ ἀλλάξατε τὰς στολὰς ὑμῶν); Lev 15:5: reaction to a bodily discharge ( ‫י ְַכ ֵבּס‬ ‫ד־ה ָ ֶרב‬ ָ ַ ‫ ְבּגָ ָדיו וְ ָר ַחץ ַבּ ַמּ ִים וְ ָט ֵמא‬/πλυνεῖ τὰ ἱμάτια αὐτοῦ καὶ λούσεται ὕδατι καὶ ἀκάθαρτος ֶ ‫ֹה־ת ֲ ֶשׂה ָל ֶהם ְל ַט ֲה ָרם ַהזֵּ ה ֲ ֵל‬ ἔσται ἕως ἑσπέρας); Num 8:7: consecration of the Levites ( ‫יהם ֵמי‬ ַ ‫וְ כ‬ ‫יהם וְ ִה ֶטּ ָהרוּ‬ ֶ ‫ל־בּ ָשׂ ָרם וְ ִכ ְבּסוּ ִבגְ ֵד‬ ְ ‫ל־כּ‬ ָ ַ ‫ ַח ָטּאת וְ ֶה ֱ ִבירוּ ַת ַ ר‬/καὶ οὕτως ποιήσεις αὐτοῖς τὸν ἁγνισμὸν αὐτῶν· περιρρανεῖς αὐτοὺς ὕδωρ ἁγνισμοῦ, καὶ ἐπελεύσεται ξυρὸν ἐπὶ πᾶν τὸ σῶμα αὐτῶν, καὶ πλυνοῦσιν τὰ ἱμάτια αὐτῶν καὶ καθαροὶ ἔσονται); 8:21; 19:19: purification after contact with a corpse ( ‫וּביּוֹם ַה ְשּׁ ִבי ִ י וְ ִח ְטּאוֹ ַבּיּוֹם ַה ְשּׁ ִבי ִ י וְ ִכ ֶבּס ְבּגָ ָדיו וְ ָר ַחץ ַבּ ַמּיִ ם‬ ַ ‫ישׁי‬ ִ ‫ל־ה ָטּ ֵמא ַבּיּוֹם ַה ְשּׁ ִל‬ ַ ַ ‫וְ ִהזָּ ה ַה ָטּהֹר‬ ‫וְ ָט ֵהר ָבּ ָ ֶרב‬/καὶ περιρρανεῖ ὁ καθαρὸς ἐπὶ τὸν ἀκάθαρτον ἐν τῇ ἡμέρᾳ τῇ τρίτῃ καὶ ἐν τῇ ἡμέρᾳ τῇ ἑβδόμῃ, καὶ ἀφαγνισθήσεται τῇ ἡμέρᾳ τῇ ἑβδόμῃ καὶ πλυνεῖ τὰ ἱμάτια αὐτοῦ καὶ λούσεται ὕδατι καὶ ἀκάθαρτος ἔσται ἕως ἑσπέρας); Rev 22:14: Μακάριοι οἱ πλύνοντες τὰς στολὰς αὐτῶν, ἵνα ἔσται ἡ ἐξουσία αὐτῶν ἐπὶ τὸ ξύλον τῆς ζωῆς.

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In the cultic context the time specification of “evening” is well known for the beginning of feasts, as, for example, its special mention for Passover, which starts at twilight (Lev 23:4: ‫ ֵבּין ָה ַ ְר ָבּיִ ם‬/ἀνὰ μέσον τῶν ἑσπερινῶν). In the initial creation account in Genesis evening marks the beginning for each day of God’s activities.17 For the most important day in Judaism, that is, for Yom Kippur, we find the wording “from evening to evening.” Lev 23:26–32 specifies the date, the offering and the preparations each Jew should undertake: one humbles his or her soul, avoids working and has a complete rest from “evening until evening” (‫ ְבּ ִת ְשׁ ָ ה ַלח ֶֹדשׁ ָבּ ֶ ֶרב ֵמ ֶ ֶרב ַ ד־ ֶ ֶרב ִתּ ְשׁ ְבּתוּ ַשׁ ַבּ ְתּ ֶכם‬/ἀπὸ ἐνάτης τοῦ μηνὸς ἀπὸ ἑσπέρας ἕως ἑσπέρας σαββατιεῖτε τὰ σάββατα ὑμῶν v. 32) in order to obtain atonement. Within these brief examples one can see that the “evening” is the beginning of something new, symbolizing a break and a time change. The book of Judith provides a time frame from “evening until evening” combined with a three dayperiod of preparation in between, while Judith performs cult-related rituals for her courageous plan of salvation on the fourth night. Thus, the author relates Judith’s acts to a specific setting.

3 Judith’s preparations for her heroic deed 3.1 First bathing scene – Judith’s bath at home (Jdt 10:3) Once the heroine learned that the three elders of Bethulia had given in to the pressure of the inhabitants and set a five-day ultimatum for God to rescue his people, or they will surrender to Holofernes and his army, she orders the chiefs to her house where she confronts them (8:9–31). Finally, Judith offers rescue by her own hand18 without exactly revealing her plan (8:32–34). After wishing her peace, they descend from the tent on the roof of her house (8:35–36). Left alone, Judith begins with her ritual preparations and “fell face down, and she placed ashes upon her head and stripped off the sackcloth that she wore, and just then in Ierousalem the incense for that evening (τῆς ἑσπέρας ἐκείνης)19 was being carried into the house of God, and with a loud voice Ioudith cried out to the Lord” (Jdt 9:1). After finishing her prayer (vv. 2–14), she calls her maid and also leaves the roof of her house where she spent all her time fasting after her hus|| 17 Cf. ‫וַ יְ ִהי־ ֶ ֶרב וַ יְ ִהי־בֹ ֶקר‬/καὶ ἐγένετο ἑσπέρα καὶ ἐγένετο πρωί in Gen 1:5, 8, 13, 19, 23, 31. 18 See the table in Schmitz and Engel, Judit, 296–97. 19 This formulation occurs only once in the LXX.

Did Judith Go to the Miqweh? | 107

band’s death with the sole exceptions of sabbaths and feasts. She goes down (καταβαίνω) into the interior of her home; there Judith “removed the sackcloth which she wore and stripped off the clothing of her widowhood” (10:3) to take a bath: περιεκλύσατο τὸ σῶμα ὕδατι. According to LEH the verb περικλύζομαι20 means “to wash oneself, to bathe oneself ” all around. The Vulgate translates with “lavit corpus suum,” but the Syriac interestingly with (“and she washed her mouth with water”21). The author of the latter version must have realized the awkwardness of the situation with the rationed water in Bethulia and smoothed his translation accordingly. This way the heroine only uses a little amount of water for her preparations while the inhabitants are suffering from thirst. Perhaps this is intended to give the impression that Judith is compassionate toward her people. It makes her look less like a creature of luxury, especially as she afterwards anoints herself with thick ointment and dons the finery of a queen (10:3–4).22 This unease about her extensive use of water is mirrored in the important English translations, which presuppose washing but not immersion: she washed all over (NJB) washed her body all over with water (KJV) she washed herself, all around the body, with water (NETS).

These translations give the impression that Judith is using the smallest amount of water just to clean her body. One could see this as a necessary preparation to attract Holofernes physically. A smelly body might turn him off, even if the outfit is that of a queen. But this translation does not reflect the accurate meaning of περικλύζομαι, which refers to a lavish use of water. This becomes more obvious in the following translation: “[she] bathed her body with water” (NRSV).

|| 20 Cf. κατακλύζω (MT: ‫ )שׁטף‬in Jer 47(29):2; Ezek 13:11, 13; 38:22; Ps 77(78):20; Wis 10:4, 19, which refers to an overflow of water. 21 My translation. 22 Cf. Deut 21:10–14; Ruth 3:3; Esth 2:12. The anointing reminds one of the rituals by the high priest in Exod 30:22–33.

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3.2 For comparison: Tobias’s bath in the Tigris (Tob 6:2–3) The verb περικλύζομαι has only one other occurrence in the LXX, namely, in Tob 6:2(3) (codices A, B; Gk. I: παιδάριον κατέβη περικλύσασθαι).23 There it refers to Tobias who, in the angel’s company, travels to Ecbatana. “2 Now as they walked on the road they came at evening (ἑσπέρα) to the Tigris River and camped there. 3 Then the young man went down (καταβαίνω) to wash himself.” The reason for washing oneself after a long day’s journey on foot in this region and climate is obvious: Tobias was sweaty and dusty and wanted to clean himself with the water of the river. The natural thing to do in a river would be first to take off one’s clothes and then to immerse oneself or dive into the water, providing there is no imminent danger there. At the meta-level, this context is part of Tobias’s rites of initiation into manhood in preparation to become a bridegroom for Sarah and to fulfill his father’s instruction. In the course of his activities he has to overcome a dangerous situation, namely an attack by a fish. Only then can he finally act as a savior both for his bride-to-be, by freeing her from the wicked demon Asmodaios, and also for his blind father Tobit, by healing his eyes with the fish organs. Apparently, the angelic companion has no need to be refreshed in the water or by any food (10:5 in the singular ἔφαγεν, cf. 12:19).

3.3 The plot As mentioned above, Judith’s ritual preparations commence in 9:1 following the departure of the three elders of Bethulia and in the late afternoon at the time of the incense offering in the Temple. Late that night, in the company of her maid, she encounters the Assyrian sentinels who question her. They arrange for a hundred men to accompany her to their general Holofernes. Is Judith’s beauty so dangerous that such a cohort of men must guard her? Or is this a guard of honor for a woman who presents herself like a queen? The Assyrians obviously transfer their admiration for Judith to her people and that strengthens their drive to kill each of them “who upon their release will be able to outwit all the earth” (Jdt 10:19). Entering Holofernes’s tent, where he resides in all his luxury, Judith overwhelms his entourage with her beauty. Judith does him honor in || 23 Gk. II κατέβη τὸ παιδίον περινίψασθαι τοὺς πόδας; par. Vulg. lavaret pedes suos. Moore, Tobit, 199, mentions “in the Old Testament, the male and female sex organs are sometimes euphemistically referred to as ‘the feet’.” Within the context of Asmodaios’s possessiveness towards Sarah, this might be viewed as an assault on Tobias’s capability to consummate the marriage.

Did Judith Go to the Miqweh? | 109

typically oriental manner24 with prokynesis (πεσοῦσα ἐπὶ πρόσωπον προσεκύνησεν αὐτῷ, 10:23). In chapter 11 a dialogue develops between the two of them. The general tries to calm her down and the heroine explains her changeover as motivated by the planned breach of cultic laws by her own people facing starvation.25 She refers several times to herself as “your slave…your girl” (τῆς δούλης σου, καὶ λαλησάτω ἡ παιδίσκη σου, 11:5), “your girl” (τῆς παιδίσκης σου, 11:6), “your slave” (ἡ δούλη σου, 11:16, 17 [2x]; cf. 12:4, 6), perhaps to counter any suspicion of her as a highly dangerous woman and to display her servility before Holofernes. She flatters him26 by praising his power to control humans, “the beasts of the field and the cattle and the birds of the sky” (11:7),27 “your wisdom and of the cunning ways of your spirit” and his brilliant system of warfare (θαυμαστὸς ἐν στρατεύμασιν πολέμου, v. 8). The heroine deceivingly promises him her help for the conquest of her city, Jerusalem, with the Temple, and her whole country. Needless to say, Judith is also a brilliant strategist. The Assyrians are “awestruck by her wisdom” and dazzled by her beauty. Holofernes is even prompted to say: “if you do as you have said, your God shall be my God (ὁ θεός σου ἔσται μου θεός),28 and you shall be seated in the house of King Nebuchadnezzar, and you shall be famous more than the entire earth” (11:23; cf. 12:13). It is certainly not an attractive prospect for Judith, an independent woman, to be incorporated into the harem of the Assyrian king! And does Holofernes really want to convert? It might be partly the exchange of oriental courtesies.

|| 24 Schmitz and Engel, Judit, 331–32. 25 Gera, Judith, 359, discusses the divergence between the cultic laws in the Pentateuch and Judith’s remarks to Holofernes. She notes the possibility that the discrepancy might be explained by “changing practices … at the Second Temple period” but then asserts: “Judith is weaving a blatantly false tale for a non-Jew who is ignorant of Israelite laws and practices” (pp. 370–71). 26 Cf. Moore, Judith, 210; Gera, Judith, 354–55, hints that, with her praise of Holofernes, Judith “is simultaneously pretending to acknowledge Nebuchadnezzar’s near-divine status”; Schmitz and Engel, Judit, 332–35 posit that Holofernes’s three attributes comprise morality, intelligence and military skills (p. 334). 27 Cf. Gen 2:20; 7:14, 21; 9:10; Jer 9:9(10). 28 Cf. Ruth 1:16; 2 Kgs 5:17; Jdt 14:10; 2 Macc 3:35–36.

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3.4 Judith’s keeps her purity After explaining the plot, we may now deal with the central section (12:1–9) which notes Judith’s ritual purity in the description of her meals and the second bathing scene. The unit maybe divided into the following subsections: v. 1 vv. 2–4 v. 5 vv. 6–7a vv. 7b–9

Holofernes’s first invitation for dinner Ostensible dialogue between Judith and Holofernes about “food” Judith in her tent Judith’s request to Holofernes for permission to leave the camp The three days, evenings and nights.

Since Holofernes had been talking to Judith just beforehand (11:21–23), the author sees no need to repeat the general’s name, even if a new section starts in 12:1. In 10:22, the two main actors encounter each other for the first time, in the anteroom of Holofernes’s tent in the illumination emanating from silver torches (λαμπάδες ἀργυραῖ). Now Judith is guided to his dining room table with all his silver service (τὰ ἀργυρώματα αὐτοῦ; cf. 15:11) on which some of “his finest food” (ἀπὸ τῶν ὀψοποιημάτων αὐτοῦ) is spread out for her along with “some of his own wine” (τοῦ οἴνου αὐτοῦ, 12:1).29 Judith wouldn’t have been overly impressed by his silver because she had inherited from her husband “gold and silver and male and female servants and cattle and fields” (cf. 2:18; 5:9). Judith is a prosperous lady in her own right. But Judith has to reject this first dinner invitation in the enemy’s camp and argues respectfully with her host about it. She cannot consume his food because this would cause a σκάνδαλον,30 a sin (12:2).31 That of course would be incompatible with her explanation to Holofernes that her people may now be conquered since they are planning to break the law of food restrictions (πάντα, ὅσα διεστείλατο αὐτοῖς ὁ θεὸς τοῖς νόμοις αὐτοῦ μὴ φαγεῖν, 11:12). This sin makes Bethulia vulnerable, and Judith, as a God-fearing woman (θεοσεβής ἐστιν; προσεύξομαι πρὸς τὸν θεόν, 11:17),32 cannot commit the same transgression

|| 29 Cf. Jdt 12:13, 17, 20; 13:2. 30 BDAG: “an action or circumstance that leads one to act contrary to a proper course of action or set of beliefs, temptation to sin, enticement to apostasy, false belief.” According to Enslin, Book of Judith, 144: “not in the eyes of men, … but in the eyes of God;” Bullard and Hatton, Handbook, 439: “to avoid … a ritual violations of dietary law.” 31 Cf. Dan 1:8 “But Daniel was determined in his heart that he not defile himself (μὴ ἀλισγηθῆ) with the king’s dinner and the wine that he drank, and he petitioned the chief eunuch so that he not be contaminated (ἵνα μὴ συμμολυνθῇ).” 32 Compare Schmitz and Engel, Judit, 64–65, 246–48.

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because it would cause God to despise her and, apparently, her people with the consequence that she would lose her “foreknowledge” (πρόγνωσίν μου, 11:19),33 which is essential for the general’s military success. This is the only reason why Holofernes would accept Judith’s conditions (11:17–18; cf. 12:6–7) allowing her to leave the camp at night for her prayers. However, there is biblical evidence that, in the case of starvation, one may eat even “the bread of the Presence” (‫ ֶל ֶחם ַה ָפּנִ ים‬, 1 Sam 21:4–7) “… because the preserving of his own life overrides all of the Torah’s prohibitions. This is the halakha concerning all prohibitions except for those of idol worship, forbidden sexual relations, and bloodshed” (b. Sanh. 74a). One must examine more closely the food that the general offers Judith as it consists of some of his most delicious dishes and thereby is a means of tempting her. The Greek word ὀψοποίημα is a hapax legomenon which has a general meaning of “food,” but, in this case, refers more specifically to “dressed meat” (LEH), which, for reasons of kashrut, the pious Jewess would not eat. In addition, his wine has the potential of making her drunk and more readily seducible. Holofernes’s attempt at seduction has already begun.34 Judith suggests instead that she should eat “from the things which have accompanied me” (ἐκ τῶν ἠκολουθηκότων μοι χορηγηθήσεται, 12:2). She refers to the vegetarian food (cf. Dan 1:12)35 that is already mentioned in Jdt 10:5: “a skin of wine and cruse of oil, and … a bag with barley meal and fig cake and pure bread.”36 The maid carried it into the enemy’s camp for her. Holofernes then asks how her food supply may be replenished when she has consumed all of it. His argument is: “For there is none from your race with us” (ἐκ τοῦ γένους37 σου, 12:3).38 The heroine assures him with an ironic undertone39 that as surely as || 33 Cf. Egger-Wenzel, “Mirjam,” 95–122. 34 See Reif’s article, “Bread with another Meaning?” describing some examples in the Hebrew Bible of “eating as metaphor for sex”. 35 Moore, Judith, 201, compares Esther to Judith, whose “scrupulousness with regard to kašrût is far greater” and relates that to the date of composition. See Chesnutt’s article about reservations towards the gentile wine and oil (“Perception,” 129). 36 Cf. Tob 1:10 ἐκ τῶν ἄρτων τῶν ἐθνῶν. Moore, Judith, 201, refers to Dubarle, assuming with him that the text originally went along with Syr. ( ) and Vulg. (caseum) “bread and cheese,” but was later corrupted; Gera, Judith, 334, mentions that salty cheese makes Holofernes thirsty, which causes him to drink more wine than usual. “Since Judith is linked with Hanukkah in medieval times, this later detail of her story becomes the explanation for the custom of eating cheese dishes on Hanukkah,” Schmitz and Engel, Judit, 44. 37 Cf. Jdt 5:10; 6:2, 5, 19; 8:20, 32; 9:14; 11:10; 12:3; 13:20; 15:9; 16:17, 24. 38 One finds the same wording in Lev 21:17 and Tob 6:16 referring to endogamy for Aaron’s descendants and for Tobias.

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he lives, “your slave will not exhaust the things with me.” She also alludes to the tool of his death in the temporal indicator that follows, “… before the lord has accomplished by my hand what he has resolved” (12:4). Judith speaks with a double meaning; she is going to kill the mighty enemy with her own hand, but he is still impressed by the fact that this beautiful woman addresses him as κύριος. In 12:5 Judith again changes location: she is led to her own tent, which she seems to share with her maid. Verses 5–9 describe her daily routine: she sleeps until midnight and arises “towards the morning watch” (12:6), around 2 to 4 a.m. depending on the seasonal length of day. Presumably, as a pious, Godfearing person, she spends this interval dressing and praying. Only on the first night does she send a message to Holofernes asking for his permission to leave the camp for prayer. The general tells the bodyguards not to hinder her (12:7a). So, in the course of her three-day stay, the guards become accustomed to her routine.

3.5 Judith’s second bath (Jdt 12:7b–9) On the one hand, this subunit is framed through the time specifications: ἡμέρας τρεῖς in combination with κατὰ νύκτα in 7bc and πρὸς ἑσπέραν in 9c; on the other hand, the locations mentioned form an inclusion as well: ἐν τῇ παρεμβολῇ40 with εἰς τὴν φάραγγα Βαιτυλουα in 7bc, ἐν τῇ παρεμβολῇ ἐπὶ τῆς πηγῆς τοῦ ὕδατος in 7d, and ἐν τῇ σκηνῇ in 9c. The repeated phrase ἐν τῇ παρεμβολῇ in 7d causes a problem. It makes no sense if Judith took her bath within the camp. Then she would not have any chance to escape. So, some translators delete “in the camp,”41 while others shift the meaning to “within the range of, at, near” (BDAG)42 the camp. The beginning and the end of the subunit have their setting in the enemy’s camp, where Judith does not display any activity apart from eating in her tent.

|| 39 Miller, Bücher, 98. 40 Cf. Hanhart, Iudith, 123; the NRSV translates accordingly: “and bathed at the spring in the camp.” 41 Cf. NETS. But see the contradiction in the text of Jdt 6:11 when the slaves of Holofernes led Achior “outside of the camp (ἔξω τῆς παρεμβολῆς) into the plain, and they made their way … into the high country and arrived at the springs, which were beneath Baityloua.” 42 Cf. KJVA, Septuaginta Deutsch, Lutherbibel (2017); Moore, Judith, 119, refers to Movers, who suggests that “en parembolē, ‘in the camp,’ was a misreading of Heb mhndh, ‘from the uncleanness,’ as bmḥnh, ‘in the camp’”; Bullard and Hatton, Handbook, 443; Gera, Judith, 373.

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This is underlined through another inclusion. In 7b we find παρέμεινεν and in 9b παρέμενεν, a verb that expresses passivity on Judith’s side: v. 7b

v. 8

v. 9

καὶ παρέμεινεν ἐν τῇ παρεμβολῇ ἡμέρας τρεῖς· καὶ ἐξεπορεύετο κατὰ νύκτα εἰς τὴν φάραγγα Βαιτυλουα καὶ ἐβαπτίζετο ἐν τῇ παρεμβολῇ ἐπὶ τῆς πηγῆς τοῦ ὕδατος· καὶ ὡς ἀνέβη, ἐδέετο τοῦ κυρίου θεοῦ Ισραηλ κατευθῦναι τὴν ὁδὸν αὐτῆς εἰς ἀνάστημα τῶν υἱῶν τοῦ λαοῦ αὐτοῦ· καὶ εἰσπορευομένη καθαρὰ παρέμενεν ἐν τῇ σκηνῇ, μέχρι οὗ προσηνέγκατο τὴν τροφὴν αὐτῆς πρὸς ἑσπέραν.

Judith stays in the military camp for three days and follows her daily routine. Combined with the locations, the author notes her movement in three directions: she leaves (ἐκ-πορεύομαι) the camp (7c), she rises up (ἀνα-βαίνω, 8a), presumably from the water, and she enters (εἰσ-πορεύομαι) her tent in the camp once again (9b). Between her departure from the camp and her arising out of the water Judith does her immersion; right in the center of this subunit, between her motion upward and her return to the tent, she prays (δέομαι) to the Lord, God of Israel (8bc). The plea to God transforms her physical and upwardly directed movement into a spiritual one. The middle part of this section merits closer examination. Judith goes to a spring in a ravine that is located between Bethulia and the Assyrian encampment. This ensures that she is screened from any peeping Toms from her hometown or from the camp, when she wishes to take a bath during the night. We learn only from 13:10 that Judith used to leave the encampment accompanied by her maid (ἐξῆλθον αἱ δύο ἅμα κατὰ τὸν ἐθισμὸν αὐτῶν ἐπὶ τὴν προσευχήν· καὶ διελθοῦσαι τὴν παρεμβολὴν). In these circumstances the pious woman is able to take a bath in a spring of water (12:7d). This time, different terminology is used: βαπτίζω means “1. to wash ceremonially for purpose of purification, wash, purify, of a broad range of repeated ritual washing rooted in Israelite tradition … 2. to use water in a rite for purpose of renewing or establishing a relationship w. God, plunge, dip, wash, baptize” (BDAG). Most occurrences are in the New Testament (80x), whereas in the LXX there are, including the book of Judith, only four references. Three of these pertain to ritual ablution. Naaman, the commander of the Aramean army is a leper, whom the prophet Elisha instructs to immerse himself (‫רחץ‬/λούω; cf. Lev 14:1– 9) seven times in the river Jordan (2 Kgs 5:10), which he does according to 5:14 (‫וַ יִּ ְטבֹּל‬/ἐβαπτίσατο). As a result, he is healed from leprosy and “clean” (‫וַ יִּ ְט ָהר‬/ ἐκαθαρίσθη). Sir 34:30(25) focuses on the topic of impurity (‫ ָט ֵמא‬/ἀκάθαρτος)

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due to contact with a corpse (cf. Num 19:11–22): “When one bathes (βαπτιζόμενος) due to a corpse and when one touches it again—what did he gain by his washing (ἐν τῷ λουτρῷ αὐτοῦ)?” The author places in parallel βαπτίζω and the noun λουτρόν from the verb λούω. In Isa 21:4, βαπτίζω is used metaphorically. The ritual meaning of these two examples and the statement εἰσπορευομένη καθαρά in Jdt 12:9a make it quite clear that Judith takes her bath to purify herself. We find the second reference of καθαρός in Jdt 10:5, where the heroine prepares, among other supplies, ἄρτων καθαρῶν for her endeavor. Thus, she is obviously anxious about the purity of her food and keeps it completely separate from that of the Assyrians, because she does not want to transgress God’s laws (12:2c, σκάνδαλον; cf. 11:11–12, 17, ἁμάρτημα). But what is her rationale for washing her body before her prayer? I shall return later to this topic. Judith clearly immerses herself completely into the water, as the author stresses that she rises or comes up again (ἀνα-βαίνω, 12:8a). It is not likely that the writer means that she had to climb up from the spring into the ravine because there is no mention of her going down into it. The writer is very conscious of inserting into the text locations and the direction of movements. After this physically upward motion, we find in the center of the unit Judith’s prayer (12:8bc) to the “Lord, God of Israel,” a clear title in a text that otherwise conveys a double entendre for the noun κύριος as potentially referring to Israel’s God, Nebuchadnezzar or his general.43 This is the first time that the author uses such brief wording about God. Elsewhere he has his heroine uttering long prayers. Subsequently, a second instance of such brevity occurs just before Judith beheads Holofernes as while holding the hair of his scalp, she addresses God in a short, devout invocation (13:7). At the spring she pleads for God to direct her path and support the uprising (ἀνά-στημα) of her44 people. This “uprising” again expresses an upward movement with the meaning that the Jews should have the strength to stand on their own, to be independent, and certainly not be suppressed by a foreign despot who deems himself to be a god (cf. 2:5– 13; 6:2). In 12:9 the author stresses that Judith, in a purified state (καθαρά), re-enters (εἰσ-πορευομένη) the camp, where she would remain quietly (παρέμενεν) in her tent. Apart from her walks at night to the spring for prayers, Judith seems to be completely passive. That is surely a strategy to allay the enemy’s suspicions. After her immersion in the spring, the pious woman seems to fast the whole day and only eats “her food towards the evening.” The text clearly distinguishes || 43 Cf. Moore, Judith, 208; Gera, Judith, 348, 350–51. 44 Hanhart, Iudith, 123: “his [= God’s] people” according the main codices.

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between “his” (i.e., Holofernes’s) food and wine at the beginning of this unit (12:1), which Judith refuses to touch, and “her” food (τὴν τροφὴν αὐτῆς) in v. 9, which she brought from Bethulia. The topic of Judith’s special diet, which was introduced in 10:5, continues beyond 12:9 in 12:15 and 19, in the account of Holofernes’s second dinner invitation, which will be fatal for him. The second mention of ἑσπέρα, closes another circle which had originated in 9:1. At that point Judith began her preparations for the heroic endeavor to rescue her people. On the third day of her stay at the Assyrian camp she is ritually purified and ready for her dangerous task. All her preparations have been completed and she is set for the next step.

4 Ritual purity 4.1 Facts and terminology In Jewish culture, ritual purity was especially important within the context of the Temple. One had to be ‫“( ָטהֹר‬clean, pure”) in order to enter the Temple and to perform the sacrifices. This is particularly relevant for the priests, Levites and apparently also the scribes (‫ חכמים‬,‫)סופרים‬. If a person touches a corpse or a dead animal, discards body fluids like semen, menstruation blood or lochia (Lev 12), has an abnormal discharge from the genitals (Lev 15) or a skin disease (Lev 13–14), then according to Num 19 he or she has to undergo a ritual of purification with the ashes of a red heifer within a time frame of one to seven days. During this interval, the impure person is separated from the community.45 Impurity, which applied to items or rooms (‫ ָט ֵ ֖מא‬, Lev 13:47–59) had to be dealt with separately. Discussing the various states of impurity according to their respective rituals is beyond the scope of this essay. In any case, while an impure person may have had to undergo all sorts of special rituals, cleaning (‫רחץ‬/λούω)46 with “living water” (‫מיִ ם ַחיִּ ים‬/ὕδατος ζῶντος)47—often in combination with laundering (‫כבס‬/πλύνω)48—was essential

|| 45 Cf. Num 12:15; 31:24; 2 Sam 19:25. 46 Cf. Lev 14:8–9; 15:5–8, 10–11, 13, 16, 21–22, 27; 16:4, 24, 26, 28; 17:15; 22:6; Num 19:7–8, 19; 2 Kgs 5:13. 47 See Lev 14:5, 50; 15:13; Num 19:17; cf. Gen 26:19; Jer 2:13; 17:13; Zech 14:8; Song 4:15. 48 Cf. Exod 19:10, 14; Lev 6:20; 11:25, 28, 40; 13:6, 34, 54–56, 58; 14:8–9, 47; 15:5–8, 10–11, 13, 17, 21–22, 27; 16:26, 28; 17:15–16; Num 8:7, 21; 19:7–8, 10, 19, 21; 31:24; 2 Sam 19:25; Jer 2:22; 4:14; Ps 51:4, 9.

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to attaining ‫ ָט ֳה ָרה‬. “Living water” refers to water from a natural source such as a spring or river. However, we have no clear information about how this kind of body cleansing with water was practiced during the period of the First Temple. Did it take the form of an ablution or a full-body immersion? Did it involve a custom-built pool of water? Adler is convinced that the root ‫ רחץ‬means “to wash” and even if “(t)he practice of full-body immersion undoubtedly traces its earliest beginnings back to the Deuteronomic, Priestly and Holiness codes preserved in the Pentateuch. … There is no reason to assume that in any of these cases the authors or early receivers of these regulations might have had in mind immersion in water ….”49 While the case of Naaman (2 Kgs 5:15) is the singular example of the root ‫טבל‬/βαπτίζω50 seeming to describe a bodily immersion, Adler is not convinced that this text constitutes proof for the existence of a ritual of full immersion. However, in Judith’s case “it appears that the purpose of this immersion was purificatory in nature (cf. Jdt 12:9), it remains questionable whether or not Judith’s actions here should be viewed as in any way representative of normal Levitical purity practices within Jewish society contemporaneous to this work.”51 Adler then mentions another early reference to immersion in 4Q274 2i.4–6 (4QToharot A), which notes the case of immersion (‫ )יטבול‬after contact with semen. On the other hand, Tal Ilan interprets the root ‫ רחץ‬as inclusive of full-body immersion.52 The matter remains controversial. However, the translation of ‫ טבל‬by βαπτίζω makes it more likely that, in the Greek understanding, a full-body immersion for purification reasons is intended (see above 3.4). According to Ilan, in the Mishnah the root ‫ טבל‬refers in 159 cases “to full bodily immersion” of which “19 refer specifically to women.”53

4.2 Archeological evidence If one examines the material culture concerning “bathing,” natural sources such as springs or rivers—even in an area with limited resources—are not as significant as built structures for collecting water. In this respect we have to deal with “stepped pools” or miqwaot for ritual immersion. In four of nine oc|| 49 Adler, “Origins,” 2–3. 50 Cf. Gen 37:31; Exod 12:22; Lev 4:6, 17; 9:9; 14:6, 16, 51; Num 19:18; Deut 33:24; Josh 3:15; 1 Sam 14:27; 2 Kgs 5:14; 8:15; Job 9:31; Ruth 2:14. 51 Adler, “Origins,” 4. 52 See the table in Ilan, “Women,” 90. 53 Ilan, “Women,” 90.

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currences in the Bible, we find a combination of the word miqweh with “water” (‫ה־מיִ ם‬ ַ ֵ‫;) ִמ ְקו‬54 but only Lev 11:36 refers to a cultic context. According to Ronny Reich, miqwaot, as ritual immersion pools, were introduced to the Southern Levant “in the second half of the second century B.C.E.,” presumably under the influence of hot bath-houses (balneum) of the Hellenistic and early Roman culture. These were “usually located only outside the settlement (cf. m. Mikw. 1:4, 8:1).”55 But he adds that “(e)xcavations in the Upper City of Jerusalem have revealed that every private house in the Second Temple Period was provided with at least one miqweh.”56 In this respect, Adler points to the “earliest stepped water installation at Jericho” located in the “Buried Palace,” which Ehud Netzer excavated and dated to 125–115 BCE. In a correction of Reich, he further suggests that “we can quite confidently establish the first century BCE as the rough terminus ante quem for the appearance of the earliest stepped pools.”57 Because it included one step for sitting,58 the author views the Hellenistic hip-bath—which appeared already in the late sixth century BCE in public and private domains in the Mediterranean—as a precursor of the “stepped pool – a ‘proto-mikweh’.”59 Adler suggests that the assimilation of Hellenistic practices resulted in a three stage sift in the meaning of the root ‫ רחץ‬in the Pentateuch: from (a) “to wash” while rinsing the body with water, poured from a small vessel; to (b) a partial-body immersion in a one-step hip bathtub; to (c) “full-body immersion in a stepped pool,” with increased size in depth and the number of steps. This ritualized “washing became increasingly differentiated and distin-

|| 54 Cf. Gen 1:10; Exod 7:19; Lev 11:36; Isa 22:11. 55 Reich, “Bath-House,” 104; on dating and locations see Adler, “Origins,” 7–10: “While it is certainly possible that many other pools which have been dated in a rough manner by their excavators to the ‘late Second Temple period’ might have been first installed at this early stage, in most cases this is simply impossible to establish archeologically” (pp. 9–10). However, a clear indication of ritual use would be the location close to the Temple, synagogues, oil presses (cf. Galor, “Installations,” 211: “stepped pools found in large concentrations within domestic areas”), or winepresses; cf. Netzer, Palaces, 29–32. 56 Reich, “Bath-House,” 106, referring to Nahman Avigad; cf. Galor, “Installations,” 209; Miller, “Stepped Pools,” 215. 57 Adler, “Origins,” 8, 10. 58 According Adler, “Origins,” 12, the seize of such a pool is rather limited: “The standard installation measured approx. 1.00–1.25 metres in length by approx. 0.70–0.75 metres in maximum width towards the rear (the front part for the legs was usually narrower).” 59 Adler, “Origins,” 16. See the distinction made by Galor, “Installations,” 201–2: “maximalists view most stepped pools as serving for ritual immersion, while minimalists oppose the pool’s religious significance without offering an alternative function” (p. 201).

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guished from the profane act of bathing”60 and Jewish groups viewed it as essential in order to effect purification. Eliav notes that Jewish bath-houses are distinguished by their small size and the absence of any “stone images on pedestals” or “three-dimensional sculptures” in them. They provide “segregation between the sexes … by separate chambers,” because pious Jews were distinguished in the Roman world by their reluctance to show their nakedness. The segregation of sexes all for benedictions to be recited and menstruating women to keep themselves separate.61

4.3 Judith in the Miqweh? Returning to my initial question about whether Judith goes to a miqweh, we must distinguish between the two bathing scenes in 10:2–3 and 12:7–9, while also appreciating the features they share in common. I use rabbinic sources in my argument on the premise that the earliest traditions may date back to Second Temple period, even if they were not committed to writing until many centuries later. The book of Judith on the other hand was compiled around 100 BCE, or—if understood as a eulogy for the Hasmonean queen Alexandra Salome—then after her death 67 BCE.62 In Jdt 10:2–3 several components hint at the use of a miqweh, in the heroin’s affluent home. Judith utters first a long prayer in Jdt 9. One would expect that a person undergoes purification by immersing before a prayer as was the custom in Ezra’s time according to b. B. Qam. 82a. But m. Ber. 3:4–6, indicates that, in a later period, going to the miqweh before prayer was no longer postulated, even if very pious circles might have continued to do so out of concern for purity.63 Judith summons her favorite maid, goes down into her house, undresses completely and takes a bath, apparently in the presence of this servant. The

|| 60 Adler, “Origins,” 15–16. 61 Eliav, “Roman Bath,” 453–54. A passage in m. Avod. Zar. 3:4 seems to support Eliav’s conclusion above in the matter of sculptures: in the second century Gamliel was the president of the rabbinical academy in Acre and used to go to the bath-house of Aphrodite adorned with her statue. He was confronted with the argument that for Jews, according to the Pentateuch, it is forbidden to acknowledge the presence of idolatrous gods. Gamliel answered that Aphrodite was a decoration of the bath-house and not the other way around, especially as the statue was placed at the sewer, where everybody urinated. 62 Cf. Rocca, “Book of Judith,” 85–98. 63 Cf. Reif, Judaism, 105: “Ritual ablution would also have been a prerequisite of prayer for such pietists and there are still remnants of such attitudes in the Mishnah…”

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same happens in the second bathing scene at the spring (Jdt 12:7; cf. 13:10). This custom for a bathing woman to be accompanied—or checked—by another female, the balanit, to assure that the immersion is halachic, was not strictly required, nevertheless, it was widely adopted from the medieval period onward. The balanit makes sure that for example no hair, cloth or dirt (cf. m. Mikw. 9:1– 4) prevents the water from completely covering the woman’s body. The book of Judith describes the heroine “going down” (καταβαίνω) three times: in Jdt 10:2 into her house to undress and immerse (περικλύζομαι; cf. m. Ber. 3:5; m. Mikw. 2:1–2 ‫ יָ ַרד ִל ְטבֹּל‬and frequently), and two other times in vv. 10 and 15, when she descends to the enemy’s camp. The only time the heroine “ascends” (ἀναβαίνω; cf. m. Ber. 3:5 ‫וּל ִה ְת ַכּסּוֹת וְ ִל ְקרוֹת ַ ד ֶשׁלּ ֹא ָתנֵ ץ‬ ְ ‫ִאם יָ כוֹל ַל ֲ לוֹת‬ ‫ יַ ֲ ֶלה‬,‫) ַה ַח ָמּה‬, is in the second bathing scene when she leaves the water before sunrise (Jdt 12:8a). These two verbs, καταβαίνω and ἀναβαίνω seem to open and close the circle of bathing scenes, or let’s say immersion, still before dawn. After this, prayer might follow, as Jdt 10:9 and 12:8bc demonstrate. Judith then undresses in the presence of her favorite maid, seemingly without being concerned about privacy, and covers her whole body with water while in Bethulia the precious liquid is running out. The question was already raised before, why this extremely God-fearing and pious woman does not share her water with others. If Judith runs a private miqweh in the basement of her house with “living water” (undrawn) at a minimum of 40 seah64—which according to archeological evidence is quite usual at the time of the book’s compilation— then she would not have shared it, because this water, once used for purification, would make pure people ‫( ָט ֵמא‬m. Mikw. 1:1; 7:6). As pious Judith is concerned about her own purity, she would obviously also care about the cultic integrity of her people. An active miqweh requires constantly replenished running water through an incoming channel and an overflow. If the water level were to run low, due to the climate or interruption in the water supply during the siege of Bethulia, the water might become very muddy and undrinkable, but it would still be valid for immersion as long as there was sufficient water to cover the whole body (CD 10:10–13; m. Mikw. 2:6, 10; b. Ned. 40b:2).

|| 64 This is measured as 24x6 eggs, which amount up to 250 to 1000 liters; Galor, “Installations,” 207. Cf. Kehati, Mishnayot, Miqwaot, 221. The miqwaot found in Israel and dating from as early as the first century BCE may also have had such capacities; even at the small size of about 2x1mx1m they would each hold 2,000 liters.

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Why would Judith immerse at all in order to become pure before going into Holofernes’s camp? She is a God-fearing and almost over-observant65 woman, who had lived “for three years and four months” (forty months!) as a widow: And she had made herself a tent upon the roof of her house and placed sackcloth about her waist, and upon her were the garments of her widowhood. 6 And she had been fasting all the days of her widowhood, apart from pre–sabbaths and sabbaths and pre–new moons and new moons and feasts and rejoicing of the house of Israel (Jdt 8:4–6). 5

However, the regular time of mourning takes only one week (for sitting shiv‘ah).66 In the end, even after her heroic deed there was no lack of candidates to marry her, but she refused (Jdt 16:22 οὐκ ἔγνω ἀνὴρ αὐτὴν πάσας τὰς ἡμέρας τῆς ζωῆς αὐτῆς). As Judith is a widow, she is no longer obliged to use the miqweh after her monthly impurity.67 Does she plan to have intercourse with Holofernes and therefore immerse? But why should she need to immerse three days in a row for a non-Jew? Does the heroine fear the worst, i.e., being raped and murdered, and therefore wish to meet death in a pure status? With God’s help she is going to take an enormous personal risk in trying to get rid of an extremely dangerous enemy and to save her people. This needs a highly intense “contact” with God. Is this the reason for Judith’s wish to be pure? Or is it simply the natural thing to do before a woman dresses up? Whichever reason it might be, the time of the baths are relevant: they take place in the twilight of the evening or towards the morning before the new day breaks, and conclude with a brief prayer afterwards (cf. b. Ber. 25b:2). We find similar time specifications in b. Ber. 3a:4 (‫עד סוף‬ ‫ )האשמורה‬and in Jdt 12:5c (“toward the morning watch”). That is the time when change comes. In Holofernes’s camp Judith not only demonstrates her separation from non-Jews through eating her own food—which her maid had carried—only once a day in the evening, but also through immersion in a spring every night and otherwise remaining during day-time in her tent.68 Wells and rivers contain || 65 Cf. Otzen, Tobit and Judith, 102, 104. 66 Cf. Gen 50:10; Sir 10:13; 38:16–24. 67 Enslin, Book of Judith, 145, 182–90, refers to a late Hebrew text of the legend (‫)מעשה יהודית‬ which explains the necessity of Judith’s ablution because of her monthly impurity. Afterwards she would be willing to have intercourse with Holofernes; Moore, Judith, 119, who refers to Lev 15:19–30, “or defilement by Gentiles (see Acts 10:28);” Bullard and Hatton, Handbook, 442, do not see any trace in the text of this; Gera, Judith, 372–73. 68 The only things Judith accepts from non-Jewish hands are the use of a tent (σκηνή) and sheepskins (κώδιον) which Bagoas gives her upon her arrival in the camp for her to lay on the

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flowing, i.e., “living,” water and are therefore natural sources for ablutions and can be used in the absence of a miqweh (b. Shabb. 65b).69 In this scene the reason for her bathing is clearly spelled out: to purify herself (καθαρά, 12:9) in this hostile and impure environment.70 Jacob Neusner describes this habit for the early rabbis or proto-rabbis (‫)חברים‬: Pre-70 Pharisaism is clearly defined by the Gospels’ Pharisaic pericopes and the rabbinic traditions about the Pharisees. Both stress the same concerns: first, eating secular food in a state of ritual purity; second, careful tithing and giving of agricultural offerings to the priests, and obedience to the biblical rules and taboos concerning raising crops; third, to a lesser degree, some special laws on keeping the Sabbaths and festivals; and, finally, still less commonly, rules on family affairs. Therefore, late Pharisaism … is a cult-centered piety, which proposes to replicate the cult in the home, and thus to effect the Temple’s purity laws at the table of the ordinary Jew.71

All these elements we find in Judith’s activities: besides eating her own food (Jdt 11:12; cf. Jub. 22:16; m. ‘Abod. Zar. 2:3–6; 4:8–12), she mentions in her speech before Holofernes the alleged sins of her people concerning the tithes and offerings (11:13). The heroine herself shows how observant she is if it comes to keeping Shabbat and feasts.72 “Family affairs” might be a euphemism for sexuality. Apart from the danger of being raped in the enemy’s camp, that is of no concern for Judith as she does not remarry after her husband passed away. Altogether the pious woman keeps her life style (δίαιταν αὐτῆς, Jdt 12:15) as described already in 8:4–6. This means that she regularly fasts, has ritual ablutions on a daily basis (10:3; 12:7),73 prays at the time of the evening incense, and enjoys her

|| ground so that she could recline for her meals (Jdt 12:15–16). Moore, Judith, 197, refers to the very hostile attitude towards non-Jews in the book of Esther: “Esther evidences a somewhat sympathetic attitude toward the Gentile king” in contrast to the figure Judith; Bullard and Hatton, Handbook, 444, interpret Judith’s remaining in the tent as modesty. 69 Cf. Kitzur Shulchan Aruch, Siman 162:12; Miller, “Stepped Pools,” 215. 70 See Bullard and Hatton, Handbook, 442. 71 Neusner, “Judaism,” 251; Nickelsburg, “Stories,” 48–49; Otzen, Tobit and Judith, 105: “prepharisaic or ‘hasidic’”; Gera, Judith, 369. If one follows the theory that the book of Judith is a eulogy of Salome Alexandra, then one needs to consider that, according Jewish tradition, the Hasmonean queen is connected with the Pharisees through her brother Simon ben Shetach (b. Mak. 7a:6; cf. m. Avot 1:8–9). 72 Cf. Enslin, Book of Judith, 33. 73 Gera, Judith, 373, interprets Judith’s bath in her house solely within the context of her “beautifying herself” without explaining such lavishness in a city where water was rationed; cf. also p. 331; Schmitz and Engel, Judit, 242–46, who stress the economic situation of the heroine.

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frugal meals in the evenings abstaining from non-Jewish food,74 only interrupted by Shabbat and feasts.75

5 Summary Reviewing all the collected data, one may conclude that the author places Judith’s early preparations for her deed of salvation under a cultic heading, namely at the time of the evening offering in the Temple (9:1). She starts then with the ritual of ablution in 10:2 and ends with it on the third day near the camp (12:8). Usually one immerses in a miqweh either to begin a new part of life, for example before marriage, or to complete something. This way Judith becomes pure for her risky plan and she finishes her preparations for the crucial last evening in the camp. The two bathing scenes in the book of Judith are clearly connected, and compose a unit. Both parts presuppose a full-body immersion (περικλύζομαι, βαπτίζω) in twilight (ἑσπέρα), which has to be concluded before dawn. As the text uses the typical terminology of “descending” into the house for a bath in the first place and “ascending” from spring water in the second for clear purity reasons (καθαρά), with a prayer being uttered, according to Jewish sources, it is most likely that the author meant to convey the idea that Judith was running a miqweh at home. This would also explain the otherwise highly questionable use of precious liquid under the circumstances of a siege while people are already fainting because of the lack of water. The pious woman is clearly concerned about her purity and therefore keeps herself mostly separated from the non-Jewish enemy when it comes to food restrictions or immersion. The religious attitudes of Judith may be seen as adumbrating the views the early rabbis, who were concerned about keeping at least a minimum of laws: giving tithes and offerings, kosher meals and immersion to keep pure. The book’s author describes his main character Judith in a special setup. A Jewish audience would have appreciated the cultic-ritual hints in the text, but the Hellenistic or Roman reader would have understood the bathing scenes as profane ones and the heroine as obsessive with her diet. || 74 Cf. Dan 1:5–16; Tob 1:10–12; Esth 2:9; 14:17; 1 Macc 1:62–63; 2 Macc 5:27; 6:18–7:2. See Moore, Judith, 218, 220: “Holofernes, the hedonist … the pious Judith ate only simple food … once a day.” 75 Cf. Nickelsburg, “Stories,” 49; Otzen, Tobit and Judith, 105.

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Bibliography Adler, Yonatan. “The Hellenistic Origins of Jewish Ritual Immersion.” JJS 69.1 (2018): 1–21. Die Bibel nach Martin Luthers Übersetzung. Lutherbibel revidiert 2017 mit Apokryphen. Edited by Evangelische Kirche in Deutschland. Stuttgart: Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft, 2016. Bullard, Roger A., and Howard A. Hatton. A Handbook on Tobit and Judith. UBS Handbook Series. New York: United Bible Societies, 2001. Chesnutt, Randall D. “Perceptions of Oil in Early Judaism and the Meal Formula in Joseph and Aseneth.” JSP 14 (2005): 113–32. Egger-Wenzel, Renate. “Judith’s Path from Grief to Joy – from Sackloth to Festive Attire.” Pages 189–223 in Emotions from Ben Sira to Paul. Edited by Renate Egger-Wenzel and Jeremy Corley. Deuterocanonical and Cognate Literature Yearbook 2011. Berlin: de Gruyter, 2011. Egger-Wenzel, Renate. “Mirjam, Debora und Judit – eine Prophetinnentradition?” Pages 95– 122 in Biblical Figures in Deuterocanonical and Cognate Literature. Edited by Hermann Lichtenberger and Ulrike Mittmann-Richert. Deuterocanonical and Cognate Literature Yearbook 2008. Berlin: de Gruyter, 2009. Eliav, Yaron Z. “The Roman Bath as a Jewish Institution: Another Look at the Encounter between Judaism and the Greco-Roman Culture.” JSJ 31.4 (2000): 416–54. Enslin, Morton S. The Book of Judith: Greek Text with an English Translation, Commentary and Critical Notes. Edited with a General Introduction and Appendices by Solomon Zeitlin. JAL 2. Leiden: Brill, 1972. Galor, Katharina. “The Stepped Water Installations of the Sepphoris Acropolis.” Pages 201–13 in The Archeology of Difference: Gender, Ethnicity, Class and the “Other” in Antiquity. Studies in Honor of Eric M. Meyers. Edited by Douglas R. Edwards and Thomas McCollough. AASOR 60/61. Boston, MA: American Schools of Oriental Research, 2007. Gera, Deborah Levine. Judith. CEJL. Berlin: de Gruyter, 2014. Hanhart, Robert, ed. Iudith. Septuaginta. Vetus Testamentum Graecum 8.4. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1979. Ilan, Tal. “Since When Do Women Go to Miqveh? Archaeological and Rabbinic Evidence.” Pages 83–96 in The Archaeology and Material Culture of the Babylonian Talmud. Edited by Markham J. Geller. IJS Studies in Judaica 16. Leiden: Brill, 2015. Kehati, Pinhas. Mishnayot mevo’arot. Vol. 11: Seder Toharot 1: Massekhet Miqwaot. 9th ed. Jerusalem: Hekhal Shelomoh, 1977. King James Version Apocrypha (KJVA). Public Domain. Formatted and corrected by OakTree Software, Inc. Version 1.4. Kitzur Shulchan Aruch. Trans. by Rabbi Avrohom Davis. Brookline, MA: Metsudah Publications, 1996. Kraus, Wolfgang, and Martin Karrer, eds. Septuaginta Deutsch. Das griechische Alte Testament in deutscher Übersetzung. Stuttgart: Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft, 2009. Lust, Johan, Eynikel Erik, and Katrin Hauspie, eds. A Greek – English Lexicon of the Septuagint. 2nd. ed. Stuttgart: Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft, 2003. Electronic text hypertexted and prepared by OakTree Software, Inc. Version 2.5. (= LEH) Miller, Athanasius. Die Bücher Tobias, Judith und Esther: übersetzt und erklärt. HSAT 4.3. Bonn: Hanstein, 1940–41. Miller, Stuart S. “Stepped Pools and the Non-Existent Monolithic ‘Miqveh’.” Pages 215–34 in The Archeology of Difference: Gender, Ethnicity, Class and the “Other” in Antiquity.

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Studies in Honor of Eric M. Meyers. Edited by Douglas R. Edwards and Thomas McCollough. AASOR 60/61. Boston, MA: American Schools of Oriental Research, 2007. Moore, Carey A. Judith: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary. AB 40B. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2008. Moore, Carey A. Tobit: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary. AB 40A. New York: Doubleday, 1996. Netzer, Ehud. Hasmonean and Herodian Palaces at Jericho: Final Reports of the 1973–1987 Excavations. Vol. 2. Jerusalem: Israel Explorations Society, 2004. Neusner, Jacob. “‘Pharisaic-Rabbinic’ Judaism: A Clarification.” HR 12.3 (1973): 250–70. Nickelsburg, George W. E. “Stories of Biblical and Early Post-Biblical Times.” Pages 33–87 in Jewish Writings of the Second Temple Period. Edited by Michael E. Stone. CRINT 2.2. Assen: Van Gorcum, 1984. Otzen, Benedikt. Tobit and Judith. Guides to Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha. London: Sheffield Academic, 2002. Pietersma, Albert, and Benjamin G. Wright, eds. A New English Translation of the Septuagint. New York: Oxford University Press, 2004. (= NETS) Reich, Ronny. “The Hot Bath-House (balneum), the Miqweh and the Jewish Community in the Second Temple Period.” JJS 39 (1988): 102–7. Reif, Stefan C. “Bread with another Meaning?” Pages 69–73 in From Forbidden Fruit to Milk and Honey: A Commentary on Food in the Torah. Edited by Diana Lipton. New York: Ktav, 2018. Reif, Stefan C. Judaism and Hebrew Prayer: New Perspectives on Jewish Liturgical History. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995. Rocca, Samuel. “The ‘Book of Judith’, Queen Sholomzion and King Tigranes of Armenia, a Sadducee Appraisal.” Materia Giudaica 10.1 (2005): 85–98. Schmitz, Barbara, and Helmut Engel. Judit. HThKAT. Freiburg: Herder, 2014.

Maurice Gilbert

Wisdom 9, an “Inset Psalm” Abstract: Relaying the analysis of Jean-Pierre Sonnet on the inset psalms, these pages suggest that the prayer of Wis 9, as inserted between the narratives of Wis 7–8 and Wis 10, could also be considered as an Inset Psalm. Wisdom 9 and the paper of Sonnet being first introduced, five paragraphs compare the observations of the latter with Wis 9: mainly, Wis 9 was prepared retrospectively in Wis 1–8 and prolonged prospectively in Wis 10–19. Then, as an action, Wis 9 is characterized by poetic as well as theological evidence. Finally, the reader remains the audience for the author of Wis 9. Keywords: Wisdom of Solomon; Wisdom 9; inset psalms; literary genre; poem versus narrative.

1 Introduction Wisdom 9 is a prayer at the centre of the deuterocanonical book Wisdom of Solomon. It is referred to in Wis 7:7, and it is more explicitly introduced in 8:21. Stylistically accurate, this text of Wis 9 is a rewriting of the prayers attributed to the young King Solomon in 1 Kgs 3:6–9 and 2 Chr 1:8–10.1 Today it is generally accepted that Wisdom of Solomon was written according to a literary genre originating in Greece. In agreement with several European scholars, I consider that this literary genre is the encomium of the epideictic discourse.2 But normally in this literary genre, which here intends to eulogize Wisdom, an explicit prayer is not foreseen. How do we explain this originality of Wis 9? Emilio López Navas, in his dissertation De la oscuridad a Jerusalén of 2016, suggested that Tob 13 should be considered as an inset psalm.3 In his proposal he offered a compendium of the research made from 1992 until 2009, starting with the work of James W. Watts. A few scholars have clarified this new field in biblical research. The question is how to explain and justify a psalm in poetic || 1 Cf. Gilbert, “La structure.” Winston, The Wisdom, 200–201. Engel, “Gebet,” 293–99; Vignolo, “Wisdom.” 2 Beauchamp, “Épouser la Sagesse,” 358–60; Gilbert, “Wisdom Literature,” 306–9; Bizzeti, Il Libro; Vílchez Líndez, Sabiduría, 37–39; Mazzinghi, “The Style,” 389. 3 López Navas, De la oscuridad, 48–63. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110630282-009

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form when it is inserted into a narrative text. According to López Navas, even the poem of Sir 51:1–12 may be taken as an example of such an inset psalm.4 Sir 51:1–12 is a personal thanksgiving prayer of Ben Sira that reflects his having been rescued from a dangerous trial. It is true that this prayer is inserted after a long eulogy of the ancestors, but clearly Ben Sira’s writing is not prose but rather classic Hebrew poetry. In the Wisdom of Solomon, do we have prose or poetry? Chrysostome Larcher examined this question in his commentary, which was published posthumously in 1983.5 He observed that in 1878 Édouard Reuss had translated the Wisdom of Solomon as prose, with this comment: “c’est de la rhétorique étudiée comme l’affectionnait en général la littérature des siècles macédoniens.”6 More recently two translations did the same: The New English Bible with Apocrypha in 1970, and Die Bibel. Lutherübersetzung in 2017. Decades earlier, in 1913, Friedrich Focke, considered Wis 8:19–21 and 10:1–4 as prose and Wis 9 as poetry.7 Larcher agrees with Reuss and his rationale that Wisdom of Solomon is written in a rhymed prose or free verses.8 In any case, we can see that Wis 9 is a prayer inserted into a narrative context both before (7:7–8:21) and after it (ch. 10). It is a prayer asking God for his Wisdom. Watts identifies at least two Inset Psalms as such prayers, in which the petitioner asks either for help (Isa 38:10–20) or for mercy (Dan 3:26–45 TH).9 More clearly than in the earlier and later narrative chapters, the Greek text of Wis 9 employs the parallelism of stiches, except in 9:1a, which is a monostich. There are six occurrences of three stiches (9:2b–3b, 5, 8, 11, 12, 18), but 14 distiches most notably in 9:9–10 and 9:13–17 (presuming the acceptance of my proposal that 9:16c–17 consists of two distiches, in concurrence with the Vulgate).10

|| 4 De la oscuridad, 43–47. 5 Le Livre, 83–91. 6 Quoted by Larcher, Le Livre, 88 n. 41. 7 Cf. Larcher, Le Livre, 89, nn. 43 and 44. 8 Le Livre, 90. 9 Cf. López Navas, De la oscuridad, 48. 10 Cf. “Structure” (1970), 307, 310; (2011), 174, 178.

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2 Wisdom 9 and the contribution of Jean-Pierre Sonnet on the inset psalms In his book López Navas summarizes, among others, a paper published in 2005 by Jean-Pierre Sonnet on lyric poetry within a biblical narrative.11 In his introduction, Sonnet posed the question of why, within the setting of narrative prose, an author expresses the lyric effusions of his character through direct speech. This is what we hear in Wis 9. In seeking an answer to his question, Sonnet notes that such a poem gives voice to feelings in quoted speech: according to Aristotle, in lyric poetry, the poet speaks for himself. It is true that for James L. Kugel, there is continuity in parallel rhetoric between prose and poetry. However— Sonnet observes—in a poem the rhythm differs, through semantic and syntactic parallelism. It is precisely in order to prepare the reader for this change of rhythm that the narrator provides an introduction to this kind of poem. Wis 8:21 serves as such an introduction to Wis 9. James W. Watts, for his part, remarks that, in order to express some particular kinds of feelings, an author prefers “to switch modes”12 from prose to poetry. I now summarize Sonnet’s five subsequent points.

2.1 Lyric characters Discretion regarding the feelings, interior reactions and emotions of characters is common to narratives. But this discretion evaporates when poetry is inserted into an account. The narrative offers indications that prepare the reader for such openness to the psyche. In fact, in 8:2–21, the author already expresses feelings and hope. The main difference with Wis 9 is that in the prayer the author speaks to God, not to the reader. Some indicative details in Wis 7–8 resurface in Wis 9: see for instance 7:1–6 and 9:5; 7:7–10 and 9:4, 10; 7:14, 27–28 and 9:6; 7:22a; 8:4, 6 and 9:2, 9b; 7:22b and 9,17b (“holy spirit”).13 Moreover, in 8:21d the phrase “with all my heart” is noteworthy since, in many Inset Psalms, the physical body plays a role (cf. 1 Sam 2:1: “my heart”).

|| 11 López Navas, De la oscuridad, 60–61; Sonnet, “C’est moi.” 12 Psalm and Story, 194, quoted by Sonnet, “C’est moi,” 375. 13 Reese, Hellenistic Influence, 125–40, only mentioned the flashbacks in Wis 10–19.

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More precisely, the three strophes of Wis 9 reassume elements in Wis 7 and 8. The first (9:1–6) and the last (9:13–18) strophes concern all people, among whom the author identifies himself, while the second and central strophe (9:7– 12) speaks about the king. This distinction recalls 7:1–6, where the author explained that there is no difference, as a human being, between a king and anyone else (9:5). Moreover, 9:7–12 in which the author presents himself as King Solomon (9:7–8, 12) takes up the concerns of 8:9–15. In Wis 9, three times, the poet asks God for his Wisdom (9:4, 10ab, and implicitly in 17aβ). Wisdom is described in 9:2, 9, 18c and this description was prepared for in 7:11–12, 22–8:1, 4, 6.

2.2 Lyric poem as musical theme at long range According to Sonnet, the poem functions in a manner similar to music insofar as it indirectly introduces themes, which, retrospectively and prospectively, project “waves” at long range onto the narrative. Such projection is conducive to the coherence of the whole. This is a distinguishing feature of Wis 9 within the whole book of Wisdom of Solomon. Let us see this retrospectively, by noting connections between Wis 9 and the preceding chapters of the book. The prayer of Wis 9 appeals for divine Wisdom in order to accomplish the human vocation (9:1–6, 13–18), which it exemplifies in the specific case of the personal vocation of the king (9:7–12). Prior texts had noted this calling as an element in the historical record (7:7) and then announced it (8:21). However, in the first six chapters of the book there is not even an allusion to a prayer for divine Wisdom. Nevertheless, within this major section, is it possible to discern some anticipation of what will be said in the prayer of Wis 9? According to 9:2b–3, by vocation, the human is “to have dominion over the creatures thou hast made, and rule the world in holiness and righteousness, and pronounce judgment in uprightness of soul.”14

Right from the first verse of the book, the author invites the reader in these terms:

|| 14 The English version of Wisdom of Solomon is taken from The Holy Bible RSV. Catholic Edition.

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“Love righteousness, you rulers of the earth, think of the Lord with uprightness, and seek him with sincerity of heart” (1:1).

Wisdom 9:2b–3 shows that the rulers’ vocation is common to every human being. Again, in Wis 6:4, “ruling rightly” is a necessity for the rulers. The context here, as in chapter 1, is negative in the sense that the Lord will condemn those who do not rule rightly. Another instance of retrospective effect is the binomial “Wisdom” and “the holy Spirit” in Wis 9:17: “Who has learned thy counsel, unless thou hast given wisdom and sent thy holy Spirit from on high?”15

Both are necessary for understanding what God requests from human beings. Again Wis 1 introduces the approach of Wisdom and the holy Spirit of God but in a manner that is less clear than in Wis 9:17. We read in Wis 1:3: “For perverse thoughts separate men from God, and when his power is tested, it convicts the foolish.”

“His power” is in parallel with “God”. Here the expression [God’s] “power” could be a substitute for “God” or the Almighty, as in Sir 24:2b and Matt 26:64.16 This is classic in Judaism. The divine “power” is manifested through his Wisdom and his holy Spirit: “because wisdom will not enter a deceitful soul [...] for a holy and disciplined Spirit will flee from deceit” (Wis 1:4–5). “For wisdom is a kindly spirit [...] Because the Spirit of the Lord has filled the world” (Wis 1:6–7).

In any case, if, in Wis 1 wisdom and the holy Spirit of the divine Power are reluctant to enter into foolish people,17 nevertheless, in 9:17 the only way to receive both of them is to ask for them from the Lord. Only Wis 9:17 clearly explains these issues that Wis 1 had raised.

|| 15 Cf. Gilbert, “Volonté.” 16 So Scarpat, Libro, 113. Larcher, Le Livre, 171–72, refuses this interpretation, preferring to see a Hellenistic influence. 17 Cf. Gilbert, “L’Esprit Saint,” 153–54.

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Prospectively, 9:18 is very important: with the gift of the divine Wisdom and holy Spirit, “And thus the paths of those on earth were set right, and men were taught what pleases thee, and were saved by wisdom.”18

This verse introduces Wis 10–19, the chapters that I call “a Hymnal Anamnesis of the Exodus.”19 In 10:20 to 19:22 the author directly addresses the Lord. In the end (19:22) we read: “For in everything, O Lord, thou hast exalted and glorified thy people; and thou hast not neglected to help them at all time and in all places.”

In 9:18a, a better translation would be “[the paths of those on earth] were set upright again,” and in Wis 10:1, Adam provides the exemplary case in point. Wisdom 9:18b alludes to the knowledge of the Torah, thereby, on the one hand, recalling 9:9c and 9:10d (cf. Bar 4:4), and, on the other hand, anticipating Wis 18:4, which describes the Torah as being transmitted to the world through Israel. The salvation, which concludes the prayer (9:18), is the main theme, as the verb “to save” here appears for the first time in the book and will be repeated in 10:4; 14:4; 16:7 and 18:5. Moreover, in my view, one may read 10:1–21 in parallel with 19:10–22 and view them as forming the frame in which the “Hymnal Anamnesis of Exodus” is developed. I have noted elsewhere that the Lord is never addressed when the author mentions the sins of pagan people or even of the Hebrews. His mercy and universal openness are the main ideas of the author.20 The verse that concludes the book insists on the Lord’s unique attachment to his people: “in everything [...] at all time and in all places” means also today, here and in all things (19:22). The Exodus was the primary example of God’s mercy. Therefore, in 9:18, Solomon’s prayer not only recalls the human origins in Adam and the salvation of the Hebrews in their exodus from Egypt, but also remains open to the future, not only of the young King Solomon, but also of the Jewish community at the time of the author and even today. The prospective dimension of Wis 9 is without end.

|| 18 Cf. Gilbert, “Volonté,” 162–65 (1971) or 225–27 (2011). 19 Gilbert, “L’adresse à Dieu.” 20 Gilbert, “L’adresse à Dieu.”

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2.3 Poetic evidence of the action According to Sonnet, “Le discours poétique n’a pas son pareil pour révéler le relief de l’histoire que l’on a d’abord entendu en prose.”21 In other words, especially when God intervenes in history, the poetic discourse enhances the intensity and transcendence of the evoked events, while the prose narrative consciously maintains the suspense. Therefore, the action becomes more fully evident, necessary, or even ineluctable. From Wis 7–8, the reader knew that the author, in the persona of Solomon, asked the Lord for his wisdom as preferable to every royal advantage (7:7–10). The reader also contemplated all the cultural and moral gifts, which would come to the king if he were to receive divine Wisdom (7:11–14; 8:2–8). Likewise, the reader would appreciate the king’s abiding desire to enjoy Wisdom’s company (8:9–16).22 But Wis 9 intensifies this content in three ways: (a) by enhancing the rationale to justify the request for divine Wisdom; (b) by highlighting the humility of the king, who, at prayer, presents himself to the Lord as an ordinary human being incapable of realizing his vocation without wisdom (9:1–6, 13–17); and (c) by expressing certainty that in the past wisdom was granted to his ancestors (9:18). The biblical allusion to Prov 8:27–30 at the centre of the prayer, is truly original (Wis 9:9–11): “With thee is wisdom, who knows thy works and was present when thou didst make the world, who understands what is pleasing in thy sight and what is right according to thy commandments. Send her forth from the holy heavens, and from the throne of thy glory send her, that she may be with me and toil, and that I may learn what is pleasing to thee. For she knows and understands all things, and she will guide me wisely in my actions and guard me with her glory.”

As the Creator of the world was influenced by his own Wisdom, so must Wisdom endow the king with the capacity for his vocation to be a creator in judging, in

|| 21 “C’est moi,” 381. 22 Cf. Leproux, Un discours, 263–83.

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ruling and in building the house of the Lord.23 At all times, that king remains a simple human being but chosen by God for the service to the Lord’s people.

2.4 Theological evidence of the action Sonnet emphasizes that the evidence is theological as well as poetic. Many inset psalms “sont le lieu discursif où la souveraineté de Dieu sur l’histoire est célébrée.”24 In particular, divine actions and interventions are the fruit of divine decisions. This is sometimes indicated grammatically by verbs of causality. Moreover, these psalms also convey feelings of gratitude. Poetry surpasses prose narrative in conveying the incomparability of God’s action and the experience of communion with God. Something of this description is present in the prayer of Wis 9. Firstly, this poem expresses the Lord’s sovereignty over history as manifested in the past (9:1–3, 9, 18) and its centrality in the life of the person who prays (9:5–6, 13–17). Secondly, the primacy of divine causality shines through the requests for divine Wisdom, which the king voices in grammatical imperatives (9:4, 10ab). Finally, communion with God suffuses the whole prayer particularly in the sincerity of the person who prays to the Lord as the only source of integrity for his future.

2.5 In order to meet the reader Some inset psalms begin with the narrator explicitly stating that the following poem addresses God. This is the case in Exod 15:1; 2 Sam 2:22; Jdt 16:1. As in Wis 8:21, the introduction to other inset psalms specifies that the poem is a prayer: Anna in 1 Sam 2:1; Jonah in Jonah 2:2; Azariah in Dan 3:24 TH; Mordecai in Esth 4:17a LXX= C1; Esther in Esth 4:17k LXX= C14. Some of the inset psalms extend the time span into a distant future, which may envelope their readers (Exod 15:18; Deut 32; Num 24:17; Luke 1:48). Moreover, the fact that these poems are written and published over several centuries also challenges the readers. The narrator wrote about the past, while the poem is radically in the present and therefore applies also to today’s reader. Wis 7–8 concerns the past, even if, in 8:9–16, the verbs are in the future. The king’s desire to have Wisdom in a past era is of course expressed as a hope-

|| 23 Cf. Priotto, “Building a Temple.” 24 Sonnet, “C’est moi,” 384.

Wisdom 9, an “Inset Psalm” | 133

ful future for us: grammatically, a future perfect precedes his prayer. But it is evident that the prayer, pronounced in the past, when Solomon was a young man, is a kind of quotation put in the present: the imperative verbs in Wis 9 concern his present time. From Wis 7:7, 11–12, 21–22a we know that, from the beginning of his reign, Solomon received divine Wisdom through his request from the Lord. For him, recalling his prayer is a flashback to his youth. He is speaking as a glorious king, recalling the choice of his youth, before his political and religious mistakes. By means of this literary staging, the author presents the young Solomon, the sage par excellence, as an example to the Jewish youth of Alexandria. As a matter of fact, the literary genre of the encomium is perfectly adapted to convince young people to imitate Solomon by making a clear option for Wisdom and asking the Lord for it.

Bibliography Beauchamp, Paul. “Épouser la Sagesse – ou n’épouser qu’elle? Une énigme du Livre de la Sagesse.” Pages 347–69 in La Sagesse de l’Ancien Testament. 2nd ed. Edited by Maurice Gilbert. BETL 51. Leuven: Peeters, 1990. Bizzeti, Paolo. Il Libro della Sapienza. Struttura e genere letterario. Supplementi alla Rivista Biblica 11. Brescia: Paideia, 1984. Engel, Helmut. “Gebet im Buch der Weisheit.” Pages 293–312 in Prayer from Tobit to Qumran. Edited by Renate Egger-Wenzel and Jeremy Corley. Deuterocanonical and Cognate Literature Yearbook 2004. Berlin; New York: de Gruyter, 2004. Gilbert, Maurice. “La structure de la prière de Salomon (Sg 9).” Bib 51 (1970): 301–31. Gilbert, Maurice. “Volonté de Dieu et don de la Sagesse (Sg 9,17s.).” NRT 93 (1971): 145–66. Gilbert, Maurice. “L’adresse à Dieu dans l’anamnèse hymnique de l’Exode (Sg 10–19).” Pages 207–25 in El misterio de la Palabra. Homenaje a Luis Alonso Schökel. Edited by Vicente Collado and Eduardo Zurro. Madrid: Cristiandad, 1983. Gilbert, Maurice. “Wisdom Literature.” Pages 283–24 in Jewish Writing of the Second Temple Period. Edited by Michael E. Stone. CRINT 2.2. Assen: Van Gorcum; Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1984. Gilbert, Maurice. “L’Esprit Saint dans le Livre de la Sagesse (ou Sagesse de Salomon).” DBSup 11:153–56. Gilbert, Maurice. “Your Sovereignty comes from the Lord (Wis 6:3a).” Pages 121–40 in La Sagesse de Salomon. The Wisdom of Solomon. Recueil d’études. Collected Essays. AnBib 189. Rome: Gregorian & Biblical Press, 2011. Larcher, Chrysostome. Le Livre de la Sagesse ou la Sagesse de Salomon. Vol. 1. EBib N.S. 1. Paris: Gabalda, 1983. Leproux, Alexis. Un discours de sagesse. Étude exégétique de Sg 7–8. AnBib 167. Rome: Pontificio Istituto Biblico, 2007.

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López Navas, Emilio. De la oscuridad a Jerusalén. Estudio exegético-teológico de Tob 13. Asociación Bíblica Española – Institución San Jerónimo. Tesis 66. Estella (Navarra): Verbo Divino, 2016. Mazzinghi, Luca. “The Style of the Book of Wisdom.” Pages 386–92 in vol. 3 of Handbuch zur Septuaginta – Handbook of the Septuagint. Edited by Eberhard Bons and Jan Joosten. Gütersloh: Gütersloher Verlag, 2016. Newman, Judith H. “The Democratization of Kingship in Wisdom of Solomon.” Pages 300–28 in The Idea of Biblical Interpretation. Essays in Honor of James L. Kugel. Edited by Hindy Najman and Judith H. Newman. JSJSup 83. Leiden: Brill, 2004. Priotto, Michelangelo. “Building a Temple to Wisdom (Wis 9:8).” Pages 260–71 in Wisdom for Life. Essays Offered to Honor Prof. Maurice Gilbert, S.J. on the Occasion of His Eightieth Birthday. Edited by Nuria Calduch-Benages. BZAW 445. Berlin; Boston: de Gruyter, 2014. Reese, James M. Hellenistic Influence on the Book of Wisdom and Its Consequences. AnBib 41. Rome: Biblical Institute Press, 1970. Scarpat, Giuseppe. Libro della Sapienza. Testo, traduzione, introduzione e commento. Vol. 1. Biblica. Testi e studi 1. Brescia: Paideia, 1989. Sonnet, Jean-Pierre. “‘C’est moi qui, pour YHWH, c’est moi qui veut chanter’ (Jg 5,3). La poésie lyrique au sein d’un récit biblique.” Pages 373–87 in Analyse narrative et Bible. Deuxième colloque international du RRENAB, Louvain-la-Neuve, avril 2004. Edited by Camille Focant and André Wénin. BETL 191. Leuven: Peeters, 2005. The Holy Bible Revised Standard Version Containing the Old and New Testaments. Catholic Edition. London: Catholic Truth Society, 1966. Vignolo, Roberto. “Wisdom, Prayer and Kingly Pattern: Theology, Anthropology, Spirituality in Wis 9.” Pages 255–82 in The Book of Wisdom in Modern Research: Studies in Tradition, Redaction, and Theology. Edited by Angelo Passaro and Giuseppe Bellia. Deuterocanonical and Cognate Literature Yearbook 2005. Berlin; New York: de Gruyter, 2005. Vílchez Líndez, José. Sabiduría. Nueva Biblia Española. Sapienciales 5. Estella (Navarra): Verbo Divino, 1990. Watts, James W. Psalm and Story. Inset Hymns in Hebrew Narratives. JSOTSup 139. Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1992. Winston, David. The Wisdom of Solomon: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary. AB 43. Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1981.

Emanuel Tov

The Qumran Tefillin and Their Possible Master Copies Abstract: If the mentioned working hypothesis is correct, we will have illuminated an aspect of the practical preparation of the tefillin, at least within the Qumran community. The argument developed here is that 4QDeutj and possibly also 4QDeutk1 may have served as master codices for the writing of tefillin such as 4QPhyl A, 4QPhyl J–K, 1QPhyl, and possibly more. At the same time, we will have contributed towards the clarification of the essence of 4QDeutj,k1,n, which are named “liturgical scrolls,” as their nature has not yet been defined. Keywords: liturgy, Tefillin, Qumran, Masoretic Text, orthography

1 Liturgical scrolls from Qumran If the definition of a liturgical scroll is taken in its widest sense, that is, any composition that was used as part of the liturgy at Qumran or elsewhere in ancient Israel, it can be said that hundreds of such scrolls were found at Qumran. This includes a long list of “liturgies for fixed prayer times,” “ceremonial liturgies,” “eschatological prayers,” “magical incantations,” “Psalms,” and “Hodayot” (thanksgiving hymns), as classified by Esther G. Chazon and Lawrence H. Schiffman.1 The boundaries of this large group are intentionally vague in Chazon’s list, since she listed together “psalms, hymns and prayers,” probably because it is difficult to distinguish between these three categories. Indeed, it is hard to know whether all the Scripture psalms found at Qumran should be classified as liturgical compositions. The approach of James Davila is stricter, as he included only compositions that are prayers in his collection of “Liturgical Works.”2 Equally limited in scope is the collection of texts included among the “Liturgical Texts” in the Dead Sea Scrolls Reader.3 Davila and the Reader thus

|| 1 Chazon, “Psalms,” 710–15; Schiffman, “Scrolls,” 33–48. 2 Davila, Liturgical Works. 3 Parry and Tov, Reader, 2:464–701 (= DSSR). https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110630282-010

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excluded the psalms as well as other Scripture scrolls that have been classified by others as liturgical.4 These presumed liturgical scrolls with Scripture content comprise all or most of the psalms scrolls found at Qumran together with 4QDeutj,k1,n and possibly more. It is remarkable that none of the Deuteronomy or Psalms texts that are commonly regarded as liturgical are listed together with the nonbiblical liturgical texts. One reason is probably the fact that not all scholars agree that the psalms scrolls are indeed liturgical, that is, that they served as prayer books for the Qumran community. Another probable reason is that these scrolls carry, rightly or wrongly, names of Scripture books, for example, 11QPsa and 4QDeutj. The liturgical Scripture texts, an unusual group that so far has not received attention as a unit, are the focus of the present study. They are regular Scripture scrolls that may have been used in the liturgy at Qumran or elsewhere in Israel.5 Liturgical use of a text is in most cases hypothetical, since there are no indications of the liturgical use of any Scripture scroll, except perhaps 11QPsa (see n. 13).

2 Psalms Scrolls A relatively large group of psalm scrolls from Qumran, including both canonical and “apocryphal” psalms, probably had a liturgical background. At least five groups of scrolls, as well as additional individual scrolls,6 differ from the known psalters (MT, LXX, Peshitta, Ethiopic translation) in the addition of noncanonical psalms and in their sequence7 (for details on all these, see studies by Flint,

|| 4 For example, in DSSR, 11QPsa is not included among the liturgical scrolls, and indeed none of the psalms scrolls is included in that category, while the nonbiblical segments in 11QPsa are included. In that anthology, they are found in subdivision A of “Poetic and Liturgical Texts,” “Poetic Texts,” although probably it would have been more appropriate for them to be included among the “liturgical texts.” 5 Some scrolls may have been imported to Qumran, reflecting liturgical use elsewhere in Israel. 6 See n. 7. Due to their fragmentary condition, not all the thirty-six Qumran scrolls can be ascribed to a specific group. 7 These deviations occur especially in the last two books of the Psalter (Psalms 90–150): (1) 11QPsa, as well as the more fragmentary 4QPse and 11QPsb; (2) 4QPsa and 4QPsq; (3) 4QPsb; (4) 4QPsd; and (5) 4QPsf. For example, both 4QPsa and 4QPsq omit Psalm 32, and the former scroll reflects the following sequence: 38, 71; 4QPsd has the following sequence: 147, 104, while 4QPse has the sequence 118, 104, 105, 146. See Lange, Handbuch, 583.

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Lange, and Ulrich).8 Several scholars present the Qumran psalm scrolls as regular biblical texts.9 In their opinion, the scrolls present a very different picture of the biblical psalter;10 note especially an extensive study by Peter Flint.11 However, the view held by other scholars that these scrolls are liturgical, and therefore irrelevant to the literary analysis of the canonical book of Psalms, is preferable.12 The arguments used in both directions pertain especially to the longest scroll in this group, 11QPsa.13 Liturgical scrolls were used for the specific purpose of devotional reading by individuals or in religious service. They would have carried authority as liturgical texts, but not as Scripture texts. Although they contained Scripture texts, the Qumran covenanters would not have considered them adequate for their Bible study or as a source for Scriptural quotation. The free approach taken toward the content of these scrolls comes to light in the addition in 11QPsa of the prose composition in col. XXVII and of many noncanonical psalms. For all these

|| 8 Flint, Scrolls; Lange, Handbuch, 415–50; Ulrich, Scrolls. 9 The position of James A. Sanders was formulated with regard to 11QPsa, a position he published in Scroll of Qumrân, but he also referred to the psalms scrolls from cave 4 in “Scroll,” 79– 99 (98). Wilson, “Manuscripts,” 377–88; Wilson, Psalter; and Flint, Scrolls dealt extensively with the psalms scrolls from all the caves. See further Ulrich (n. 8). It is unclear whether any of the Qumran psalms scrolls support unequivocally the sequence of the MT-Psalter against these Qumran collections (see Flint, Scrolls, 158). 10 Like Sanders and Wilson at an earlier stage of scholarship, Flint, Scrolls suggested that books 1–3 (Psalms 1–89) of the collection of psalms were finalized before books 4–5 (Psalms 90–150) and that the major differences between the various Qumran psalm collections and MT reflect different crystallizations of the biblical book. According to Sanders and Wilson, a comparison of MT and 11QPsa shows that alternative collections of psalms circulated before the first century CE. 11 This view is reflected not only in Flint, Scrolls, but also in the publications by Patrick W. Skehan, Eugene Ulrich, and Peter W. Flint of the cave 4 texts as biblical psalms in DJD XVI; and in Ulrich, Scrolls, with an extensive notation of the deviations in the sequence of all the psalms scrolls from MT. This view is also reflected in Ulrich, “Editions,” 99–120 (115–20). 12 Talmon, “Pisqah,” 11–21; Goshen-Gottstein, “Scroll,” 22–33; Skehan, “Complex,” 195–205; Haran, “11QPsa,” 193–201; Nitzan, Prayer, 16–17; Fabry, “Psalter,” 137–63 (153–61); Chazon, “Psalms,” 710–15 (712); Falk, “Contribution,” 617–51 (632). Similar views by other scholars are mentioned in Lange, Handbuch, 427–30. 13 In favor of the assumption of a liturgical character: (1) the added antiphonal refrains to Psalm 145 in col. XVI; (2) cols. XV–XVII represent a separate liturgical collection; (3) col. II 1–5 probably represents a hymn based on Ps 146:9–10 and other psalms; (4) the addition of the extracanonical hymns “Plea for Deliverance” (col. XIX), “Apostrophe to Zion” (col. XXII), and the “Hymn to the Creator” (col. XXVI); and (5) the inclusion of the complete text of Psalm 119 points to the scroll’s liturgical character because of the prominent place of that psalm in the liturgy (see above).

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reasons, these scrolls should not be used in canonical and literary criticism of Hebrew Scripture;14 yet their small deviations from MT are constantly used in text-critical analysis.

3 Tefillin Tefillin (phylacteries) boxes contain liturgical texts as the tefillin are used in the religious morning service by individual men. The tefillin boxes including the texts were applied to the head or worn on the arms by these men, but we do not know how widespread the practice was. The texts included in the tefillin are sections of ordinary biblical texts; the textual data in the tefillin were copied from larger contexts and thus provide us with evidence of the Bible text that equals that from any other fragment from the Judean Desert. This assumption is supported by the fact that the different types of text contained in the tefillin correspond to the text types found in regular biblical manuscripts. We make two types of distinctions among the tefillin found in the Judean Desert. Firstly, from a textual point of view, the tefillin may be divided into the proto-Masoretic tefillin texts and the popular text shared by the Samaritan Pentateuch and the LXX.15 Some of these texts are written in the orthography of the “Qumran Scribal Practice” (QSP),16 while others are written without any specific spelling system. The second distinction relates to the choice of passages included. The proto-Masoretic tefillin contain only the four passages that are required in rabbinic literature: (1) Exod 13:1–10; (2) Exod 13:11–16; (3) Deut 6:4–9; (4) Deut 11:13–21.17 The second group of tefillin contained these passages as well as the following five Scripture passages:

|| 14 Thus also Dahmen, Rezeption, 314, referring to 11QPsa. On the other hand, if the large deviations from MT in the Qumran psalms scrolls are taken as authoritative Scripture, they would have to be recorded in the critical apparatuses of Scripture editions, as was indeed done by Ulrich, Scrolls. Ulrich consistently records all the different psalm sequences and he includes the noncanonical hymnic compositions such as the “Apostrophe of Zion” and the prose composition in col. XXVII named “David’s Compositions” (694–726). 15 For details, see Tov, “Tefillin,” 277–92. 16 This term refers to a system of orthography, morphology, and scribal practices reflected in virtually all sectarian nonbiblical Qumran scrolls. See Tov, Textual Criticism, 100–105. 17 For the complete evidence, see b. Menah. 34a–37b, 42b–43b (especially 34b) and Massekhet Tefillin 9.

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(5) Deut 5:1–6:3 (Decalogue)18 together with the passages leading up to the required passage 3 (Deut 6:4); (6) Deut 10:12–11:12 including the passage leading up to the required passage 4 (Deut 11:13–21); (7) Deuteronomy 32, a stand-alone unit containing the Song of Moses;19 (8) Exod 12:43–51 leading up to the required passage 1 (Exod 13:1–10); (9) Exodus 20, parallel to passage 5, both containing the Decalogue.

Four of these passages precede the prescribed passages mentioned above (1– 4).20 Tefillin that included only the required passages may be exemplified by these samples: Table 1: The Sequence of Passages in Select Tefillin (Rabbinic-Type)21

MurPhyl

MT

1243

34SePhyl

MT

12

8QPhyl I

MT

1243

XḤev/Se Phyl

MT

1234

I now turn to the Qumran tefillin of the second type, that is, tefillin that contain a mixture of required and nonrequired passages, and sometimes only nonrequired passages. These tefillin contain various passages in different sequences, showing some elements that were common to some or most of these tefillin,

|| 18 It is relevant to quote here the general discussion in y. Ber. 1.3c on the basis of which the inclusion of the Decalogue in the tefillin may, by extension, be ascribed to the minim (“sectarians”, “heretics”): “The Decalogue should be read every day. Why does one not read it ? Because of the claim of the minim, that they will not say, ‘These only were given to Moses at Sinai.’” 19 See the discussion of the inclusion of this passage in tefillin by Cohn, Text, 75–77. 20 These passages do not always appear before them in the tefillin, although it is difficult to make precise statements because of their fragmentary preservation. One of the passages (passage 5) is included for two reasons since it leads up to the required passage 3 and since it contains the Decalogue. Another one is parallel to the Decalogue (9). The Decalogue is thus included twice in a passage not required by the rabbis. One long passage (7), Deuteronomy 32, is unrelated to the required passages. 21 The second column in Tables 1 and 2 describes the spelling patterns of the tefillin according to accepted criteria in the textual research of the Hebrew Bible. These are: proto-Masoretic (virtually identical to the medieval consonantal text of MT); Qumran Scribal Practice (QSP), see n. 16; conservative (not full like the QSP, but also not identical to the practice of MT); see further Tov, “Tefillin.”

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such as the inclusion of the Decalogue, Deuteronomy 32, and passages leading up to the required passages. We do not know whether any conventions were followed in the creation of these tefillin. Table 2: The Sequence of Passages in Select Tefillin (Qumran-Type)

1QPhyl

conservative

5 6 4 1 2?

4QPhyl A

QSP

56481

4QPhyl B

QSP

531

4QPhyl G–H–I

QSP?

5248

4QPhyl J–K

QSP

56

4QPhyl L–N

QSP

58371

4QPhyl P

QSP?

64

4QPhyl Q

QSP?

641

8QPhyl III

conservative

6859

The tefillin that contain a large number of passages are always of the Qumrantype, mixing required and nonrequired passages. The different types of tefillin from the Judean Desert are divided mainly into those that follow the rabbinic prescriptions and those that do not. However, the situation is more complex. In a rather complicated analysis, I divided the tefillin found in the Judean Desert into five groups based primarily on their content and secondarily on their spelling practices,22 displaying a correlation between the contents of the tefillin and their textual-orthographic-linguistic profile referring to three orthography styles: QSP, MT, and a conservative (relatively defective) spelling similar to that of MT. In simple terms, this correlation can be expressed as follows: the tefillin that contain only required passages are divided into proto-MT texts (group i), an MT-like text (group ii), and SP-LXX-independent texts (group iii), while those that contain a mixture of required and nonrequired texts (groups iv and v, the “Qumran-type tefillin”) reflect a more complex reality.23

|| 22 Tov, “Tefillin.” 23 The intricacies of this analysis are not relevant for the present purpose.

The Qumran Tefillin and Their Possible Master Copies | 141

4 Possible master copies of the tefillin What interests us in the present context is that there were tefillin of different types that generally may be named the “Qumran-type tefillin” and the “rabbinic-type tefillin,” although the distinction is more complex. A very practical question that comes to mind relates to how the scribes of these tefillin copied the individual passages. One could say that all the scribes had to do was to open their Torah scrolls and to copy the text of the specific passages that were included in the tefillin. However, while that is an easy thing to accomplish in our book culture, it was not so easy in the scroll culture, in which different scrolls needed to be opened for the copying of a single tefillin. Some scrolls needed to be opened more than once, as the tefillin contained four or five passages. It would have been much more practical had these passages been preselected and included in a small scroll that would have served as the base (master copy) for copying the tefillin. In the case of the rabbinic-type tefillin, such an intermediary would be less needed since the passages to be chosen are easy to locate (Exod 13:1–10, 11–16; Deut 6:4–9; 11: 11–21). However, for the complicated content of the Qumran-type tefillin (see the list above), an intermediary in the form of a master copy would be almost necessary. To the best of my knowledge, the idea of a master copy for tefillin has not been suggested, and therefore no one has tried to locate one. It is also not an obvious consideration, since the Qumran-type tefillin differ from one another. Possibly there were several different master copies in existence, or possibly only part of the content of the tefillin was covered by master copies. In any event, I believe I have identified at least one such master copy, possibly two, among Qumran Scripture scrolls that were previously considered “liturgical” scrolls. If our suggestion holds true, it will also solve another problem since the nature of these “liturgical” scrolls has never been clarified. The new suggestion ascribes a realistic Sitz im Leben to these scrolls. The argument developed here is that these two scrolls served as master codices for the writing of the Qumran tefillin, and that their content overlaps with several tefillin. The best case can be made for 4QDeutj and 4QDeutk1 as master codices for such tefillin. The assumption is very general, because I do not believe that 4QDeutj and 4QDeutk1 were the actual source of the known tefillin,24 but that other scrolls like them did serve as such sources. I suggest that scrolls

|| 24 As a result, the presumed dates of the manuscripts to be discussed do not play a role in this discussion.

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resembling 4QDeutj and 4QDeutk1 served as master copies from which the following tefillin were copied: 4QPhyl A, 4QPhyl J–K, 1QPhyl, and possibly more. 4QDeutj: This scroll (ascribed to 50 CE) contains segments from both Exodus (12:43–51; 13:1–5) and Deuteronomy (chapters 5, 6, 8, 11, 32).25 The script of the fragments of Exodus and Deuteronomy is identical, as are their orthography, nature and color of the leather, the pattern of deterioration of the fragments, their measurements (column length of fourteen lines, sizes of top and bottom margins, the number of letters per line [usually]), and the vertical folds of the leather. Duncan therefore considers that these fragments derived from a single scroll containing segments of both biblical books, and I agree. A consultation of the plates in the DJD volume serves to consolidate that view. Although there is no extant fragment that contains a well-established join of the texts from Exodus and Deuteronomy,26 the possibility raised by Duncan that the scroll contained portions of both Deuteronomy and Exodus is most likely. The sequence of the passages in 4QDeutj is an important element in the argumentation, and Duncan showed how in almost all details the sequence suggested by her is the best under the circumstances.27 My analysis following Table 3 below supports that argumentation, differing only regarding cols. V and XI–XII. In Table 3, adapted from Duncan, “37. 4QDeutj,” 74, the placement of Deut 8:5–10 is not certain (see below). The sequence of the passages in the Qumran tefillin (see Tables 1 and 2) is very unusual, and it is therefore remarkable that running texts were found that attest to similar sequences. I suggest that the sequence of the Scripture texts in the tefillin 4QPhyl A (texts 5, 6, 4, 8, 1), published by Józef T. Milik28 and others, followed that of a running Scripture scroll, 4QDeutj, that served as its master copy. Table 3: Content of 4QDeutj Compared with 4QPhyl A

Col.

Extant Text

Reconstructed Content

No. in List of Tefillin

Sequence in 4QPhyl A

I

5:1–11

5:1–11

5

5

II

5:13–15, 21

5:11–21

,,

|| 25 Duncan, “37. 4QDeutj,” 75–91. For an additional analysis, see Lange, “2.2.1.7.17 4QDeutj,” 44. 26 See below on the join of the two fragments in col. IX. 27 Duncan, “Considerations,” 1:199–215 and plates 2–7. 28 Milik, DJD VI, 48–51.

The Qumran Tefillin and Their Possible Master Copies | 143

Col.

Extant Text

Reconstructed Content

No. in List of Tefillin

Sequence in 4QPhyl A

III

5:22–27, 28

5:22–29

,,

IV

5:29–33; 6:1–3

5:29–6:3

,,

V?

29

8:5–10

8:5–10

–

–

VIII

11:6–10, 12, 13

11:6–13

6, 4

6, 4

IX

11:21?; Exod 12:43–44

11:13–21; Exod 12:43–46

4, 8

4, 8

X

Exod 12:46–51; 13: 1–5 Exod 12:46–13:5

8, 1

8, 1

XI

–

[Exod 13:6–10; ?]

[1, ?]

XII

Deut 32: 7–8

?; Deut 32:1–8

7

VI VII

7

My own reconstruction of the sequence of the columns is based on that of Duncan, yet differs in several details. 1. With a fixed number of fourteen lines (established by the content of col. III), the position of the following columns is stable: I–IV, VIII–X. The bottom margins help in determining the content of the columns, together with the contents of the passages as recorded in the third column of Table 3. 2. Columns I–IV contain passage 5 from beginning to end, flush with the end of a sheet (see plate XXI). 3. In Duncan’s reconstruction, the position of col. V containing 8:5–10 is hypothetical. Duncan placed it here because she was impressed by the similarity between 4QDeutj and 4QDeutn, and the latter scroll contains the segment from chapter 8 in proximity to chapter 5. However, 4QDeutj is much closer to 4QPhyl A than to 4QDeutn. Therefore, the column containing Deut 8:5–10 may have been placed in different positions: here, before col. I, or after col. XII. In positioning the fragment in col. V, Duncan followed the sequence of the chapters. 4. Col. VIII starts with the tail end of passage 6 (preserved: Deut 11:6–12) and ends with the first verse of passage 4 (11:13). It would have been preceded in cols. VI–VII by the beginning of passage 6, 10:12–11:6 (beginning). This text is not extant but as it fills exactly two columns of fourteen lines it can be assumed that these columns have been lost.

|| 29 The placement of this fragment was suggested by Duncan, “37. 4QDeutj,” 76.

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5. Col. IX probably contained the remainder of passage 4, Deut 11:13–21 (not preserved), and line 11 of this reconstructed column would have contained the end of the last verse of this passage (11:21). The first word in that line, ‫יהוה‬, the only word preserved, from the middle of the verse, fits this reconstruction exactly.30 The beginning of passage 8 (Exod 12:43–46; preserved: 43–44) followed passage 4, in this case moving from Deuteronomy to Exodus. 6. Col. X continued with passage 8 (Exod 12:46–51) and moved on to passage 1 (Exod 13:1–10; preserved: 1–6). 7. Col. XI would have continued with Exod 13:6–10 (five reconstructed lines of fifty letter-spaces), not preserved, thus completing passage 1. 8. Col. XII would have contained passage 7, Deuteronomy 32. The last three lines, preserved fragmentarily (Deut 32:7–8), were preceded by the beginning of the song, reconstructed as prose text.31 9. This arrangement makes the assumption of an additional column preceding col. XII superfluous.32 Due to their similar sequence, 4QPhyl A may well have been copied from a master copy resembling 4QDeutj. The other aspects are discussed below. 4QDeutk1 likewise contains sections from Deuteronomy 5, 11, 32 (passages 5, 6, and 7).33 As data are lacking on the material circumstances of the fragments, they cannot be arranged in any sequence. Nevertheless, the fact that fragments from these three chapters have been preserved is meaningful, as all of them are also contained in the tefillin written in the Qumran Scribal Practice (Table 2). This fact may indicate that this scroll was similar in character to 4QDeutj, but the exact content of this scroll is unknown. Additionally, several tefillin contain combinations of passages 5 and 6, or 5 and 7.

|| 30 This word could also be read as ‫ל[יהוה‬, found in the immediately preceding verse in Exodus (12:42). That reconstruction would create a short line ending with an open paragraph, as the next line starts with an indentation. However, that verse is not part of the paragraph of the tefillin that starts with 12:43, and furthermore passage 6, which would have been written in the first ten lines of this column, would be incomplete. See also Duncan, “Considerations,” 204. 31 The preserved words show clearly that the text was not arranged stichometrically. 32 In Duncan’s reconstruction (“37. 4QDeutj,” 90), my col. XI is named col. XII, preceded by her col. XI. This column contains another passage of the tefillin after passage 1, namely passage 2 (Exod 13:11–16), continuing the text of the previous passage. However, this assumption is not necessary, although in principle the amount of text to be included in this column would fit the average letter-count for this scroll. 33 For an analysis, see Lange, “2.2.1.7.17–18 4QDeutk1,” 44–45.

The Qumran Tefillin and Their Possible Master Copies | 145

5 Possible copies made from the master copies If 4QDeutj was a master copy,34 several tefillin could have been based on it. The most promising case is 4QPhyl A, but there are also other tefillin that offer partial overlap with 4QDeutj and they also agree among each other. We first turn to 4QPhyl A. 4QPhyl A. The result of the analysis in §4 is that the selection of passages included in 4QDeutj is remarkably close to the content of 4QPhyl A, as analyzed above. However, 4QDeutj also contains a passage that is not included in the tefillin, namely Deut 8:5–10, at an unknown position, placed in col. V by Duncan.35 4QDeutj, the presumed master copy, and 4QPhyl A may now be compared. The comparison is partial, as only thirty-nine common words, complete or fragmentary, have been preserved. However, the main facts are clear: 1. Content. 4QDeutj and 4QPhyl A have the same content in the preserved fragments, but it is impossible to determine whether 4QDeutj was the direct source of 4QPhyl A since too few common words are available for comparison.36 2. Sequence. The sequence is identical, but the situation regarding Deut 8:5– 10, which is not included in 4QDeutj, is unclear. 3. Orthography. Both texts are written in an orthography that is fuller than MT, but they are not written in the same style. They share the full orthography of the QSP style only in the following instances: Deut 11:10 Deut 11:11 Exod 13:5

4QDeutj 4QDeutj 4QDeutj

‫אתםה‬ .̇ ‫]ת[מה‬0 ‫ו[עבדתה‬

4QPhyl A ‫אתמה‬ 4QPhyl A ‫אתמ]ה‬ 4QPhyl A ‫ועב[דתה‬

‫להם‬

4QPhyl A ‫ל]ה[מה‬

However, in one case they differ:

Deut 5:31

4QDeutj

4QPhyl A shares most of the orthographical and morphological features of the QSP, while 4QDeutj shares several features.37 This situation can be explained by

|| 34 This scroll contained only excerpts from Deuteronomy and Exodus and, with its limited size (columns of only fourteen lines), it never could have included the complete book of Deuteronomy, let alone the two books together. This is also the view of Duncan, “37. 4QDeutj,” 75. 35 See above, Table 3. 36 Often one text preserves the beginning of a verse, and the other text contains its end.

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the assumption that the scribe of the tefillin was stricter than his source in following the features of the QSP. 4QPhyl J–K. This text, published by Milik,38 contains at places a rather complete text of passages 5 and 6. The text shares many elements with 4QDeutj, once against MT (Deut 1:3 ‫שמעה‬, MT ‫)שמע‬, but twice the two disagree (Deut 5:3 4QDeutj ‫לא‬, 4QPhyl J ‫ ;ולא‬4QDeutj ‫היום ]כו[ל]נו חי[ים‬, 4QPhyl J ‫)כולנו חיים היום‬. Further, 4QPhyl J–K always reflects the QSP spelling style, while 4QDeutj reflects a very full orthography only for some of the QSP features (see note 37). The connection between the two tefillin that may have been copied from a similar master copy (4QPhyl A and J–K) is further strengthened by an unusual shared long omission. In 4QPhyl J, a long stretch of text between Deut 5:32b and 6:2b is lacking, while a similarly long stretch is lacking in 4QPhyl A between 5:32b and 6:2a. 1QPhyl. This text, reconstructed skillfully by Dominique Barthélemy,39 contains four passages that appear in almost the same sequence at the beginning of 4QDeutj: 1QPhyl 5, 6, 4, 1, 2 (?);40 4QDeutj has this sequence: 5, 6, 4, 8, 1, 7. The text is very fragmentary, and therefore the overlap of words cannot be examined easily. By the same token, the structure of the paragraphs is similar to that of 4QPhyl A. The orthography and morphology are slightly fuller than those of MT, and less full than 4QDeutj, while Deut 5:9 MT ‫תעבדם‬, 1QPhyl ‫ תעובדם‬is an exception. The following tefillin may have been copied from the same master copy: 4QPhyl P, which has a sequence of two texts that resemble 4QDeutj (passages 6 and 4), and 4QPhyl Q, which resembles 4QDeutj (passages 6, 4, 1). Both texts are too fragmentary for analysis. In sum, if the mentioned working hypothesis is correct, we will have illuminated an aspect of the practical preparation of the tefillin, at least within the Qumran community. The argument developed here is that 4QDeutj and possibly also 4QDeutk1 may have served as master codices for the writing of tefillin such

|| 37 4QDeutj has ‫( מושה‬Deut 5:1), ‫( לוא‬Deut 5:7), ‫( כול‬Deut 5:28), ‫( אנוכי‬Deut 5:31), ‫ושמרתה‬ (Deut 8:6), ‫( אלוהיכה‬Deut 8:7), but it does not have the long forms for ‫( ב]אז[ניכם‬Deut 5:1), ‫( ]ו[שמרתם‬Deut 5:1), ‫( כי‬Deut 5:3), ‫( הה[יא‬Deut 5:4). 38 Milik, DJD VI, 64–69. 39 Barthélemy, DJD I, 74–76. 40 The sequence 5, 6, 4, 1 is stable. Exodus 1–10 (passage 1) is followed by another passage, very fragmentarily preserved. Fragment 34 of 1QPhyl may preserve a word from Exod 13:14 or 16; see Barthélemy, DJD I, 76, in which case the sequence of the last two passages would be: Exod 13:1–10 (passage 1), Exod 13: 11–16 (passage 2). In all rabbinic-type tefillin, passage 1 is followed by passage 2, for example in MurPhyl, 8QPhyl I, 4QPhyl C.

The Qumran Tefillin and Their Possible Master Copies | 147

as 4QPhyl A, 4QPhyl J–K, 1QPhyl, and possibly more. At the same time, we will have contributed towards the clarification of the essence of 4QDeutj,k1,n, which are named “liturgical scrolls,” as their nature has not yet been defined.41

Bibliography Barthélemy, Dominique. “13. Phylactère.” Pages 72–76 in idem and Józef T. Milik. Qumran Cave 1. DJD 1. Oxford: Clarendon, 1955. Chazon, Esther G. “Psalms, Hymns, and Prayers.” Pages 710–15 in vol. 2 of Encyclopedia of the Dead Sea Scrolls. Edited by Lawrence H. Schiffman and James C. VanderKam. 2 vols. New York: Oxford University Press, 2000. Cohn, Yehudah B. Tangled Up in Text: Tefillin and the Ancient World. BJS 361. Providence, RI: Brown University Press, 2008. Dahmen, Ulrich. Psalmen- und Psalter-Rezeption im Frühjudentum: Rekonstruktion, Textbestand, Struktur und Pragmatik der Psalmenrolle 11QPsa aus Qumran. STDJ 49. Leiden: Brill, 2003. Davila, James R. Liturgical Works. Eerdmans Commentaries on the Dead Sea Scrolls. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2000. Duncan, Julie A. “Considerations of 4QDtj in Light of the ‘All Souls Deuteronomy’ and Cave 4 Phylactery Texts.” Pages 199–215 in vol. 1 of The Madrid Qumran Congress: Proceedings of the International Congress on the Dead Sea Scrolls: Madrid, 18–21 March, 1991. Edited by Julio Trebolle Barrera and Luis Vegas Montaner. STDJ 11. Leiden: Brill; Madrid: Universidad Complutense, 1992. Duncan, Julie A. “37. 4QDeutj.” Pages 75–91 in Qumran Cave 4.IX: Deuteronomy, Joshua, Judges, Kings. Edited by Eugene Ulrich and Frank Moore Cross. DJD 14. Oxford: Clarendon, 1995. Reprint 1999. Eshel, Esther. “4QDeutn: A Text That Has Undergone Harmonistic Editing.” HUCA 62 (1991): 117–54. Fabry, Heinz-Josef. “Der Psalter in Qumran.” Pages 137–63 in Der Psalter im Judentum und Christentum. Edited by Erich Zenger. HBS 18. Freiburg: Herder, 1998. Falk, Daniel K. “The Contribution of the Qumran Scrolls to the Study of Ancient Jewish Liturgy.” Pages 617–51 in The Oxford Handbook of the Dead Sea Scrolls. Edited by Timothy H. Lim and John J. Collins. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010. Flint, Peter W. The Dead Sea Psalms Scrolls and the Book of Psalms. STDJ 17. Leiden: Brill, 1997.

|| 41 According to Jastram, “2.2.5.1. Tefillin,” 109, these three texts “may have been intended for reading in public settings.” Eshel, “4QDeutn,” 117–54 (151) believes that they were used as a “prayer book.” However, it is unclear what kind of prayer book these scrolls were supposed to represent if the text overlapped with the contents of the tefillin, including not only the Shema‘, but also the Decalogue and song in Deuteronomy 32. I submit that the alternative suggestion made in this study is more appropriate.

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Goshen-Gottstein, Moshe H. “The Psalms Scroll (11QPsa): A Problem of Canon and Text.” Textus 5 (1966): 22–33. Haran, Menahem. “11QPsa and the Canonical Book of Psalms.” Pages 193–201 in Minhah leNahum—Biblical and Other Studies Presented to Nahum M. Sarna in Honour of His 70th Birthday. Edited by Marc Brettler and Michael Fishbane. JSOTSup 154. Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1993. Jastram, Nathan. “2.2.5.1. Tefillin and Mezuzot.” Page 109 in Textual History of the Bible, Vol. 1B, Pentateuch, Former and Latter Prophets. Edited by Armin Lange and Emanuel Tov. Leiden: Brill, 2017. Lange, Armin. Handbuch der Textfunde vom Toten Meer, I: Die Handschriften biblischer Bücher von Qumran und den anderen Fundorten. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2009. Lange, Armin. “2.2.1.7.17 4QDeutj (4Q37) as a Non-Aligned Excerpted Manuscript.” Page 44 in Textual History of the Bible, Vol. 1B, Pentateuch, Former and Latter Prophets. Edited by Armin Lange and Emanuel Tov. Leiden: Brill, 2017. Lange, Armin. “2.2.1.7.17–18 4QDeutk1 (4Q38).” Pages 44–45 in Textual History of the Bible, Vol. 1B, Pentateuch, Former and Latter Prophets. Edited by Armin Lange and Emanuel Tov. Leiden: Brill, 2017. Milik, Józef T. “128. Phylactère A.” Pages 48–51 in Roland de Vaux and Józef T. Milik. Qumrân grotte 4.II: I. Archéologie, II. Tefillin, Mezuzot et Targums (4Q128–4Q157). DJD 6. Oxford: Clarendon, 1977. Nitzan, Bilhah. Qumran Prayer and Religious Poetry. Translated by J. Chipman. STDJ 12. Leiden: Brill, 1994. Parry, Donald W. and Emanuel Tov, in association with Geraldine I. Clements. “Liturgical Texts.” Pages 464–701 in vol. 2 of The Dead Sea Scrolls Reader. 2nd ed., rev. and enl. Leiden: Brill, 2014. Sanders, James A. The Psalms Scroll of Qumrân Cave 11 (11QPsa). DJD 4. Oxford: Clarendon, 1965. Sanders, James A. “The Qumran Psalms Scroll (11QPsa) Reviewed.” Pages 79–99 in On Language, Culture and Religion: In Honor of Eugene A. Nida. Edited by Matthew Black and William A. Smalley. The Hague: Mouton, 1974. Schiffman, Lawrence H. “The Dead Sea Scrolls and the Early History of Jewish Liturgy.” Pages 33–48 in The Synagogue in Late Antiquity. Edited by Lee I. Levine. Philadelphia: American Schools of Oriental Research, 1987. Skehan, Patrick W. “A Liturgical Complex in 11QPsa.” CBQ 35 (1973): 195–205. Skehan, Patrick W., Eugene Ulrich, and Peter W. Flint. “Psalms.” Pages 7–167 in Eugene Ulrich et al. Qumran Cave 4.XI: Psalms to Chronicles. DJD 16. Oxford: Clarendon, 2000. Talmon, Shemaryahu. “Pisqah Be’emsa‘ Pasuq and 11QPsa.” Textus 5 (1966): 11–21. Tov, Emanuel. Textual Criticism of the Hebrew Bible. 3rd ed., rev. and enl. Minneapolis: Fortress, 2012. Tov, Emanuel. “The Tefillin from the Judean Desert and the Textual Criticism of the Hebrew Bible.” Pages 277–92 in Is There a Text in This Cave? Studies in the Textuality of the Dead Sea Scrolls in Honour of George J. Brooke. Edited by Ariel Feldman, Maria Cioată and Charlotte Hempel. STDJ 119. Leiden: Brill, 2017. Ulrich, Eugene. “Multiple Literary Editions: Reflections toward a Theory of the History of the Biblical Text.” Pages 99–120 in The Dead Sea Scrolls and the Origins of the Bible. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans; Leiden: Brill, 1999.

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Ulrich, Eugene. The Biblical Qumran Scrolls: Transcriptions and Textual Variants. VTSup 134. Leiden: Brill, 2010. Wilson, Gerald H. “The Qumran Psalms Manuscripts and the Consecutive Arrangement of Psalms in the Hebrew Psalter.” CBQ 45 (1983): 377–88. Wilson, Gerald H. The Editing of the Hebrew Psalter. SBLDS 76. Chico, CA: Scholars Press, 1985.

Oda Wischmeyer

The Prayer of Faith – the Prayer of the Righteous (Jas 5:13–18): Where the “Ways” Intersect Abstract: The paper deals with prayer in the Letter of James, in particular with Jas 5:13–18. “James” is handed down only in the New Testament, but a number of scholars regard the document as an ancient Jewish text (diaspora letter). The religious classification is still debated. In any case scholarship on Second Temple Judaism will profit from a re-reading of “James” as a text whose affiliation remains in the twilight zone between Judaism and early Christianity. The Letter of James thus may serve as a source for the study of prayer in Second Temple Judaism that has been quite overlooked until now. Keywords: Letter of James; prayer; faith; righteousness; disease; intercession

1 The Letter of James in current research The document that is known under the name of “the Epistle of James”— nowadays mostly labelled as “the Letter of James”—has been handed down to us by the most important New Testament manuscripts (majuscules) from the 4th and 5th century CE.1 The first papyri with parts of James date back to the third century: P20 and P23.2 The Letter of James was already accepted as constituent part of the “New Testament” canonical collection of the Christian church since Origen (b. about 185 CE, d. about 253 CE),3 but nothing is known about the antecedents of the letter prior to this church father. Accordingly, Eusebius of Caesarea (b. 260/64 in Palestine; d. 339 or 340 in Caesarea) remarks that “οὐ πολλοὶ γοῦν τῶν παλαιῶν αὐτῆς ἐμνημόνευσαν” (Hist. eccl. 2.23.25; GCS 2, 174). Since the 19th century, many scholarly attempts were made to shed light on the dark ages before Origen, on the literary origins of the text, on its author, on the dating, and on the religious background of the document. Especially the religious || 1 See Novum Testamentum Graecum. The entire text of the letter is preserved in codices 01.02.03. 2 P20 has Jas 2:19–3:2, 4–9. P23 has Jas 1:10–12, 15–18. Also P100 (3/4 century CE) has Jas 3:13–4:4; 4:9–5:1. 3 See Bemmerl, Rezeption, 513–35. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110630282-011

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context of “James” turned out to be a persistent conundrum and scholars have looked for very different solutions to this question. In my contribution, I can only highlight a few aspects of the multifaceted debate on “James” that are of interest in light of my theme: prayer in James. 4 The Protestant theologian Friedrich Spitta (1852–1924) claimed a Jewish origin for the letter, which in his opinion had been Christianized only afterwards.5 Simultaneously, the French Protestant historian and theologian Louis Massebieau (1840–1904) asked the question: “L’Épître de Jacques est-elle l’œuvre d’un chrétien?”6 Massebieau read the letter as a Jewish writing of the first century BCE that was transformed into an early Christian writing by the interpolations of 1:1 and 2:1. A later case for a Jewish origin of the letter was made by the Zurich professor of New Testament Arnold Meyer (1861–1934) who launched a sophisticated hypothesis about the Jewish origin of the text in his monograph Das Rätsel des Jacobusbriefes from 1930,7 arguing that the letter originally had been written as a pseudonymous letter by the patriarch James to the twelve tribes of Israel. In subsequent decades scholars gave preference to a less “radical” interpretation by pointing out the sapiential traditions in “James” without combining this mapping with the claim for a Jewish authorship. Two counterarguments are of major importance in the debate about the origin of “James,” the absence of a Jewish reception history with respect to the exclusively Christian history of the text on the one hand, and the lack of text critical evidence for an original text without 1:1 and 2:1 (sentences that refer explicitly to Jesus Christ and are interpreted as evidence for a Christian origin of the text by the majority of scholars), on the other.8 The thesis of a Christian origin of the letter was put forward by those scholars who argue in favour of the authorship of James, the brother of Jesus,9 but also by those who find not only Jesus tradition, but a whole Christology within the letter10—two different concepts, but with the same result in regard to the religious origin of “James.”

|| 4 “James” in quotation marks indicates the letter. James without quotation marks labels the author. 5 Spitta, Der Brief des Jakobus. 6 Massebieau, “L’Épître de Jacques,” 249–83. See also Halévy, “Lettre d’un rabbin,” 197–201. 7 Meyer, Rätsel, 1930. 8 The fact that the “Lord Jesus Christ” is mentioned only twice has given reason to attempts to argue in favor of a later addition of the phrase. 9 E.g., Johnson, The Letter of James. 10 E.g., Assaël and Cuvillier, L’Épître de Jacques, 68–94. A kind of synthesis is tried by K.-W. Niebuhr, who aims at constructing a connection between Jesus tradition and Christological interpretation: Niebuhr, Jesus, 307–29. Niebuhr states: “Das Gottesverständnis im Jakobusbrief

The Prayer of Faith – the Prayer of the Righteous (Jas 5:13-18) | 153

Current research is characterized by two tendencies: first of all by having transferred the quest for multiple kinds of ethical traditions (an issue significantly raised and treated by Martin Dibelius in his famous commentary)11 into the quest for intertextuality, and secondly by a basic shift of the scholarly reconstruction of the shape of and the interdependencies between Second Temple Judaism(s) and what we usually name early Christianity. In the wake of James Dunn’s explaining the process of emerging Christian distinctiveness by the concept of “the parting(s) of the ways” between Judaism and early Christianity12 (a process of at least two centuries), the issue of how to label the religious affiliation of the Letter of James was redefined. The recent attempt of John Kloppenborg, who has contributed greatly to the saying source (Q) and to the Letter of James, aims at interpreting the addressees of the letter not as “Judaean Christians, still less pagans or Gentile Christians, but Judaeans of the diaspora.”13 Kloppenborg draws on the plea of Steve Mason, John Barclay and other scholars for understanding Judaism of this time period primarily as “a marker of geographical origin or domicile… rather than the designation of the beliefs held by such persons.”14 This assessment opens up the possibility of crossing the boundaries of strict religious affiliations to try out new ascriptions as Kloppenborg does when he concludes: I think it likely that Judaeans of the Diaspora, including some Jesus followers, are also the actual addressees, who, as it were, are intended to ‘read over the shoulder’ of the fictive addressees. The fictive address has the function of promoting James’s credentials not merely among homeland Jews, but all Jews – that is, precisely among those with whom Paul came into occasional contact.15 In his comprehensive “Einleitung in die hellenistisch-jüdische Literatur” Folker Siegert, former director of the Institutum Judaicum Delitzschianum of the

|| ist damit dezidiert christologisch akzentuiert, ebenso wie seine Christologie theozentrisch orientiert bleibt” (310). Even more onesided is Niebuhr’s final statement: “Wie bei Paulus so erscheint auch im Jak der Verfasser als Christuszeuge, dessen religiöse Position entscheidend durch den österlichen Jesus bestimmt ist” (327). Most of the “James” scholars do not see much evidence of a Christuszeugnis in “James.” 11 Dibelius, James. 12 Dunn, Partings. 13 Kloppenborg, “Judaeans,” 113. 14 Kloppenborg, “Judaeans,” 113 n. 2. S. Mason focuses on the ethnic meaning of the term of Ioudaios (Mason, Orientation). For the debate on Paul and ethnicity see the contributions in Early Christianity 8 (2017) fasc. 3: Paul and Ethnicity. 15 Kloppenborg, “Judaeans,” 131.

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University of Münster, follows a slightly different line.16 Siegert refers to the classic work of Adolf (von) Harnack: “Geschichte der altchristlichen Literatur,” who compiled a list of texts, composed by Jewish authors and later on borrowed, partly revised or amended and handed down by Christian authors.17 Different from concepts such as those underlying the collections of GrecoJewish texts of JSHRZ18 or FHJA,19 where Christian texts are in limine excluded, Siegert discusses the degree to which the Gospel of Matthew and the Letters of James, Jude and Barnabas as well as the Didache can be read as documents of early “Judenchristentum,” i.e., as documents that stem from and draw upon the Jewish sapiential and ethical heritage though at least revised and edited by Christian authors.20 Kloppenborg (particularly from the linguistic and sociohistorical perspective) and Siegert (primarily from the literarily point of view) stand for two different approaches of thinking beyond mere religiously defined borders, thus broadening our understanding of not only the vicinity, but the multiple kinds of intersection between early Jewish and early Christian literature. If we continue to think in this direction the scholarship on first and second century Judaism will profit from a re-reading of this group of texts. It allows for reading literary texts like James as “early Christian” texts though they are deeply rooted in contemporary Judaism. James thus serves as a source for Second Temple Jewish thought and religion as well as a document at the outset of emerging Christianity. In what follows, the tendency of reading a certain group of Early Christian texts in a primarily Jewish context will be exemplified by looking at one specific issue in the Letter of James—its dealing with prayer.

|| 16 Siegert, Einleitung, 591. See also Siegert’s comprehensive introduction (1–101), especially 56–67. Siegert strives for a reconstruction of the pre-rabbinic Greek speaking and writing Judaism and for a fine-grained and sensitive description of the zone of intersections between “Early Jewish” and “Early Christian” texts. He points to interpretations as those of Richard Bauckham’s concept of the ‘parting of the ways’ (Bauckham, “Parting,” 135–51) and to Robert A. Kraft’s essays (Kraft, Exploring). 17 Harnack, Geschichte, 1 and 2.1. Siegert refers to Harnack, Geschichte, 1.2:845–65 (“Die von den Christen angeeignete und z.T. bearbeitete jüdische Literatur”). 18 Jüdische Schriften aus hellenistisch-jüdischer Zeit. See also Charlesworth, The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha. 19 Holladay, Fragments. 20 Siegert labels the texts under “Texte von unsicherer Zuordnung” (Einleitung, 591), more precisely: “Ethisches. Weisheitsschriften” (592).

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My contribution21 takes into account the various directions into which the interpretation of the Letter of James moves: its religious affiliation in the twilight zone between Second Temple Judaism and early Christianity and its place on the literary and religious landscape of the first centuries CE.22 In this wider context, I shall focus my attention on a single text unit: Jas 5:13–18 in the context of early Jewish prayer.

2 The Text Unit of Jas 5:13–18 In his seminal commentary on “James,” Dale Allison reads Jas 5:13–20 as a single text unit, the last one of the letter. He underlines the coherence of the text: “Although the section contains admonitions about praying, singing, anointing, and confessing, its unity appears not only from the close interrelationship of all these topics but from the repetition of a number of key expressions.”23 It is first and foremost the topics of prayer and praying that the author touches upon seven times by using various words for his theme.24 Prayer comes up in connection with the different circumstances of suffering (v. 13), disease (v. 14), sins, and confessing of sin (v. 15f). In his recently published commentary, Rainer Metzner divides the text in a slightly different way and understands Jas 5:7–20 as the tenth and last section of the letter, adding the small text portion of 5:7–12 on patience and the oath to what Allison calls the final paragraph. In that he follows the disposition that was proposed in Martin Dibelius’s eminent commentary—but different from Dibelius who labelled the verses as “Spruchreihe mit wechselnden Themen,”—Metzner argues that James wrote the whole closure of the letter “in einem engen gedanklichen Zusammenhang.”25 I want to be somewhat more precise. Obviously, as Dibelius and Metzner state, 5:7–20 is the concluding part of the letter. The address “Be patient, then, brothers, until the coming of the Lord” (5:7) is a textual recommencement and makes eschatology the subject of discussion, a theme that is likely to be treated

|| 21 My paper cannot contribute substantially to the international and interreligious scholarly discussion of redefining ancient Judaism and early Christianity; it can only deliberate on the complex debate in the horizon of my topic of prayer in “James.” 22 Wischmeyer, The Letter of James (forthcoming). 23 Allison, James, 746. 24 Deēsis, aiteīn, proseuchesthai (four times in ch. 5), proseuchē, euchesthai, euchē. The figura etymologica in 5:17 serves as enhancement of the prayer of Elijah. 25 Metzner, Der Brief des Jakobus, 277.

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at the end of a text. After giving some general ethical advice on patience in the face of final judgment (5:7–12),26 in 5:13–20 the author moves on to particular religious issues of the communities of his addressees, leaving behind the subject matter of the second part of the letter that was all about ethics and moral behavior (3:1–5:6). The scope of the Christ-confessing communities as such has been touched upon earlier in the letter within ethical contexts. In 2:1–7 the author deals with the impoverished people in the assemblies, and in 2:14–17 he recommends practical charity in the community gatherings, but it is only in 5:13–20 that the communities come into focus as places of lived religion.27 As already said, prayer is the most important theme within the eschatological frame at the end of the letter, highlighted by two crucial phrases—the prayer of faith and the prayer of the righteous—which justify a more detailed analysis of 5:13–18 within the thematic framework of the present volume.28

3 Main topics Jas 5:13–18 is divided into two parts the first of which focuses on members of the communities who fall ill (vv. 13–16), while the second part supports the advice by means of a scriptural example from Israel’s history. In the overall section of Jas 5:13–20 the author builds his argument by proceeding step by step and thereby connects various different topics to a religious-parenetic web of interrelated admonitions, pertaining to the social life within the communities he addresses. Dale Allison speaks of “a traditional concatenation of themes.”29 He opens his analysis of the text unit30 with a remark on the history of interpretation that is worth considering: “With the exception of the latter half of James 2,

|| 26 The saying on swearing and on oath is a particular splinter of Jesus tradition that found its place in the eschatologically shaped concluding part of the letter (5:12; cf. Matt 5:33–37). See the comprehensive analysis in Allison, James, 722–39. 27 For the scholarly concept of lived religion see Rüpke, Roman Religion. The dimension of community and community instruction is in the focus of the study by Strange, Moral World. 28 I limit my exploration to vv. 14–18 where the prayer is the main topic. 29 Allison, James, 749. See two monographs: (1) a comprehensive monograph on the topic of healing in “James” by Kaiser, Krankenheilung; and (2) the monograph on Jas 5:13–20 by Strange, Moral World. On the topic of medicine and healing in the context of NT writings see also: Early Christianity 5 (2014) fasc. 3 (Themenheft: Frühchristliche Heilungen und antike Medizin, with contributions by R. von Bendemann, A. Weissenrieder, Ph. van der Eijk, V. Nutton). 30 Allison, James, 749, gives a detailed outline of the text.

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the end of ch. 5 has generated more discussion and controversy than any other portion of our letter. It has indeed played a significant role in several major ecclesiastical controversies, the most intensive having to do with extreme unction,”31 but also with the issue of the confessional32 and with miraculous healing.33 The reason for the theological, ecclesiastical, and especially denominational debates on James 5 lies in both the canonical status of our text and also in the congregational range of the advice. In some sense, it is ch. 5 that demonstrates most clearly the early Christian origin of the letter. At the same time, ch. 5 refers notably to contemporary Jewish texts. The connecting link is to be found in the subject of communion and communal religious life. While these debates affect the post-history of ch. 5, the discussion about the pre-history or the traditions processed in the pericope points to elements of contemporary Jewish traditions of liturgy and lived religion, which are important for my exploration. Already Harnack referred to the second century CE texts from the Didache,34 1 Clement and Polycarp’s Letter to the Philippians,35 to related liturgical texts from the ancient Church. Scholars have also drawn upon ancient Jewish prayers, primarily the Shemoneh Esreh.36 Here we find close connections between the motifs of prayer for healing from disease and the topics of sin and confession. In James 5, suffering and disease as well as joy are made concerns of the communities. Healing is tied to petitionary prayer or prayer of intercession, performed by the presbyters (i.e., persons who serve as leaders in the communities) and theologically characterized as prayer of faith. Jas 5:14 reads: “Is anyone among you ill? He should call for the elders of the assembly and have them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord.” Interestingly enough, the process of praying takes place in the houses of the sick, not in the meeting places of the community members. That means both that the persons in question suffer from severe illness and also that the praying is not bound to liturgical portions of the services in institutional meeting rooms of the assemblies.

|| 31 Allison, James, 740. 32 Allison, James, 743f. 33 Allison, James, 744f. 34 Did. 8: Lent and prayer (instruction with the wording of the Our Father); 1 Clem. 59:4: prayer for the sick. 35 Pol. Phil. 6:1: the presbyters shall take care for the sick. 36 Allison, James, 747 with reference to Harnack, Geschichte, 487. See primarily 1 Clem. 59:4. Löhr, Studien, 207–23, comments comprehensively on the text. He adduces parallels from Jewish prayers, especially on second and eighth blessing in the Amidah. See also the documentation in Allison, James, 748f.

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Within this context, the additional topic of unction attracts special interest. James’s twofold advice of praying and anointing for the purpose of healing is paralleled only in the Gospel of Mark: “[The Twelve] drove out many demons, and they anointed many ill people with oil and healed them” (6:13).37 The scenery Mark sketches likewise is not connected to meeting rooms as e.g., synagogues.38 Furthermore, in comparison to Mark the lack of the motif of the demons is remarkable in “James.” The advice is neither about the concept of disease as result of evil demonic powers nor about magical practice—though both themes are often adduced as related phenomena by the commentators— but it refers to two simple religious exercises, the word of prayer and the practical work of anointing. Whether anointing is a regular ritual practice in the communities that James addresses remains unknown. The lack of parallels may call into question that anointing was common in the early Christian communities.39 Commentators observe a shift or a progress in the argument between v. 15a and 15b.40 James’s interest turns to a new subject. While v. 15a states that true prayer is able to help the sick person, in v. 15b James focuses on the element of sin, though in his deliberations the relation between illness and sin remains undiscussed and unresolved.41 But obviously the thought of sin is not far from the theme of illness. Somehow unexpected, v. 16 adds a further element: the mutual confessing of sins connected with mutual prayer—no longer the prayer of the presbyters over the sick persons—that will lead to convalescence. Confessing sins is part of Jewish religious practices as well as of the early Christians. The request to confess one’s sins since “effective prayer requires reconciliation,”42 points to the Jesus tradition (Matt 6:14–15).43 The following grounds lead || 37 Yarbro Collins, Mark, 302, comments on James: “The anointing of the sick with oil is performed ‘in the name of the Lord’… The use of the name is an indication that a miraculous healing is in view.” 38 Mark reports the same about Jesus’s healing (Mark 1:29–31), but he also uses to heal in the synagogues (Mark 1:23–26). 39 See Kaiser, Krankenheilung, 138–99. “Aus philologischer Sicht dürfte es sich daher sowohl bei der Salbung in Mk 6,13 als auch in Jak 5,14 nicht um ein wohl definiertes, universelles religiöses Ritual, sondern eher um ein allgemein verständliches, zeichenhaftes Geschehen handeln” (195). 40 See Metzner, Der Brief des Jakobus, 305, following Dibelius, on v. 16: “Hier beginnt etwas Eigenes und Neues”. Allison, James, 768, denies a shift (pace Dibelius). 41 For the relation between sin and illness see the Gospel of John 9:2f., a text that attests that there was a discussion about the relation between illness and sin – in regard to both the family and the ill person. 42 Allison, James, 770.

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the audience to an example taken from Scripture: James refers to Elijah, amplifying the narration from 1 Kgs 17:18 LXX.44 The point of comparison is the efficacy of the prayer of the righteous. The reason why Elijah’s prayer for rain is chosen as an example for this motif remains uncertain at first glance. Scholars point to the fact that in 1 Kgs LXX prayer is not explicitly mentioned, but only Elijah’s gesture of “putting his face between his knees” (1 Kgs 18:42 LXX). James 5 does not directly trace back to the biblical narrative about Elijah, but to early Jewish tradition about the prophet. In texts such as 4 Ezra 7:109 and Liv. Pro 19:445 Elijah prays and rain comes.46 While Lives of the Prophets label Elijha’s prayers as miracles, 4 Ezra puts them into context with other examples of prayer which leads me to my next point.

4 James 5 in the context of Jewish and Early Christian prayer and prayer instruction Ancient Jewish canonical and non-canonical literature is full of prayers and prayer instructions; scholars have written extensively on the topic.47 Our texts transmit private prayers as well as community prayers which partly had already a liturgical function. Prayers can be introduced by instructions: a famous example is the Our Father in Matthew 6 and Luke 11. In Luke 11:1 one of the disciples asks Jesus: “Lord, teach us how to pray.” Jesus answers by giving first the wording of the prayer, followed by a twofold instruction that includes a parable and a text unit of sayings on the power of prayer.48 In the Gospel of Matthew the || 43 See more: Allison, James, 770. 44 See the exegetical details: Allison, James, 777. Allison remarks that “the story of Elijah and the rain was well known” (778); also Metzner, Der Brief des Jakobus, 309–13. More in the comprehensive monograph of Öhler, Elia, 257–59 on “James.” See also Kovalishyn, “The Prayer of Elijah in James 5.” 45 See the text critical remarks in Schwemer, Vitae prophetarum, 645. 46 The content and the text of the prayers are not communicated in the Early Jewish texts. 47 See the excellent introduction to the topic by Charlesworth, “Prayer in Early Judaism,” 449–50. Charlesworth underlines: “No other period in the history of Jewish liturgy is so important as the first two centuries C.E.” (450); also Charlesworth, “Prayer in the New Testament,” 773–86. Text anthologies: Kiley, Prayer; Sterling and van der Horst, Prayers; van der Horst and Newman, Early Jewish Prayers. For Qumran see the introduction by Schuller, “Prayer at Qumran,” 411–28; see also the monograph by Nitzan, Qumran Prayer. Recent introductions are given by Reif, “The Place of Prayer,” 1–17; Frey, “Das Vaterunser,” 1–24. 48 See also the comprehensive prayer instruction in Luke 11 (see Förster, Gebet, 254–315).

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instruction is part of the Sermon on the Mount, namely the admonition on righteousness (dikaiosynē) which encompasses alms, prayer, and Lent (Matt 6:1–18). Here, prayer is understood as one of the main religious duties of the individual and strictly limited to the private room. In comparison with James 5, chapter 7 of 4 Ezra is the most compelling parallel, written at roughly the same time as the Letter of James, probably in Palestine in Hebrew or Aramaic language.49 The text sequence that matters for the interpretation of James 5 is part of the dialogue on the final judgment (4 Ezra 7:1–11550) subsequent to Ezra’s question in 6:59 (“If the world has indeed been created for us, why do we not possess our world as an inheritance? How long will this be so?”).51 During the dialogue Ezra asks whether the righteous may intercede for the wicked. The angelus interpres states that in the end there will be no intercession, but “individual responsibility”52 and strict sentence according to personal imperfection and sin. When Ezra points to the vicarious prayer of Abraham, Moses, Joshua, Samuel, David, Solomon, Elijah, Hezekiah and many others, the angel answers: This present world is not the end; the full glory does not abide in it; therefore, those who were strong prayed for the weak. But the day of judgment will be the end of this age and the beginning of the immortal age to come, in which corruption has passed away, sinful indulgence has come to an end, unbelief has been cut off, and righteousness has increased and truth has appeared [emphasis added]. Therefore no one will then be able to have mercy on him who has been condemned in the judgment, or to harm him who is victorious (4 Ezra 7:112– 115). This text section functions as a window that admits us to take a glance at thoughts of Jewish authors who were contemporaries of James and at their debates on sin, intercession and forgiveness and judgment and the power of intercessory prayer of righteous persons. Here we find the narrow context of the religious and theological debate to which James 5 can be linked. Obviously, the author of 4 Ezra knows about the idea of remission of sins by the power of the prayer of the righteous, but in the horizon of the world to come he wants to limit this manner of obtaining mercy to the present world. He does not deny the suc-

|| 49 See the seminal commentary by Stone, Fourth Ezra, 9–11. 50 Scholars make different proposals for the division of ch. 7. In the context of my inquiry my concern is the topic of the final judgment. 51 Charlesworth, The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha, 1:536. According to Stone, Fourth Ezra, 179, the dialogue belongs to the third vision (6:35–9:25). 52 Stone, Fourth Ezra, 251.

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cessful prayer of the fathers in favor of those who sinned against God, and here the author of 4 Ezra is not far from James. Moreover, the answer of the angel contains references to faith and justice, those spiritual powers that are also mentioned in James 5. The motif of judgment is not only prevalent in the Ezra apocalypse, but also in the Letter of James, as noted above. In 5:7–12 James depicts the scenery of the end of time and of the coming of the Lord, focused in the catchword of judgment (krisis) ahead of 5:13–18 (“so that you may not fall under judgment” 5:12). Evidently, we find the same elements in “James” and in 4 Ezra, but both texts subordinate these elements to different intentions. While 4 Ezra aims at emphasizing the ultimate severity of the judgment which leads him to the refusal of intercessory prayer at the end of time in order to strengthen the ethical efforts of his contemporary readers, in “James” the judgment seems to be used as keyword that enables the author to encourage not only the elders, as the faithful and righteous ones, to pray over the sick, but also to give all members of “his” communities the recommendation of mutual prayer and confession of sins. The reference to the righteous and especially to Elijah implies the author’s confidence in the righteousness of all community members. He understands prayer and mutual confession of sins as spiritual resources in the communities that strengthen their righteousness. Simultaneously he provides assurance and confidence to the sick people in the communities. We have no evidence for liturgical forms or wordings of prayers for health that James might have had in mind or even known about from the common praxis in Jewish or Christ- confessing assemblies. Since the question of the origin of the Shmoneh Esreh is not yet settled, the text cannot be used as contemporary parallel.53 Nevertheless it exhibits parallelisms insofar as the topics of sin (blessing 6) and healing (blessing 8) are combined and both are subjects of this most important prayer. What we can conclude is that James was not as much interested in the wording of prayers as were Luke, Matthew and the Didache along with their sources or traditions. But James particularly valued prayer awarding this verbal kind of practical piety a twofold power: to help sick persons to convalescent and sins to be forgiven. The two basic elements James connects with that kind of prayer are faith and justice, two qualities the author attends to elsewhere in his letter. While it is not surprising that James emphasizes justice (Jas 3:18) and uses the term of “prayer of the just,” which is a well-known motif from Prov 15:29,54 || 53 Frey, “Das Vaterunser”, 7f. 54 See Kaiser, Krankenheilung, 251–55 for the ancient Jewish context.

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the situation is different with regard to “faith.” Unlike “prayer of the just,” the phrase of “the prayer of faith” (Jas 5:15) is unparalleled, as Allison states,55 but the proposition that is encapsulated in the phrase has already been addressed at the outset of the letter, where James promotes patience and endurance: “Consider it utmost joy, my brothers, when you fall into various tribulations, knowing that this means of testing your faith (to dokimon tēs pisteōs, probation of faith) works patient endurance” (Jas 1:2). From a rhetorical perspective, this sentence can even be labelled as the propositio generalis of the overall. More generally, it expresses the author’s main concern and reveals the prime motive of his letter-writing: consolation and the appeal for steadfastness and endurance. In other words: here we are at the heart of the author’s “religion,” as is further demonstrated by the importance of the topic of faith for the whole of the letter.56 In James, prayer is regarded as the most reliable instrument for communicating with God and bringing about forgiveness and health. Faith is the foundation of prayer that is efficacious. So far, Jas 5:15–16 is to be read as a contribution to the general concept of early Jewish prayer as well as that of early Christianity. In this overall view, two points are of particular significance: the topic of faith and the mutual prayer. To start with the latter: with regard to the request or perhaps even the invitation for mutual prayer, we observe the rather “democratic” position James maintains. The communities he addresses seem to have relatively little internal differentiation concerning charges and commissions. Only “teachers” and “presbyters” are mentioned, and both positions seem to be integrated within the community of brethren rather than standing over them. The kind of community James addresses differs both in comparison to the more pronounced and gradually increasing internal differentiation we meet in the Pauline and post-Pauline communities and also in comparison to what 1 Peter envisions. In “James” we encounter more or less the same kind of “community of brethren” that we know from the Johannine letters: a community with a flat hierarchy as we would put it today. According to the author’s perception, the communities seem to be connected by a common experience of tribulation and by the same essentials of monotheism, of ethical standards and of the communitarian spirit of their gatherings. Mutual prayer and mutual confession of sins

|| 55 Allison, James, 764. See the comprehensive presentation and discussion of the texts in Kaiser, Krankenheilung, 236–74, esp. 250. 56 Pistis is used very often in “James”: 18 times (twice as verb), primarily in ch. 2 where James discusses the relation between faith and works. James 2:23 is especially remarkable, as the author refers to Abraham and quotes Gen 15:6 (see also Rom 4:3, 9 and Gal 3:6).

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establish particularly strong bonds between those who belong to the association of Christ-confessing assemblies whom the letter addresses. It is noteworthy that the author mentions that the anointing shall be done “in the name of the Lord” (v. 14). The text does not clarify whether the author has in mind God himself (1:1) or Jesus Christ the Lord (1:1). Both options are reasonable, though the first option is to be preferred.57 Even here, where the author gives advice for the interior religious life of the community (ekklēsia 5:14), he does not seem to be concerned about a distinct religious classification.58 The motif of faith59 and the relation between faith and works (erga) are issues the author had discussed in Jas 2:14–26. This section of “James” is frequently seen as the theological core of the letter.60 Discussion of the engagement with Pauline traditions and theology is beyond the limited scope of this paper.61 The term “prayer of faith” is certainly to be interpreted along the lines of ch. 2 where James refers to Abraham’s faith.62 He conceptualizes faith as an active agent that is improved and authorized by “works.” In 5:15 the outcome of this kind of faith is recovery from illness. The section of Jas 5:13–18 defines prayer in relation to faith (in view of ch.2) and applies it as the instrument to address the situation of disease. James 5 is close to other early Jewish and early Christian texts on the power of faith, especially from the environment of the Jesus tradition. But interestingly enough, the author refers not to Jesus but to Abraham and Elijah. To sum up: our text leads us to two debates, one on the temporal range of the prayer of the righteous, and the other on the power of the prayer of faith. Both topics were the subject matter of controversies in early Jewish and early Christian environments. James 5 is to be placed where these discussions intersect.

|| 57 See Allison, James, 400 on 2:7 and 763 on 5:14. Allison points to eighth benediction of the Shemoneh Esreh. 58 Hvalvik and Sandnes, Early Christian Prayer, follow a different line. Early Christian prayer has a Christocentric function already in the first century: “The studies presented in this volume suggest that, viewed from the role of prayer, Christian identity, albeit fragile and complex, was taking shape already in the first century. This focus on prayer suggests an early beginning of a formation process for Christian identity” (380). Neither the Our Father nor James 5 confirm this interpretation. 59 Niebuhr, Glaube, 473–501. 60 Wischmeyer, “Wie spricht,” 385–409. 61 Wischmeyer, “Polemik,” 357–79. 62 Jas 2:23 uses Gen 15:6 exactly against Paul in Rom 4:3.

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5 Intertextuality The debate about the power of faith leads to the issue of intertextuality that I briefly addressed at the beginning of my paper. Though our text sequence lacks explicit quotations, the author refers to a particular episode in Elijah’s life that is narrated in 1 Kgs 17:18 LXX, as noted above. In “James,” the lengthy story is reduced to two sentences on Elijah’s prayer. Nevertheless, in the short text James provides his audience with two details, which are not drawn from the text of the Septuagint: James mentions “three and a half years” and adds the final phrase, “heaven gave rain, and the earth yielded its fruit.” The “three and a half years” finds an exact parallel in Luke 4:25, while the closure phrase draws on Gen 1:11. The story of Elijah and the rain miracle as such are well known in early Jewish literature63 and can be used in different contexts. I mentioned the close parallels of James 5 with Lives of the Prophets and 4 Ezra. In ch. 5 James connects Elijah’s recourse to prayer and faith thereby interpreting the prophet’s example in direction of his own main theme: the testing of faith (1:3). As it turns out, the way James uses the moral example is an almost independent interpretation of the broader Elijah-tradition64 in view of the leading ideas of his letter. In James 5 we do not find the literary emulation of the Jesus tradition (as John Kloppenborg puts it)65 but simply the independent use of religious heritage of Israel as it is handed down inside and outside the Bible of Israel. James, the author of our letter, proves to be a religious teacher who gives his own instruction on the prayer of faith by referring to one of the prophets of Israel. The faith that he has in mind is the same strong faith that Paul praises in 1 Cor 13:2 where the apostle speaks about the faith that moves mountains and nevertheless is nothing without love. Matt 17:14–20 (Mark 9:14–29; Luke 9:37– 43a) is even closer to the Letter of James. A miracle story, the healing of a demon-possessed boy, is followed by the opening question the disciples ask Jesus about the demon: “Why could we not drive it out?” In his answer Jesus points to the same strong faith Paul addresses: “Because you have so little faith. Truly I tell you, if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you” (Matt 17:20). The Gospel of Mark puts a different emphasis on the tradition and comes even closest to “James.” Here faith is in the center of the miracle

|| 63 Allison, James, 778. 64 But see the close parallel in 4 Ezra. 65 Kloppenborg, “Diaspora,” 242–70; idem, “Emulation,” 121–50.

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story. When Jesus states: “Everything is possible for one who believes,” immediately the boy’s father exclaimed: “I do believe; help me overcome my unbelief!” (Mark 9:23–24) The answer Jesus gives to his disciples’ question: “Why couldn’t we drive it out?” is: “This kind can come out only by prayer” (Mark 9:28–29) It is this text that is closest to Jas 5:15. The Jesus tradition as literarily shaped in this text unit of Mark combines prayer and faith, demonstrated within a healing context. James connects the same elements in his prayer instruction in James 5 without any reference to the Jesus tradition. Against the horizon of early Jewish and early Christian debates on the nature and the power of strong prayer James takes up his own position by emphasizing sin, the confessing of sins and forgiveness as important elements along with faith and prayer when dealing with disease in the communities.

6 The Letter of James: prayer in association with Judaism and Early Christianity At the beginning of my paper, I mentioned two shifts in the interpretation of the Letter of James that affect our overall reading of those texts that seem to be situated in between the purportedly distinct lines of ancient Judaism and ancient Christianity. As I have delineated, the shift from history of traditions towards intertextuality means that recently scholars are more interested in reading the texts in question as entire literary works that borrow from preceding and contemporary literature than in interpreting them as mere containers of floating traditions and parallel motifs. The second shift concerns the issue of classifying texts from the first and second century CE in religious terms. The prevailing search for the clearest possible differentiation between religious affiliations has at least partly been replaced by attempts at thinking beyond the borders of one-dimensional religious assignment. The fact that scholars persistently disagree over how to classify the Letter of James in regard to its main reservoir of religious traditions and about its religious affiliation can best be explained by the scholarly admission that the text is not primarily concerned with building walls between the religious communities that practice praying and healing in synagogues or house churches or in private rooms or outdoors. In fact, the author does not strive to strengthen his communities in their religious essentials and convictions as, for example, does either the author of the First Letter of John, or John, the author of Revelation. To the contrary, James’s understanding of the triad of prayer, healing and confess-

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ing of sins is as close to main features of the Bible of Israel as to texts like 4 Ezra, Lives of the Prophets or early Jewish prayers, on the one hand, and to Jesus tradition, on the other hand, and shares the same traditions of the righteous patriarchs, prophets and kings of Israel who prayed for their people. Debates about the range of intercessory prayer, the quality and success of a firm prayer and the relation between faith and prayer were part of the religious life, thinking, and imagination of Jews and Christ-confessors around the beginning of the second century CE. James 5 is a document of the high estimation of prayer in the religious world that is shared by early Jewish and early Christian authors and the communities that were their addressees. It is this grey area that is especially rich in religious literature and perceptions that are intertwined in many ways and require learned attention from different sides. James 5, often rather neglected in studies on prayer, represents a primary source of how early Christ confessors were instructed about praying in the context of faith and righteousness in the heritage of the Septuagint and the Jesus tradition.

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Frey, Jörg. “Das Vaterunser im Horizont antik-jüdischen Betens unter besonderer Berücksichtigung der Textfunde vom Toten Meer.” Pages 1–24 in Das Vaterunser in seinen antiken Kontexten. Zum Gedenken an Eduard Lohse. Edited by Florian Wilk. FRLANT 266. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2016. Halévy, Joseph. “Letre d’un rabbin de Palestine égarée dans l’évangile.” RSém 22 (1914): 197– 201. Harnack, Adolph. Geschichte der altchristlichen Literatur bis Eusebius. Vol. 1: Überlieferung und Bestand. Berlin 1893 (1958). Vol. 2.1: Die Chronologie der Literatur bis Irenäus. Leipzig: Hinrichs, 1897 (1958). Holladay, Carl R., ed. Fragments from Hellenistic Jewish Authors. 4 vols. SBLTT 20.30.39.40. Atlanta: SBL Press, 1983–1996. Horst, Pieter W. van der, and Judith H. Newman. Early Jewish Prayers in Greek. CEJL. Berlin; New York: de Gruyter, 2008. Hvalvik, Reidar, and Karl O. Sandnes, eds. Early Christian Prayer and Identity Formation. WUNT 336. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2014. Johnson, Luke Timothy. The Letter of James. A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary. AB 37A. New Haven; London: Yale University Press, 1995. Kaiser, Sigurd. Krankenheilung. Untersuchungen zu Form, Sprache, traditionsgeschichtlichem Hintergrund und Aussage zu Jak 5,13–18. WMANT 112. Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag, 2006. Kiley, Mark, ed. Prayer from Alexander to Constantine. A Critical Anthology. London; New York: Routledge, 1997. Kloppenborg, John S. “Diaspora Discourse: The Construction of Ethos in James.” NTS 53 (2007) 242–70. Kloppenborg, John S. “The Emulation of the Jesus Tradition in the Letter of James.” Pages 121– 50 in Reading James with New Eyes. Methodological Reassessments of the Letter of James. Edited by Robert L. Webb and John S. Kloppenborg. LNTS 342. London; New York: T&T Clark, 2007. Kloppenborg, John S. “Judaeans or Judaean Christians in James?” Pages 113–35 in Identity and Interaction in the Ancient Mediterranean: Jews, Christians and Others. Essays in Honour of Stephen G. Wilson. Edited by Zeba A. Crook and Philip A. Harland. New Testament Monographs 18. Sheffield: Sheffield Phoenix, 2007. Kovalishyn, Mariam Kamell. “The Prayer of Elijah in James 5: An Example of Intertextuality.” JBL 137/4 (2018): 1027–45. Kraft, Robert A. Exploring the Scripturesque. Jewish Texts and Their Christian Contexts. JSJSup 137. Leiden: Brill, 2009. Mason, Steve. Orientation to the History of Roman Judaea. Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock, 2016. Massebieau, Louis. “L’Épître de Jacques est-elle l’œuvre d’un chrétien?” RHR 32[16] (1895): 249–83. Metzner, Rainer. Der Brief des Jakobus. THKNT 14. Leipzig: Evangelische Verlagsanstalt, 2017. Meyer, Arnold. Das Rätsel des Jacobusbriefes. ZNW 10. Gießen: Töpelmann, 1930. Niebuhr, Karl-Wilhelm. “Der erinnerte Jesus bei Jakobus. Ein Beitrag zur Einleitung in einen umstrittenen Brief.” Pages 307–29 in Spurensuche zur Einleitung in das Neue Testament. Eine Festschrift im Dialog mit Udo Schnelle. Edited by Michael Labahn. FRLANT 271. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2017. Niebuhr, Karl-Wilhelm. “Glaube im Stresstest. PÍSTIS im Jakobusbrief.” Pages 473–501 in Glaube. Das Verständnis des Glaubens im frühen Christentum und in seiner jüdischen und

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hellenistisch-römischen Umwelt. Edited by Jörg Frey, Benjamin Schliesser, and Nadine Ueberschaer. WUNT 373. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2017. Nitzan, Bilhah. Qumran Prayer and Religious Poetry. STDJ 12. Leiden: Brill, 1994. Öhler, Markus. Elia im Neuen Testament. Untersuchungen zur Bedeutung des alttestamentlichen Propheten im frühen Christentum. BZNW 88. Berlin; New York: de Gruyter, 1997. Reif, Stefan C. “The Place of Prayer in Early Judaism.” Pages 1–17 in Ancient Jewish Prayers and Emotions. Emotions Associated with Jewish Prayer in and around the Second Temple Period. Edited by Stefan C. Reif and R. Egger-Wenzel. DCLS 26. Berlin; Boston: de Gruyter, 2015. Rüpke, Jörg. On Roman Religion: Lived Religion and the Individual in Ancient Rome. Ithaka: Cornell University Press, 2016. Schuller, Eileen. “Prayer at Qumran.” Pages 411–28 in Prayer from Tobit to Qumran. Edited by Renate Egger-Wenzel and Jeremy Corley. Deuterocanonical and Cognate Literature Yearbook 2004. Berlin; New York: de Gruyter, 2004. Schwemer, Anna Maria. Vitae prophetarum. JSHRZ 1.7. Gütersloh: Gütersloher Verlagshaus, 1997. Siegert, Folker. Einleitung in die hellenistisch-jüdische Literatur. Apokrypha, Pseudepigrapha und Fragmente verlorener Autorenwerke. Berlin; Boston: de Gruyter, 2016. Spitta, Friedrich. Der Brief des Jakobus; Studien zum Hirten des Hermas. Vol. 2 of Zur Geschichte und Literatur des Urchristentums. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1896. Strange, James R. The Moral World of James: Setting the Epistle in its Greco-Roman and Judaic Environments. StBibLit 136. New York: Lang, 2010. Sterling, Gregory E., and Pieter W. van der Horst, eds. Prayers from the Ancient World: GrecoRoman, Jewish, and Christian Prayers. Christianity and Judaism in Antiquity. Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 2008. Stone, Michael E. Fourth Ezra: A Commentary on the Book of Fourth Ezra (Hermeneia), Minneapolis: Fortress, 1990. Wischmeyer, Oda. The Letter of James as an Early Christian Literary Document between Classicist Emulation and Invention. A Critical Examination (forthcoming). Wischmeyer, Oda. “Polemik im Jakobusbrief. Formen, Gegenstände und Fronten.” Pages 357– 79 in Polemik in der frühchristlichen Literatur. Texte und Kontexte. Edited by Oda Wischmeyer and Lorenzo Scornaienchi. BZNW 170. Berlin; Boston: de Gruyter, 2011. Wischmeyer, Oda. “Wie spricht der Jakobusbrief von Gott? Theologie im Jakobusbrief.” Pages 385–409 in Weisheit als Lebensgrundlage. Festschrift für Friedrich V. Reiterer zum 65. Geburtstag. Edited by Renate Egger-Wenzel, Karin Schöpflin, and Johannes F. Diehl. DCLS 15. Berlin; Boston: de Gruyter, 2013. Yarbro Collins, Adela. Mark. A Commentary. Hermeneia. Minnepolis: Fortress, 2007.

| Part II: Rabbinic Traditions

Shulamit Elizur

A New Look at the Nuptial Benedictions in Babylonia and Palestine Abstract: In contrast to the seven nuptial benedictions of the Babylonian rite, the Palestinian rite – according to the Sefer ha-Ḥilliqum – consisted of only three. In spite of scholarly attempts to surmise what these three benedictions were, they have yet to be identified. This article presents a Genizah fragment that contains a series of benedictions and suggests that these be viewed as the Palestinian nuptial benedictions. In addition to the blessing over wine, the fragment contains a special benediction for the Sabbath, which is followed by two benedictions that would be appropriate for the groom, “…Who causes us to rejoice in His salvation” and “…Who multiplies joyous occasions in Israel.” These benedictions also shed light on the Babylonian nuptial benedictions. Keywords: benedictions, nuptials, joyous occasions, Palestinian rite, Babylonian rite

1 Nuptial benedictions in the Talmud and tradition The rituals that mark the Jewish life-cycle events are accompanied by benedictions. From the rite of circumcision soon after birth, through engagement and marriage rituals, to customs surrounding the death of an individual—all Jewish rituals and liturgy are centered on benedictions. Among these, the nuptial benedictions stand out in their large quantity; they will be the focus of this paper. The seven nuptial benedictions are recited under the canopy during the wedding ceremony, beginning with the blessing over wine (‫בורא פרי הגפן‬, “Blessed are you Lord, King of the universe, who created the fruit of the vine”). They are later repeated following grace after meals for seven days of celebration following the wedding, with the blessing over wine as the final benediction. These benedictions are an ancient Jewish ritual. They appear as a complete unit in the Babylonian Talmud (b. Ketub. 8b). However, as noted by venerable Jew|| This article, which presents an analysis of a manuscript fragment from the Cairo Genizah preserved at the Cambridge library, is written in honor of Professor Stefan Reif, who has dedicated most of his life to the preservation of Genizah fragments in Cambridge and greatly contributed to making them available to the scholarly community. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110630282-012

172 | Shulamit Elizur

ish sages and modern scholars, these are not part of an integral series of benedictions, such as the ones recited in the Amidah prayers, the grace after meals (with the exception of the fourth benediction; see below), or the Haftarah benediction. These two series of benedictions begin with an initial benediction that opens with ‫( ברוך‬blessed) and ends with ‫ברוך‬, while the benedictions that follow in the series are contiguous (“‫ )”ברכה הסמוכה לחברתה‬and therefore do not open with ‫ ברוך‬but do finish with a concluding blessing formula beginning with ‫ברוך‬ (=doxology). The exception to this rule might indicate a secondary (although not necessarily later) addition. For example, the fourth benediction in the grace after meals begins with the ‫ ברוך‬formula, despite its contiguity to the benediction ‫“( בונה ירושלים‬the Builder of Jerusalem”) but does not contain a doxology. This deviation was explained by the sages, who claimed that the benediction was a later addition to the grace after meals.1 The nuptial benedictions are famously an exception to this rule. While eliminating the blessing over wine from the discussion, and focusing on the six benedictions dedicated to the bride and groom, we can determine that the two initial benedictions are in short form, resembling the “benedictions over enjoyment” (‫)ברכות הנהנין‬: they begin with the generic opening, followed by no more than two or three words (‫שהכל ברא לכבודו‬, “Who created everything for his own glory,” and ‫יוצר האדם‬, “Creator of humankind”), without a doxology. What ensues is a sequence of three benedictions: the first ( ‫אשר יצר את האדם‬ ‫בצלמו‬, “Who created man in His image”) begins and concludes with the ‫ברוך‬ formula; and the two benedictions that follow—the blessing for Jerusalem and the blessing for the joy of the groom and the bride—only conclude with a doxology, as is expected in contiguous benedictions. The series is “ruined” again in the final benediction, which unexpectedly begins with ‫ברוך‬, but this time also ends with ‫ברוך‬. In addition to such variation in structure, the content of the set of benedictions is surprising as well, particularly the odd repetitions. The most prominent among these is the repetition of ‫יוצר האדם‬, first as a short independent benediction, and immediately afterwards, as the concluding formula of a longer benediction. A discussion in the Babylonian Talmud alludes to the problematic nature of this repetition and suggests a possible solution,2 while rabbinic literature || 1 Y. Ber. 1:5, 3d (11, lines 25–26), 7:1, 11a (55, lines 41–4); cf. b. Ber. 48b. Additionally, the grace after meals is referred to as “three benedictions” by the Mishnah (m. Ber. 6, 8), Medieval halakhic authorities, and beyond, thereby indicating that the fourth benediction was absent in early formulations. See, Elizur, “Blessing,” 421–8. 2 This discussion continues with the testimony of a sage who omitted one of the benedictions, and it is apparent from the debate that it was ‫ יוצר האדם‬that was omitted: “Levi happened upon the house of Rabbi Judah ha-Nasi during the wedding celebration of Rabbi Shimon, his

A New Look at the Nuptial Benedictions in Babylonia and Palestine | 173

throughout the generations suggested other explanations. But clearly these attempts relate to a standardized repetition, and the reason for the original repetition remains unknown. Another obvious repetition is the doxology in the final two benedictions, first ‫“( משמח חתן וכלה‬Who brings joy to the groom and the bride”) followed by ‫“( משמח חתן עם הכלה‬Who brings joy to the groom with the bride”).3 The two doxologies previously appeared in manuscripts of the Babylonian Talmud, and also in this case, solutions were suggested in rabbinic literature throughout the ages.4 Alternative formulations in the doxology of the penultimate benediction in Gaonic sources exist, such as ‫משמח עמו בירושלים‬ (“Who causes his people to rejoice in Jerusalem”), or ‫משמח עמו ובונה ירושלים‬ (“Who causes his people to rejoice and builds Jerusalem”);5 but these present additional problems, since Jerusalem is the focus of the previous benediction, while the penultimate benediction focuses on bringing joy to the groom and bride. Another variant reads ‫“( מצליח חתן עם הכלה‬Who brings success to the groom with the bride”) as the doxology for the final benediction in a variety of

|| son, and recited five [benedictions]. Rav Assi happened upon the house of Rav Ashi during the wedding celebration of Mar, his son, and recited six [benedictions]. Shall we say that they disagree on this: One believes it was one act of creation, and one believes it was two acts of creation? No, for all agree that it was one act of creation, [rather] one believes we proceed according to the initial thought, and one believes we proceed according to the action.” 3 Regarding the possibility that the two doxologies were identical (“He who causes the groom and bride to rejoice”), see Katz and Sabato, “Blessing,” 157–58, especially, n. 74. 4 E.g. Rashi on b. Ketub. 8a: “‫ – משמח חתן וכלה‬the final [benediction is] ‫משמח חתן עם הכלה‬ (“Who causes the groom to rejoice with the bride”), because the joy of the first blessing [ ‫משמח‬ ‫ ]חתן וכלה‬is not about the joy of the wedding, rather, it is a prayer to be recited to bless the couple with joy and success for all of their days. Therefore, it should not be concluded ‫משמח‬ ‫חתן עם הכלה‬, which alludes generically to a man and his wife, but rather it is blessing God who causes them both joy by providing sustenance and all that is good, and the final [benediction – ‫ ]משמח חתן עם הכלה‬is praise to God who created the marriage bond between man and woman with joy and happiness, therefore it should be concluded ‫ משמח חתן עם הכלה‬which implies the joy of the relationship between man and woman.” 5 This is the formulation found in Saadya Gaon, Prayer Book, 108. The prayer book comprises the rare variant ‫משמח עמו בירושלים‬, but the variants section includes the formula: ‫משמח עמו‬ ‫ובונה ירושלים‬, which is the original version, as proven by Wieder, “Fourteen,” 270–72. I found the doxology ‫ משמח עמו ובונה ירושלים‬in the following manuscripts: Cambridge University Library (CUL), T-S NS 119.30; T-S NS 121.28; T-S NS 159.44 (some holes in the manuscript); T-S NS 272.2 (only the words ‫ משמח עמו‬were preserved); T-S AS 115.187+189. The final benediction, which opened with the formula: ‫“( אשר בראת ששון ושמחה‬You who created mirth and joy”), ends with [‫“( מצליח ]חתן עם הכלה‬Who brings success [to the groom with the bride]”). This altered doxology for the final blessing also appears in sources where the previous benediction concludes: ‫ משמח חתן וכלה‬as I will explain below.

174 | Shulamit Elizur

sources, thereby creating a prima facie distinction from ‫ משמח חתן וכלה‬at the conclusion of the previous benediction.6 The possibility that the source of this distinction is in Palestinian variants will be discussed below.7 The variety of benediction models, in addition to the repetitions, seems to result in the probable conclusion that three different structures of benedictions from different sources were amalgamated into one series:8 1. 2.

3.

The first two, short-formula benedictions, are an independent layer (this layer will be discussed at length in section 3). The three subsequent benedictions are an independent sequence of long praise benedictions, constructed according to the regular structure of serial benedictions. The final benediction, which begins and ends with the ‫ ברוך‬formula.

|| 6 This formula appears in MS Oxford, Bodleian Library, heb. g. 2 (2700), fols. 39–40 (a famous Palestinian prayer book, which includes specifically the Babylonian version of the nuptial benedictions), as well as in later sources. For discussion, see Katz and Sabato, “Blessing,” 160– 5. The appearance of this formula in the manuscript mentioned above was discovered by Shmidman, “Joy and Success,” 79. The term ‫“( מצליח‬Who brings success”) in the benediction for grooms is also recorded in the benediction for a widow and widower, which concludes with the formula: ‫“( מצליח איש ואשה‬Who brings success to a man and a woman”; Orhot Haim, Kiddushin, 21; Kol–Bo, section 75). For another benediction formula that opens with ‫מצליח‬, see toward the end of this article. In present day prayer books the formulation ‫“( ומצליח‬and He who brings success”) is found as an addendum to the doxology ‫“( משמח )ה(חתן עם הכלה‬He who causes [the] groom to rejoice with the bride”), primarily among Oriental Jews (found as early as Mahzor Aram Zova, Venice, 1527, II, 697b: ‫“[ משמח חתן וכלה ומצליח‬Who causes the groom and bride to rejoice, and brings success”). See Shmidmans’s analysis regarding the development of this complex version. Intriguingly, the doxology ‫ מצליח חתן עם הכלה‬testifies to the relationship between the two final benedictions, in direct opposition to the relationship suggested by Rashi (see supra, n. 4): ‫ שמח תשמח‬relates specifically to the wedding, while the doxology of the final benediction refers to the couple’s future success. 7 For a position that views ‫ משמח עמו ובונה ירושלים‬as a Palestinian variant of this benediction, see Katz and Sabato, “Blessing,” 160; for ‫ מצליח חתן עם הכלה‬as a Palestinian variant see Lieberman, Commentary, 50, n. 60; Katz and Sabato, ibid., 161–3; and Shmidman, “Joy and Success,” and see also infra, part 3. 8 According to Katz and Sabato, “Blessings,” the design of the benedictions was a deliberate act by Rav Judah, since they are attributed to him explicitly in the Babylonian Talmud and they offer a comprehensive analysis regarding their significance and order. It is my position that Rav Judah is neither the author nor one who determined the order and his statement is simply testimony to their recitation. The benedictions were designed through a complex process that cannot be retraced and it is possible that some parts were composed by laymen, and not under the supervision of the sages. If the benedictions had been composed deliberately, they would not include variant benedictions and odd repetitions; even if the repetitions can be explicated, these are ex post facto explanations.

A New Look at the Nuptial Benedictions in Babylonia and Palestine | 175

Regarding the relationship between the second group and the final benediction, it is noteworthy that the final benediction is an independent composition,9 which seems to be an early substitute of its three predecessors. In place of ‫אשר‬ ‫ והתקין לו ממנו בניין עדי עד‬... ‫“( יצר את האדם בצלמו‬Who created man in His image… and created from him an eternal edifice”), the final benediction reads: ‫ חתן וכלה‬... ‫“( אשר ברא‬Who created… the groom and the bride”); instead of the blessing for Jerusalem (‫שוש תשיש ותגל העקרה‬, “The barren one shall surely rejoice and be happy”) the final benediction reads: ‫עוד יישמע בערי יהודה ובחוצות‬ ‫“( ירושלים‬In the cities of Judah and in the outskirts of Jerusalem [joyous voices of…] shall be heard”); and in place of ‫“( שמח תשמח רעים האהובים‬bring great joy to the beloved companions”) and the concluding formula ‫משמח חתן וכלה‬, the final benediction reads ‫ משמח חתן עם הכלה‬... ‫“( ששון ושמחה חתן וכלה‬happiness and joy, bride and groom… who brings joy to the groom with the bride”). Thus, it is possible that the combination of this final benediction with the previous ones is an amalgamation of two alternative traditions: the first, a recitation of a sequence of three separate benedictions; and the second, one benediction which includes all of the elements.10 But what are the origin and meaning of the two short benedictions in the first group? Are they also a preservation of an early tradition? Before suggesting an answer, there is one other issue that requires attention: the nuptial benedictions in the communities of ancient Palestine.

2 The Cairo Genizah fragment Apparently, the famous “seven benedictions” that were customary in Babylonia were not accepted practice among the majority of Palestinian communities in the Gaonic period. The ancient book The Distinctions between Babylonian and Palestinian Jews famously notes that “The pe[ople] [of the] Ea[st] bless the

|| 9 The autonomous position of this benediction is emphasized not only by the opening formula, but also in its halakhic status. When circumstances dictate that not all the seven benedictions are recited, e.g., in the absence of a quorum of ten or a new guest, only this benediction is recited (cf. Shulkhan Arukh, Even ha'Ezer 62:4). Rashi on b. Ketub. 8b s.v. ‫שמח תשמח‬, linked the beginning of the benediction with the fact that it is sometimes recited alone (“and ‫אשר‬ ‫ברא‬, because it is recited alone most days of the banquet when there is no new guest; it is therefore not considered among the contiguous [benedictions], and requires beginning with ‫ ברוך‬and concluding with ‫)”ברוך‬. 10 See: Goldschmidt, Mahzor, 16.

176 | Shulamit Elizur

groom with seven benedictions, and the inhabitants of Palestine [bless the groom] with three” ( ‫ ובני ארץ‬,‫א>נשי< מ>זרח< מברכין ]את[ החתן בשבע ברכות‬ ‫)ישראל בג‬.11 Since these three Palestinian benedictions have yet to be found in ancient manuscripts, scholars have offered various conjectures as to their identity. Most scholars identify the three benedictions with three of the seven Babylonian benedictions, although they disagree on which of the Babylonian benedictions were recited in Palestine.12 But one authentic written source supersedes a myriad of conjectures, and I may have successfully identified such a source. MS Cambridge, Cambridge University Library, T-S NS 327.72 is a damaged bifolio containing two nonconsecutive leaves, transcribed by multiple hands. It appears that each of its pages was used to transcribe a different text. Only a small fragment of the top of the first page has been preserved. The first folio includes the conclusion of a liturgical poem for Purim (letters ‫ פ‬though ‫)ת‬,13 but the rest of the manuscript is badly torn. The second folio begins with the title ‫“( ברכת חול‬benediction for a weekday”), followed by a liturgical poem for the grace after meals, ‫אערוך לאלהים‬ ‫“( מסגבי‬I prepare [this] for God who is my refuge”).14 The second sheet is better preserved. The first leaf contains doxologies for a festive event on the Sabbath, which will be discussed in detail below; and on the second page, the copyist segued into another topic, viz., an introduction to selihot and verses asking for mercy.15 At this juncture I will focus on the first page of the second folio. Due to its importance I will cite the complete text, and then offer my comments.

|| 11 Margulies, Customs, 83, 28. 12 For a detailed survey of the research and a new proposal see: Katz and Sabato, “Blessing,” 139–70. Katz and Sabato attempted to recreate the nuptial benedictions based on their resemblance to the mourner’s benedictions, but they too propose three Babylonian nuptial benedictions, and change only the doxologies. 13 The poem: ‘ ‫ ִרינְּ נוּ‬/ ‫יבּלוּ ְבּ ֶל ַקח טוֹב‬ ְ ‫ ִקיְּ ימוּ וְ ִק‬/ ‫ ִצוָּ ם ֲ שׂוֹת ִמ ְשׁ ֶתּה וְ יוֹם טוֹב‬/ ‫דּוֹרשׁ טוֹב‬ ֵ ‫ִפּ ְתגָּ ם ָשׁ ַלח‬ [… … ..‫ ת‬/ ... ...] ‫ ֵתּל ַתּ ְל ִפּיּוֹת‬/ [... ... ... ..‫ ש‬/ ... ..]‫ ִשׁ ִירים ִמ ִפּי שו‬// ‫’ ַה ְללוּיָ הּ ִכּי טוֹב‬. (“A decree sent by he who wishes well [Mordecai] / he commanded them to have a banquet and [institute] a holiday / They accepted it upon themselves as the sound teaching [of the Torah] / they sang hallelujah for it is good // songs from the mouth of [… … … …] / a lofty mound [… … … … …]”). 14 The liturgical poem was printed according to this source in Shmidman, Grace, 295; the original meaning will be suggested below. 15 The text: חנו< מפ>ילים‬for it is not because of our righteous deeds that w[e] pr[esent]” Dan 9:18), the thirteen attributes (which begin with the verse: “And the Lord passed by his face” [Exod 34:6]) and other supplications and verses that are common in the contexts of asking for mercy and forgiveness.

A New Look at the Nuptial Benedictions in Babylonia and Palestine | 177

Creator of the fruit of the vine. Blessed are you Lord our God king of the universe who sanctifies

‫ בר>וך< את>ה< יי‬.‫בורי פרי הגפן‬ [‫אלה>ינו< מל>ך< הע>ולם< מ]קדש‬

Israel and the Sabbath amen. Blessed are you Lord our God king

וך‬.‫ישראל ואת יום השבת אמן‬ ה< יי אלה>ינו< מל>ך‬ וך‬.‫העו>לם< משמחינו בישועתו אמן‬ ה< יי אל>הינו< מל>ך‬

of the universe who causes us to rejoice in His salvation amen. Blessed are you Lord our God king of the universe who multiplies joyous occasions in Israel amen. Today is the holy Sabbath, the Lord’s holy Sabbath is today. Today is the holy Sabbath, The Lord’s holy Sabbath is today amen. Praise the Lord for He is good for His benevolence is eternal. Let it be as this day in Jerusalem happy and joyous about the rebuilding of the temple. Let Elijah the prophet come speedily [to us].

.‫העו>לם< המרבה שמחות בישראל אמן‬ ‫היום‬ ‫ היום‬.‫שבת קודש שבת קודש ליי היום‬ .‫שבת קודש שבת קו]דש ליי ה[יום אמן‬ .ולם< חס>דו‬ ‫כהיום הזה‬ ‫בירושלם ששים ושמחים בבנין בית‬ [‫ אליה הנביא מהרה יבוא ]אלינו‬.‫ה]מקד[ש‬

At this point the sheet is torn and the rest of the text is missing. Fleischer, who published the manuscript on account of the paragraph ‫ היום שבת קודש‬etc.,16 notes that the context is “vague,” and suggests that the text may be the conclusion of a Purim meal that takes place on the Sabbath, or perhaps another festive occasion that coincided with the Sabbath.17 I believe there is good reason to suppose that the text was intended for a banquet dedicated to the groom and bride on the Sabbath and that the benedictions above are Palestinian nuptial benedictions to be recited at the end of the meal. Some support for this conjecture is found in the fragments of a liturgical poem for the grace after meals on the second page of the manuscript. The poem is entitled ‫“( ברכת חול‬a benediction for a weekday”). The liturgical poem is torn after the first section, but the concluding verse reads: ‫“( ואברהם זקן‬And Abraham was elderly” [Gen 24:1]), the first verse of the Torah portion read on the Sabbath after the wedding.18 One || 16 See Fleischer, “Siddur,” 37, n. 56 (=Fleischer, Statutory, 533, n. 56). 17 The suggestion that the poem was intended for the festive Purim banquet is based on the fragment of the liturgical poem for Purim that is found on the second sheet (see supra, n. 13). 18 Contrary to the accepted versions of liturgical poems for the groom’s grace after meals, this poem does not include congratulatory wishes for the groom or bride; however, the manuscript

178 | Shulamit Elizur

must, therefore, consider the possibility that this is a grace after meals for the groom, and the title ‫ ברכת חול‬is intended for a weekday wedding banquet. The sheet is badly torn19 and only the top is preserved. It is reasonable to assume that the missing part includes a parallel title, “A benediction for the Sabbath,” followed by a liturgical poem for the grace after meals to be recited on a groom’s Sabbath. The manuscript includes not three, but four benedictions. Because the benedictions were intended for recitation on the Sabbath, an additional benediction for the Sabbath day was added after the blessing over wine ( ‫ מקדש ישראל‬... ‫ברוך‬ ‫ואת יום השבת‬, “Blessed… who sanctifies Israel and the Sabbath day”) in a doxology that is similar to the Palestinian version of qedushat ha-yom (i.e., the fourth benediction) for the Sabbath Day Amidah,20 which is used only here as a short, independent benediction formula.21 The formula ‫היום שבת קודש שבת קודש‬

|| is ripped, and these may have been included in the missing sections. The preserved sections contain delicate allusions to procreation, such as: ‫“( ַכּחוֹל ְל ַה ְר ִבּי‬to make great like the sand’s multitude”) or ‘‫יבי‬ ִ ‫יצּ‬ ִ ‫קוֹדשׁ ִה‬ ֶ ‫“( ’זֶ ַרע‬strengthen the sanctified seed”). Regarding liturgical poems for grace after meals at a wedding centering on general content instead of the groom, see Shmidman, “Joy and Success,” 645, 655. The first piyyut begins: ‫ ְפּ ֵאר‬/ ַ ‫וּמ ְשׂ ִבּי‬ ַ ‫פּוֹת ַ יָ ד‬ ֵ ‫ֵאל‬ ַ ‫“( ְל ַה ְל ִבּישׁ ַ מּוֹ י ִַבּי‬God opens His hand and brings satiety / He creates splendor with which to dress His people”) and only later includes the recurring phrase ‫“( חתן וכלה‬groom and bride”). Had the manuscript been ripped at that point it would have been difficult to surmise that this was a liturgical poem for a wedding meal. The second piyyut is fragmentary, and in the preserved fragments, there is a paucity of allusions to the wedding, but its intent is revealed in the verses that appear after each section. Conversely, the verse from Gen 24:1 appears in some poems for grace after meals that were not written for weddings, so the intent of the piyyut remains equivocal. 19 It is noteworthy that even the preserved remains include many corrections between the lines. It seems that the text was the author’s draft version. 20 Regarding this formula, see Margulies, Customs, 85, 32: ‫א>נשי< מ>זרח< אומרים מקדש‬ ‫ ובני א"י ]אומרים מקדש[ ישראל ויום השבת‬,‫“( השבת‬The p[eople of the] e[ast say]: He who sanctifies the Sabbath, and the communities of Palestine [say: He who sanctifies] Israel and the Sabbath day”); See Fleischer, Prayer, 21, n. 11, 27 (based on MS New York, The Jewish Theological Seminary, ENA 2824 f. 16), 34 (based on Ms. Cambridge, Cambridge University Library, T-S 8 H 21.1), 43 (based on MS Cambridge, Cambridge University Library, T-S NS 160.2), 76 (based on MS Cambridge, Cambridge University Library, T-S H 51.92), and many other sources noted in Fleischer, Statutory , 1379. 21 As Fleischer noted regarding the ancient “order” (“Siddur”), Palestinian communities occasionally added this benediction following the grace after meals for the Sabbath. In Cambridge T-S H 11.54, at the conclusion of a poetic rendition of the grace after meals, after the usual concluding sections (‫ וכולכם ברוכים‬,‫הודו ליי כי טוב כי לעולם חסדו‬, “Offer praise to the Lord for He is good, for his benevolence endures forever, and you all are blessed”), there is an unexpected appearance of the formulation ‫“( ברוך אתה יי מקדש ישראל ואת יום השבת‬Blessed

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‫“( ליי היום‬Today is the holy Sabbath, the Lord’s holy Sabbath is today”), which appears twice in the manuscript, is found in the Genizah in a number of contexts.22 The other three benedictions might have served as nuptial benedictions: the blessing over wine, followed by the benediction ‫“( משמחינו בישועתו‬who causes us to rejoice in His salvation”) and ‫“( המרבה שמחות בישראל‬who multiplies joyous occasions in Israel”). It is especially noteworthy that the blessing over wine is counted as one of the three nuptial benedictions. Most scholars, who attempted to reconstruct the three Palestinian nuptial benedictions, assumed that the blessing over wine was not included among them despite its inclusion among the seven Babylonian nuptial benedictions,23 perhaps because it seemed unreasonable that at one point there were only two nuptial benedictions. If my conjecture is correct that indeed these are the Palestinian nuptial benedictions, it seems that the variant recorded in the Book of Distinctions (‫ )ספר החילוקים‬is accurate. The Palestinian nuptial benedictions included the blessing over wine among the three nuptial benedictions, just as their Babylonian counterparts included the blessing over wine among their seven nuptial benedictions. The two other benedictions accentuate the theme of joy: ‫משמחינו בישועתו‬ and ‫המרבה שמחות בישראל‬. This theme, of course, is appropriate for a wedding celebration. But each of the two benedictions focuses on a different theme. The first centers on the salvation that God will bring to Israel in exile, a salvation that will bring joy. In some ways this parallels the blessing for Jerusalem in the Babylonian nuptial benedictions, with one exception: ‫“( משמח ציון בבניה‬Who causes Zion to rejoice through her [returning] children”) is replaced with a blessing for the people's joy at the time of salvation, without specific mention of Jerusalem. Contrarily, the second benediction is directed towards familial celebrations, foremost among them the joy of the bride and the groom. However, it

|| are You Lord who sanctifies Israel and the Sabbath day”), followed by two additional concluding verses (‫ברוך יי לעולם אמן ואמן‬, “Blessed is the Lord forevermore, amen and amen” [Ps 89:53], ‫חזקו ויאמץ לבבכם כל המיחלים ליי‬, "Be strong and let your heart be resolute all who yearn for the Lord" [Ps 31:25]). The entire fragment was published by Habermann, “Poetical Blessings,” 57. See also Ehrlich and Shmidman, “Joy and Success,” 98 (Shmidman, Grace, 330– 3, selected another manuscript as the basic formula of the poem, and therefore did not print these additions). 22 Fleischer, ibid., 35 (531), cites the phrase from St. Petersburg, Antonin 135, as a version of Kiddush for Sabbath Day. The line was previously known as an introduction to the declaration of the priestly courses, which was recited in the synagogue on the Sabbath. See Zulay, Poetry, 128 (=SRIHPJ, 111). 23 See a detailed analysis of this question in Katz and Sabato, “Blessing,” 160, n. 87.

180 | Shulamit Elizur

elevates the focus beyond the private celebration toward praise and thanksgiving for multiplying joyous occasions in Israel, including this specific wedding celebration. I have not found the phrase ‫“( משמחינו בישועתו‬Who causes us to rejoice in His salvation”) in any other benediction formula. However, the formulation clearly originates in Isa 25:9: ‫“( נגילה ונשמחה בישועתו‬let us be happy and rejoice in his salvation”)24 and is documented in benedictions for the Sabbath and festivals from the Gaonic period onward, formulated as ‫שמחנו בישועתך‬ ֵ (“cause us to rejoice in your salvation”). This may be a development of an earlier benediction regarding the joy of the nation: the Jerusalem Talmud alludes to the groom’s benediction formula ‫“( משמח עמו‬Who causes His people to rejoice,” y. Meg. 4:4, 75b; y. Ketub. 1:1, 25a) but this formula is likely incomplete. This may be the source of the phrase ‫ משמח עמו ובונה ירושלים‬which is the doxology of ‫שמח‬ ‫“( תשמח‬bring great joy to the beloved companions”) in Saadya Gaon’s prayer book (among other sources). However, some communities might have used the formula ‫“( משמח עמו בישועתו‬Who causes His people to rejoice in His salvation”), and perhaps it was this formula that was abbreviated to ‫משמחינו בישועתו‬. Conversely, ‫ המרבה שמחות בישראל‬is indeed documented in contexts of engagement and marriage. This formulation appears as the doxology for the betrothal benediction for slaves in MS Montreal, Elberg 24 (formerly known as MS Sassoon 24), fols. 168–9: Blessed are You Lord our God, King of the Universe, who forms unity from a pair of singles /

,‫בא"י אמ"ה‬ / ‫כונן מישרים מזוג נפרדים‬

who trampled upon nations to join slave(s) in matrimony //

// ם‬

He multiplies joyous occasions and does wondrous deeds /

/ ‫מרבה שמחות מפליא לעשות‬

He bequeathed to His people slaves and handmaidens //

// ‫להנחיל לעמו עבדים ושפחות‬

Your hand shall continue to redeem the awesome one [Israel] / From among the nations and you shall buy from them slaves and handmaidens // As it is written: “And your slave and handmaiden

/ ‫תוסף ידך לקנות איומה‬ // ‫מאת הגוים ותקנה מהם עבד ואמה‬ ‫ ועבדך ואמתך אשר יהיו לך מאת‬,‫ככתוב‬

|| 24 See similar formulation in Hannah’s prayer (I Sam. 2:1): ‫כי שמחתי בישועתך‬, “for I rejoice in your salvation.”

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that shall be yours from amongst the nations that surround you, from them you shall purchase slaves and handmaidens” (Lev 25: 54),

‫הגוים אשר סביבותיכם מהם תקנו עבד‬ ,(‫ מד‬,‫ואמה )וי' כה‬

and it is writte[n]: “Blessed is the Lord the God of Shem and let Canaan be his slave" (Gen 9:26).

‫וכתו>ב< ברוך ייי אלהי שם ויהי כנען עבד‬ (‫ כו‬,‫למו )בר' ט‬ ‫בא"י מרבה שמחות בישראל‬

Blessed are you Lord who increases joyous occasions in Israel.25

The doxology ‫ המרבה שמחות בישראל‬is incongruent with the context (since slaves are not really part of the Israelite nation) and is detached from the preceding verses. Therefore, it seems to be a secondary usage of an early formula. (While the words ‫ מרבה שמחות‬appear in the benediction, they are distant from the doxology.) The formula ‫ מרבה שמחות‬is found in the name of Rav Saadya Gaon in Rabbenu Tam’s Sefer Hayyashar.26 Thus it is conceivable that this formula was used by the Palestinian community at one time. The formula ‫ המרבה שמחות בישראל‬that served as one of the Palestinian nuptial benedictions according to the suggestion above, is conceivably the source for a number of congratulatory wishes for the couple that appear at the conclusion of rituals in various sources, beginning with the words ‫ירבו שמחות‬ ‫“( בישראל‬Let joyous occasions multiply in Israel”). This section was the foundation of a poetic expansion of a litany that begins: ‫“( ִתּ ְר ֶבּה אהבה בישראל‬Let love increase in Israel”) where the phrase: ‫ בישראל‬...‫ תרבה‬is repeated over and over, and the word ‫ אהבה‬is replaced by ‫“( ברכה‬blessing”), ‫“( גילה‬joy”), ‫דעה‬ (“knowledge”) and so on, according to the order of the alphabet.27

|| 25 Based on Sasoon, Ohel David, 300; copied with a small omission in: Levine, Thesaurus, 91 (an index to benedictions and customs), part 4. 26 This benediction is found in Rabbenu Tam’s response to Rabbenu Meshullam as an example of an acceptable formula for a benediction, despite its absence from the Talmuds (see Sefer haYashar, 82): “And we found a number of benedictions in Rav Saadya’s Siddur, [including] ‫‘( ברוך המרבה שמחות‬Blessed is He who increases joyous occasions’).” This version is not included in Saadya Gaon’s extant prayer book and may be an early Palestinian version. 27 In many sources the section ‫ ירבו שמחות‬appears after the final paragraph: ‫כהיום הזה‬ ‫“( בירושלים‬Like this day [of the year] in Jerusalem…”); for an analysis of this paragraph see Elizur, “Origins,” 295–307. The addition ‫ ירבו שמחות‬is previously recorded in Tractate Soferim 19:7, as part of a celebratory conclusion of the Rosh Hodesh meal. The paragraph ‫כהיום הזה‬ ‫ בירושלים‬along with ‫ ירבו שמחות בישראל‬is very common at wedding ceremonies, as well as in other contexts. As I clarified in my article (ibid.), the paragraph ‫ כהיום הזה בירושלים‬was probably not originally intended for weddings, whereas the paragraph ‫ ירבו שמחות‬was likely intended for wedding ceremonies; since this paragraph was often added to ‫כהיום הזה בירושלים‬, this version spread to other ceremonies as well. For a discussion of the paragraph ‫ירבו שמחות‬

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3 Nuptial benedictions in Palestine Despite the probability that the manuscript under consideration preserves Palestinian nuptial benedictions, it seems that not all Palestinian communities in the Gaonic period recited these specific benedictions. Palestinian Jews were eminently flexible with benediction formulations. They would innovate and freely expand formulae and add benedictions at various opportunities. Therefore, it is difficult to ascertain whether the three recorded benedictions are the earliest variations and whether they were the exclusive Palestinian nuptial benedictions. However, short benedictions and well-formed formula are clear signs of antiquity. Indications of Palestinian variants of benedictions for grooms are scattered in a number of sources. Above, I noted that the formula ‫ משמח עמו‬appears in the Jerusalem Talmud and serves as the doxology of ‫ שוש תשיש‬in Saadya Gaon’s prayer book. It also may have been the foundation for the benediction ‫משמחינו‬ ‫בישועתו‬. An entirely different formula, which is also conceivably Palestinian in origin, is the one mentioned above: ‫מצליח חתן עם הכלה‬. As scholars have previously noted, the theme of the groom’s success with the bride is common in Palestinian nuptial liturgical poems and may point to a similar formula of a groom's benediction emphasizing the couple’s success.28 Another formulation that preserves this theme is found in the Genizah is ‫“( מצליח בחור ובתולה‬who brings success to the young man and maiden”).29 || (including the litany: ‫)תרבה אהבה בישראל‬, and its variants, expansions, and distribution, see Fleischer, “New Data,” 117–8 (=Fleischer, Statutory, 895–6). 28 Shmidman emphasizes this in “Joy and Success.” 29 Lieberman, (supra, n. 7) previously noted this formulation. The formula appears in MS Cambridge, Cambridge University Library, Or. 1080 1.2 and concludes in a poetic version of the grace after meals for the groom, which was published by Habermann, “Poetical Blessings,” 104, and Shmidman, “Joy and Success,” 616. The final lines of the piyyut conclude with phrases conveying success: “Let him be successful, fresh as a fruitful tree / worthy creating joy 1:3: “And let him be like a tree .” Following this verse there is an allusion to the verse “He builds ” (Ps 147:2), which is standard in liturgical poems for the grace after meals, as a transition to ‫בונה‬ ‫“( ירושלים‬who rebuilds Jerusalem”). However, instead the manuscript reads: “B, who gives success to the young man with the maiden” ( ‫ב>רוך אתה יי< מצליח בחור‬ ‫)עם בתולה‬. It is hard to ascertain if the copyist deliberately substituted the blessing for rebuilding Jerusalem with the blessing for the success of the bride and the groom, a substitution which certainly does not conform with Jewish law. Had he wished to omit “He who builds

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Indications that the Palestinian communities were also familiar with the Babylonian nuptial benedictions emerge from a number of Genizah fragments and liturgical poems. A Palestinian siddur found in the Genizah records specifically the seven Babylonian benedictions.30 A more critical piece of evidence is an early liturgical poem for the grace after meals, signed “Elazar Hazaq” ( ‫אלעזר‬ ‫)חזק‬, which may have been authored by the prominent seventh century Palestinian poet Rabbi El‘azar Berabbi Qillir. The liturgical poem opens with the words: ‫יוֹצר ָה ָא ָדם‬ ֵ ‫ ָבּרוּ‬/ ‫“( ַא ְשׁ ִמי ַ ְבּ ַמ ְק ֵהלוֹת צֹאן ָא ָדם‬I shall sound my voice among herds of men31 / blessed is the One who created man”32). The poet was undoubtedly familiar with the nuptial benediction ‫ יוצר האדם‬and declared at the beginning of his poem that the poem will be recited before the community. Therefore, it seems then that the Palestinian nuptial benedictions were varied, and the manuscript that includes the benedictions ‫ משמחינו בישועתו‬and ‫המרבה שמחות‬ ‫ בישראל‬is merely one of many local customs. The significance of these benedictions goes beyond their discovery; the short formula and absence of a doxology might attest to an ancient layer of short formula wedding benedictions. This layer was preserved in the Palestinian tradition discussed here and was conceivably the source for the first two Babylonian nuptial benedictions. It is possible that the other nuptial benedictions

|| Jerusalem,” he should also have omitted the verse ‫“( בונה ירושלים יי‬the Lord builds Jerusalem”) and concluded instead with the formula ‫ מצליח בחור ובתולה‬immediately after the end of the previous verse: ‫“( וכל אשר יעשה יצליח‬and whatever it produces, thrives”). Thus, perhaps the copyist did not include the blessing for Jerusalem because its inclusion should be obvious, whereas ‫ מצליח בחור ובתולה‬is an independent short formulation of a nuptial blessing, although it is unclear why he was satisfied with only one blessing. It is noteworthy that in the manuscript additional salutations follow the blessing, highlighting the success of the couple (the punctuation is my own): “praise the Lord for He is good. Let them both be successful in [bearing] sons, let them both be successful in maintaining a good name, let them both be successful with a blessing, let them both be successful in wealth and property, let them both be successful in fearing God, the Abode, blessed be He shall bring success between the young man and maiden, praise the Lord for He is good, and may you all be blessed” ( .‫הודו ליי כי טוב‬

יחו< שנ>יהם‬,‫ יצ>ליחו< ש>ניהם< בברכה‬,‫ יצליחו שניהם בשם טוב‬,‫יצליחו שניהם בבנים‬ ‫ הודו‬,‫ המקום ברוך הוא יצליח בין בחור ובתולה‬,‫ יצ>ליחו< ש>ניהם< בירא]ת[ שמים‬,‫בעושר ובנכסים‬ ‫)ליי כי טוב וכולכם ברוכים‬. 30 See MS Oxford, Bodleian Library, heb. g. 2 (2700), fols. 39–40. This manuscript includes additional Babylonian influences. 31 I.e., “in the congregation of Israelites,” who are referred to as “human sheep” based on Ezek 36:37–38 (cf. 34:31). 32 This piyyut was published by Habermann, “Poetical Blessings,” 86; Fleischer, Liturgical Poetry, 252–4; Shmidman, “Joy and Success,” 651–3. For an investigation of his connection to El‘azar Berabbi Qillir, see Shmidman, ibid., 59.

184 | Shulamit Elizur

evolved from similar short benedictions. The expansion of a short formula into a long benediction is documented in the Babylonian Talmud in the case of the betrothal blessing.33 Regarding ‫יוצר האדם‬, the final sequence of benedictions merged the early short formula with the expanded version in the benediction ‫אשר יצר את האדם‬, which also concludes with the doxology ‫יוצר האדם‬.34 Conversely, ‫“( שהכל ברא לכבודו‬Who created everything for his own glory”) was preserved as a festive introduction without expansion, as an independent remnant of the early short formula benedictions. This paper has explored the ancient Palestinian custom of three benedictions for the groom, all in short formulation, including the blessing over wine— as described in the Book of Distinctions between the Community of Palestine and the Community of Babylonia. We found that an additional benediction was recited on the Sabbath, ‫“( מקדש ישראל ויום השבת‬Who sanctifies Israel and the Sabbath day”). The unearthing of these Palestinian benedictions sheds new light on the two initial benedictions, which comprise a vague section among the seven Babylonian benedictions, perhaps indicating that these belong to an early layer that predates the development of the longer benedictions.

|| 33 See b. Ketub. 7b: “Regarding the benediction of the betrothal, what does one recite? ...Blessed are You, Lord our God, King of the universe, Who sanctified us through His mitzvot, and commanded us concerning forbidden relations, and prohibited for us betrothed women, and permitted for us women who are married by means of the wedding canopy and betrothal. Rav Aḥa, son of Rava, concludes in the name of Rav Judah: Blessed are You, Lord, Who sanctifies Israel by means of the wedding canopy and betrothal.” 34 Cf. Bar Ilan, “Occurrences,” 12. Perhaps the foundation for this expanded benediction is the shorter version, ‫אשר יצר את האדם בצלמו‬, and the long version expands and connects this formulation with ‫יוצר האדם‬. Famously, the Palestinian communities recited the following benediction in their daily prayers: ‫ ברא את[ אדם הראשון בדמותו‬:‫ אשר בראת ]או‬... ‫ברוך אתה‬ ‫“( כצלמו‬Blessed are you… who created Adam in His image according to His likeness”); see: Mann, “Fragments,” 277 (=Mann, Collected Articles, 360); Assaf, “Prayer Book,” 121; Marx, “Benedictions,” 120 (including a brief discussion that mentions the Benediction for Grooms, 126). See also discussion of regarding this benediction in Ginzberg, Palestinian Talmud, 229, and in reference to his proposal in: Marx, “Benedictions,” 47. For a comparison between this benediction and the Benediction for Grooms, ‫ אשר יצר את האדם בצלמו‬see also Henshke, “Blessing”, 130, 143.

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Bibliography Assaf, Simcha. “From the Prayer Book of the Land of Israel” [Hebrew]. Pages 116–31 in Sefer Dinaburg: Studies Offered to Ben-Zion Dinaburg. Edited by Yitshak Baer et al. Jerusalem: Kiryat Sefer, 1949. Bar Ilan, Meir. “The Occurrences and Significance of the Yoṣer ha'Adam Benediction” [Hebrew]. HUCA 56 (1985): 9–27. Ehrlich, Uri and Shmidman, Avi. “Genizah Fragments of the Grace after Meals with the Zimmun of the Ancient Palestinian Rite.” Ginzei Qedem 8 (2012): 67–109. Elizur, Shulamit. “A Blessing of Three or Four” [Hebrew]. Shanah be-Shanah 39 (1999): 421– 28. Elizur, Shulamit. “K’hayom haze birushalayim: The Origins, Distribution and Evolution of a Prayer Marking the Conclusions of Ceremonies” [Hebrew]. Tarbiz 85 (2018): 293–307. Fleischer, Ezra. Hebrew Liturgical Poetry in the Middle Ages [Hebrew]. Jerusalem: Keter, 1975. Fleischer, Ezra. “New Data Concerning the Celebration of ‘The Great New Moon Day’” [Hebrew]. Pages 111–32 in Studies in Aggadah, Targum and Jewish Liturgy in Memory of Joseph Heinemann. Edited by Jakob J. Petuchowsky and Ezra Fleischer. Jerusalem: Magnes, 1981. Fleischer, Ezra. Eretz-Israel Prayer and Prayer Rituals: As Portrayed in the Genizah Documents [Hebrew]. Jerusalem: Magnes, 1988. Fleischer, Ezra. “An Early Siddur of the Palestinian Rite” [Hebrew]. Pages 21–59, in Meʼah She‛arim: Studies in Medieval Jewish Spiritual Life, in Memory of Isadore Twersky, edited by Ezra Fleischer, Gerald J. Blidstein, Carmy Horowitz and Ben Septimus, Jerusalem: Magnes, 2001. Fleischer, Ezra. Statutory Jewish Prayers: Their Emergence and Development [Hebrew]. Volume 1. Edited by Shulamit Elizur and Tova Beeri. Jerusalem: Magnes, 2012. Ginzberg, Louis. A Commentary on the Palestinian Talmud [Hebrew]. Vol. 3. New York: Jewish Theological Seminary, 1941. Goldschmidt, Daniel Ernst. Mahzor for the High Holy Days According to Rite of the Ashkenazim, Volume 1: Rosh HaShanah [Hebrew]. Jerusalem: Koren, 1970. Habermann, Abraham M. “Poetical Blessings after Meals” [Hebrew]. Studies of the Research Institute for Hebrew Poetry in Jerusalem 5 (1939): 43–105. Henshke, David. “‘In the image of the Form his Structure’– Blessing as Midrash, with a Comment on Talmudic Anthropomorphism” [Hebrew]. Sidra, 24–25 (2010): 123–45. Jerusalem Talmud, The Academy of the Hebrew Language edition. Jerusalem: Hebrew Academy, 2001. Katz, Menachem and Mordechai Sabato. “The Blessing of the Bridegrooms and the Blessing of the Mourners” [Hebrew]. Kenihsta 3 (2007): 155–86. Levine, Benjamin M. Thesaurus of the Gaonic Responsa and Commentaries, Vol. 8, Tractate Ketubot [Hebrew]. Jerusalem: Mosad HaRav Kook, 1938. Lieberman, Saul. A Comprehensive Commentary of the Tosefta, Seder Zera'im, Part 1. New York: Jewish Theological Seminary, 1955. Mann, Jacob. “Genizah Fragments of the Palestinian Order of Service.” HUCA 2 (1925): 269– 338. Mann, Jacob. The Collected Articles. Vol. 3. Gedera: M. Shalom, 1971. Margulies, Mordecai. The Differences Between Babylonian and Palestinian Customs [Hebrew]. Jerusalem: Rubin Mass, 1938.

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Marx, Dalia. “The Morning Benedictions in the Cairo Genizah.” [Hebrew], Ginzei Qedem 3 (2007): 109–61. Sassoon, David. Ohel Dawid – Descriptive Catalogue of the Hebrew and Samaritan Manuscripts in the Sassoon Library. Vol. 1. London: Oxford University Press and Humphry Milford Press, 1932. Sefer haYashar LeRabbenu Tam [Hebrew]. Edited by Ferdinand Rosenthal, Berlin: Zvi Hirsch, 1898. Shmidman, Avi. “The Poetic Versions of the Grace after Meals from the Cairo Genizah: A Critical Edition” [Hebrew]. PhD. diss., Ramat-Gan: Bar-Ilan University, 2009. Shmidman, Avi. “Joy and Success in Liturgical Poems for Nuptial Meals.” in Reflections on Prayer: The Benediction for Grooms, the Seven Benedictions, Grace after Meals [Hebrew]. Edited by B. Gesundheit. Alon Shvut: n. p., 2005. Wieder, Naphtali. “Fourteen New Genizah Fragments of Saadya's Siddur, Together with a Reproduction of a Missing Part.” Pages 245–83 in Saadya Studies in Commemoration of the One Thousandth Anniversary of the Death of Rav Saadya Gaon. Edited by Erwin I. J. Rosenthal. Manchester: University Press, 1943. Zulay, Menahem, “Contribution to the History of the Liturgical Poetry in Palestine” [Hebrew]. Pages 126–97 in Eretz Israel and its Poetry. Edited by Ephraim Hazan. Jerusalem: Magnes, 1995 (=Studies of the Research Institute for Hebrew Poetry in Jerusalem 5 [1939]: 107–80).

Reuven Kimelman

The Poetics and Theology of Adon Olam Abstract: This literary study of the liturgical poem Adon Olam focuses on the relationship between its poetry and theology. It follows the version of the contemporary Ashkenazic liturgy as opposed to the later longer “Sephardic” versions. The poem is analyzed in the light of its poetics, its biblical and midrashic background, and its grounding in medieval and late antique theology. It shows that for Adon Olam, eternity and infinity no more belie intimacy than sovereignty belies solicitude. By interlocking God’s grandeur and grace, a mental matrix for prayer is formed through which Adon Olam emerges as the theological introduction to the morning service. Keywords: Adon Olam, prayer, poetics, theology, transcendence and immanence

1

Introduction

This literary study of the best-known liturgical poem Adon Olam focuses on the relationship between its poetry and theology. It follows the version of the contemporary Ashkenazic liturgy as opposed to the later longer “Sephardic” versions.1 The poem is analyzed in the light of its poetics, its biblical and midrashic background, and its grounding in medieval and late antique theology. The origin of Adon Olam is problematic. It first appears in the liturgies of Normandy-England and Germany.2 The quality of poetry, the finesse of articula-

|| 1 Judged by content and poetics, the additional lines in the fifteen-line alleged Sephardic version (two after line 6, one after line 8, and two after line 10) are accretions; see Gordon, Oṣar Ha-Tefillot 1:105f. For the text, see http://shituf.piyut.org.il/uploded_files/files/adon-olam.pdf (accessed 8/4/2016). The only line worthy of Adon Olam is the one inserted after line 5, ‫וְ הוּא‬ ‫צוּרה‬ ָ ‫“( ִראשוֹן וְ הוּא ַא ֲחרוֹן ח ֶֹמר ְל ָכל‬And He is the first and He is the last of all matter and form”). It, however, smacks too much of lines 1b and 6a, and, as we shall see, disrupts the structure. It should be noted that there was no fixed “Sephardic” text. Indeed, that version first shows up in Germany in the fourteenth century; see Kaufman, R. Yom Ṭov Lipman, Mihlhoizn, 79. The amount of added material varied from siddur to siddur ranging from 12 to 15 or 16 lines. 2 Adon Olam appears in MS Oxford 1195 and in Genizah texts, but neither date or provenance is known. A date and provenance are ascertainable from its appearance after the morning Aleinu prayer of Tishah Be-Av in Jacob b. Jehuda, Eṣ̣ Ḥayiym, 126, dated to 1287 England. Since https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110630282-013

188 | Reuven Kimelman

tion, and the depth of philosophical reflection, however, suggest a Sephardic composer of the stature of Solomon ibn Gabirol, Moshe ibn Ezra, and Abraham ibn Ezra. All wrote poems in 11th–12th century Spain that significantly parallel Adon Olam in the above three characteristics. Of the three, only Abraham ibn Ezra resided in France and England making him the most likely candidate for authorship.3 From the fourteenth century onward, Adon Olam has cropped up in a variety of liturgical settings. It frequently serves as a finale of the Sabbath and festival service, of the Arvit-evening service of the Day of Atonement, bedtime prayers, and of the deathbed service.4 It may have first penetrated the liturgy as the conclusion of the evening service of the Day of Atonement. Adon Olam is a perfect fit. It combines God’s sovereignty and solicitude; it weaves the High Holiday liturgical refrain, “God was king, God is king, and God will be king,” through the first three lines; it declares God’s rule “awesome”; and its last two lines serve as the transition from night to morning on this most fearful day. Adon Olam now primarily serves as the head of the Shaḥarit-morning service. It is not clear how this came about. One explanation finds in the opening word, Adon (“Lord”), an allusion to Abraham who first called upon God as “Adon” (Gen 15:2, 8).5 Since Abraham's practice of morning prayer set the precedent for the people Israel,6 it is only fitting that the morning prayers open with Abraham’s call of “Adon.”7 However apt such an account, it does not explain why God is designated adon olam here, and contributes little to the understanding of the ambience or ethos of the hymn. The association of adon olam with Abraham, moreover, is a rabbinic trope, not a biblical one. In the Bible, Abraham comes close to designating God as adon olam when he and Melchizedek refer to God as “creator of heaven and earth” (Gen 14:19, 22). In the Midrash, Abraham also comes closer to the theme of Adon Olam and to the recognition of its God. There, Abraham is:

|| Adon Olam is mentioned only by name, its content must have been well-known for some time allowing for a date at least as early as 1250. 3 For fuller treatment, see the Excursus: Bibliographical, Historical Postscript of Chapter 3 in my forthcoming book The Rhetoric of the Liturgy: A Historical and Literary Commentary to the Jewish Prayer Book (subsequently, Kimelman, The Rhetoric) slated to be published by Littman Press. 4 See Nulman, Encyclopedia of Jewish Prayer, 7–8; and Amir, “Avnei Binyan Miqraiyot Lefiyyut ‘Adon Olam’,” 14. 5 See b. Ber. 7b. 6 See y. Ber. 4:1, 7a, as opposed to b. Ber. 7b. 7 So Ḥanokh Zundel ben Yoseif, in Oṣar Ha-Tefillot 1:104.

The Poetics and Theology of Adon Olam | 189

compared to a man who was traveling from place to place when he saw a palace aflame. “Is it possible that there is no one who cares for the palace?” he wondered, until the owner of the palace looked at him and said, “I am the owner of the palace.” So, from Adam to Abraham, there were twenty generations of which so many were wicked—such as the generation of Enosh, the generation of the Flood, the generation of the Dispersion—that Abraham, who himself was of the generation of Dispersion, began to wonder, “is it conceivable that the world is without a master?” The Holy One, blessed be He, looked out and said, “I am first, and I am last, I am adon ha-olam.”8

Abraham’s apprehensions of a world gone morally amok were allayed by discovering that matters must be on course as God is master from beginning to end.

2 The Theology of Adon Olam in the light of its poetics ‫ ְבּ ֶט ֶרם ָכּל יְ ִציר נִ ְב ָרא‬. ‫עולם ֲא ֶשׁר ָמ ַל‬ ָ ‫ ֲאדוֹן‬.1 :‫ ֲאזַ י ֶמ ֶל ְשׁמוֹ נִ ְק ָרא‬.‫ ְל ֵ ת נַ ֲ שה ְבּ ֶח ְפצוֹ כּל‬.2 :‫ ְל ַבדּו יִ ְמל נוֹ ָרא‬.‫ וְ ַא ֲח ֵרי ִכּ ְכלוֹת ַהכֹּל‬.3 :‫ וְ הוּא יִ ְהיֶ ה ְבּ ִת ְפ ָא ָרה‬.‫ וְ הוּא ָהיָ ה וְ הוּא הוֶ ה‬.4 :‫ ְל ַה ְמ ִשׁיל לוֹ ְל ַה ְח ִבּ ָירה‬.‫ וְ הוּא ֶא ָחד וְ ֵאין ֵשׁנִ י‬.5 :‫שרה‬ ָ ‫ וְ לוֹ ָהעז וְ ַה ִמּ‬.‫אשׁית ְבּ ִלי ַת ְכ ִלית‬ ִ ‫ ְבּ ִלי ֵר‬.6 :‫ וְ צוּר ֶח ְב ִלי ְבּ ֵ ת ָצ ָרה‬.‫ וְ הוּא ֵא ִלי וְ ַחי גוֹ ֲא ִלי‬.7 :‫ ְמנָ ת כּוֹ ִסי ְבּיוֹם ֶא ְק ָרא‬.‫וּמנוֹס ִלי‬ ָ ‫ וְ הוּא נִ ִסּי‬.8 :‫ישׁן וְ ָא ִ ָירה‬ ָ ‫ ְבּ ֵ ת ִא‬.‫רוּחי‬ ִ ‫ ְבּיָ דוֹ ַא ְפ ִקיד‬.9 :‫ ה' ִלי וְ לא ִא ָירא‬.‫רוּחי גְּ וִ יָּ ִתי‬ ִ ‫ וְ ִ ם‬.10 1. Lord eternal Who reigned / before anything was created. 2. When all was made by His will / then was He hailed “King.” 3. And after all ceases to be / alone will He reign awesomely. 4. It is He who was and it is He who is / and it is He who shall be in glory. 5. And He is one and there is no second / to compare or to pair. 6. Without beginning without end / and to Him are power and dominion. 7. And it is He who is my God and my life's redeemer / my stronghold when in distress. 8. And it is He who is my banner and my bastion / the lot of my cup on the day I call. 9. In His hand I entrust my spirit / that when I sleep I shall awake. 10. And with my spirit shall my body be / A-donai is with me hence I fear not.

The ten lines of the hymn consists of two hemistichs, each comprising three to four words. Each hemistich is composed of two segments, to use the technical || 8 Midr. Leqaḥ Tov, ed. Buber, 1:55; see Gen. Rab. 39, 1, ed. Theodor and Albeck, 365, notes and parallels.

190 | Reuven Kimelman

Hebrew poetic terms, one yated, i.e., a compound sound, (adon) and two tenu‘ot, i.e., two simple sounds, (olam), making for eight syllables. The second hemistich ends with a uniform rhyme. This disarmingly simple structure, with repetitive endings, generates a sense of regularity and predictability.9 The ten lines divide neatly into two sections. The first six lines make the case for God’s transcendence as reflected through the notions of eternity, sovereignty, uniqueness, and dominion. The next four lines make the case for God’s immanence as reflected through the notions of care, protection, providence and faithfulness. Every line promotes the thesis; every hemistich enhances the message of the line. The tighter the formulation, the better the poem. Density of language reflects density of meaning. The result is a maximum of meaning in a minimum of words. The transparency of its poetics and the clarity of its theology made Adon Olam the theological manifesto of the Shaḥarit morning service that it is. The poem opens with the address to God as Adon Olam. Since God’s sovereignty and uniqueness are here made functions of God’s eternity, the appellation adon ha-olam (“lord of the world”) as found in late rabbinic literature, is replaced by adon olam (“Lord eternal”). The absence of the definite article (ha-) allows olam to retain its biblical meaning as time-oriented rather than the rabbinic ha-olam, which often is space-oriented.10 It harks back to the biblical expression el olam (“God eternal,” Gen 21:33), and specifically elohei olam (“Lord eternal”) of Isaiah (40:28), who also refers to the creator of the whole world as “the first and the last” (48:12), as does Adon Olam. The temporal dimension of adon olam is made explicit by introducing the next four hemistichs (underlined in the Hebrew) with the temporal indices of “before” (1b), “when” (2a), “then” (2b), and “after” (3a). By progressing from “before” through “then” to “after,” God is acclaimed as having reigned, as reigning, and as continuing to reign. Nonetheless, God is not hailed “King” until

|| 9 This is comparable to the first blessing of the evening Arvit service, where the pervasive redundancy serves to point out the regularity and predictability of the celestial changes at dusk to allay apprehensions of chaos in the face of the enveloping darkness; see Kimelman, The Rhetoric, Chapter 6, “The Shema Liturgy,” II. D, b. 10 See Friedman, Studies in the Language and Terminology of Talmudic Literature, 43–44. It is thus equivalent to the expression ‫ אדון עולמים‬in the Adon Olam-like line: ‫ אדון‬,‫חי עולמים‬ ‫ אדיר מלכות עולמים‬,‫ מלך עולמים‬,‫( עולמים‬London MS, Or 10655.5, cited by Kretzmer, “The Palestinian Morning Service in Fragments of an Early Liturgical Rotulus,” 45, ll. 4–6) as opposed to the spatial expression ‫( אדון כל הארץ‬Josh 3:11, 13; Zech 4:14; 6:5; Ps 97:5). For rabbinic epithets of God that begin with ‫אדון‬, see Marmorstein, The Old Rabbinic Doctrine of God, 62–64.

The Poetics and Theology of Adon Olam | 191

there is a world to hail.11 Thus, the case is made for the eternity of Divine kingship. The opening lines of Adon Olam are a poetic formulation of the classical medieval argument for God as a non-contingent being. Since God pre-dates the world, God can post-date it. God’s existence is independent of the world. Having preceded creation, God can survive its destruction. The world’s demise does not affect God’s ongoing existence.12 As much of Adon Olam, this line incorporates, as shall be noted, standard theological positions found in Jewish, Christian, and other Greco-Roman authors from Late Antiquity on. With regard to God preceding creation, the Jewish first-century Philo already said: “Neither before creation was there anything with God, nor, when the world had come into being does anything take its place with Him, for there is absolutely nothing which He needs.”13 With regard to God surviving its destruction, R. Abahu already said: “He creates worlds and destroys them.”14 “Come and see!” says the Talmud: The measure of the Holy One, blessed be He, is unlike the measure of flesh and blood. The things fashioned by a creature of flesh and blood outlast him, but the Holy One, blessed be He, outlasts the things He had fashioned.15

|| 11 Abot de Rabbi Nathan, ed. Schechter, 152: “when He finished His work, He became king over His world”; see Avot R. Nat. 1, 5; b. Rosh Hash. 31a. 12 This is based on the standard medieval argument from creation on the contingency of the world and the non-contingency of God; see Maimonides, “Laws of the Foundations of the Torah,” 1:1–4 with Rubinstein, Maimonides, Mishneh Torah 1:3; and Baḥ̣ya b. Asher, Kad HaQemaḥ, ‫מציאות השם יתברך‬, 239–41. Similar is the statement in the minimal Shema of the Preliminary Blessings near the beginning of the morning Shaharit service:

‫עולם‬ ָ ‫ַא ָתּה הוּא ַ ד ֶשׁלּא נִ ְב ָרא ָה‬ .‫עולם‬ ָ ‫ַא ָתּה הוּא ִמ ֶשּׁנִּ ְב ָרא ָה‬ ‫עולם ַהזֶּ ה‬ ָ ‫ַא ָתּה הוּא ָבּ‬ :‫עולם ַה ָבּא‬ ָ ‫וְ ַא ָתּה הוּא ָל‬ You were before the world was created You are since the world was created You are in this world And You are in the next world (Seder Rav Amram Gaon 1:7, 6, l. 13f.; and YS, Deut. 836, 110, ll. 11–13) 13 Philo, QG 2:1 (Colson and Whitaker). 14 Gen. Rab. 3, 7, 23 and parallels. For the idea elsewhere in Rabbinic literature; in Halevi, Kuzari 1.67; and in Qabbalistic literature, see Kasher, Torah 1:87–89; and Sperber, Midrash Yerushalem, 72, along with Wolfson, Philo 1:323 with n. 4. For piyyut, see Elizur and Rand, Rabbi El‘azar Berabbi Qillir, 57, n. 37. 15 b. Ber. 10a; see Lev. Rab. 4:9, ed. Margulies, 96 and parallels.

192 | Reuven Kimelman

In line with this, a midrash portrays God saying: “I am He who spoke and the world came into being, I direct the order of creation, and I am destined to destroy it, as well as to renew it.”16 Support for God alone surviving the world was found in Isa. 2:11, “And God alone will be exalted in that day.”17 For though the earth and heaven may perish, says the psalmist, “You shall endure” (Ps 102:27). In the last stanza of his famous poem, Kol Beruei Ma‘alah U-Mattah, frequently associated with Adon Olam in the Siddur, Solomon ibn Gabirol (b. 1022) incorporates the idea by reformulating the verse as “You shall endure, but they (i.e., all) shall surely perish” (‫אבדוּ ָאבוֹד‬ ְ ֹ ‫) ַא ָתּה ַת ֲ מֹד וְ ֵהם י‬. The emphasis on God’s will, in line 2, is also part of the argument from creation. A God that creates is a volitional God.18 Eternity, as infinity, is too abstract. Lest it elude human grasp, it must be made concrete. Abstractions do not arouse the emotions. To make eternity conceptually accessible and emotionally available, the poet intersperses three mentions of Melek (“king”), once in each of the first three lines, to the effect that God was king, is king, and will be king.19 God’s eternity is also made palpable by breaking it down temporally, in line 4, to “He was, He is, and He shall be.” The allusion to the tetragrammaton (YHVH) through the conjugation of the assonant Hebrew verb of “to be” fleshes out the intimations of eternity—past, present, and future— that permeate the section.20 || 16 Jellinek, Bet Ha-Midrasch 6:42; see Kimelman, The Rhetoric, Chapter 5, “Pesuqei De-Zimra,” n. 61. On the tendency of Sephardic poetry to allude to midrashic material, see Mirsky, Ha’Piyut, 532–57. 17 b. Rosh Hash. 31a, Abot de Rabbi Nathan 1, ed. Schechter, 5. 18 See Davidson, Proofs for Eternity, 2–5. Compare Clement of Alexandria: “How great is the power of God. His mere will is creation; for God alone created, since He alone is truly God” (Exhortation to the Greeks 4 [LCL, 143]). 19 The idea was a theological commonplace in Late Antiquity among Jews, Romans, and Christians; see Josephus, Ag. Ap. 2:190: “God is the beginning, the middle, and the end of all things”; Cicero: “If the gods had a beginning they must also have an end” (The Nature of the Gods 1.24.68); and Tertullian: “I give that definition (of God) which all men’s common sense will accept that God is supremely great... uncreated, without beginning and without end (sine initio, sine fine)” (Marc. 1:3). Around 1500, the Italian Johann Reuchlin, On the Art of the Kabbalah, heir to all three traditions, cited philosophical kabbalists, such as R. Azriel of thirteenth century Gerona, Spain, to make the points that God is “lord of all,” “one, unique, unified,” “beginning, middle, and end,” and “He is the first without beginning and the last without end”,120. The absence of a reference to Adon Olam may indicate that it was not yet known then in Spain, which seems to have been the case. 20 As Jacob b. Asher, Arba‘ah Turim, Orah Hayyim 5, states that one should have in mind when writing out the first two letters of YHVH that He was, is, and will be

(‫)יכווין עוד פירוש כתיבתו ביו"ד ה"א שהוא היה והוה ויהיה‬

The Poetics and Theology of Adon Olam | 193

Awareness of the allusive nature of the hymn opens up a whole field of suggestiveness. It calls to mind the pre-prayer meditative practice that upon blessing YHVH of reflecting on the present, past, and future, as it says: “God is King, God was King, and God will be King forever.”21 Closer to the order of Adon Olam is the following formulation of the Midrash: “When they say: ‘God was king, God is king, God will be king,’ one should contemplate in the heart that He was, is, and will be.”22 One source even specifies the recitation in the morning: “At dawn, an angel stands in the midst of the firmament and declares: ‘God was king, God is king, and God will be king forever.’”23 Lines 1–3 deploy the idea of God’s eternity as a vehicle to sustain the image of God’s ongoing kingship. Lines 4–5 part expand upon the idea of eternity to maintain God’s incomparability. This echoes the position of the then bestknown scripture: “God is the one and only. God is the eternal, absolute, He did not beget nor is He begotten. And there is none like Him” (Qur’an 112:1–4). The repeated emphasis in line 5 on God being one and having no second to compare or to pair,24 bears a polemical cargo against dualism and a fortiori against trinitarianism.25 Its formulation alludes to a midrash on the verse “I am first, I am last, and beside Me there is no other” (Isa 44:6), which says:

|| See Schäfer, Synopse zur Hekhalot-Literature #637–639, 240; #690, 252–53; #692, 254. 21 See Abraham b. Nathan, Sefer Ha-Manhig 1:85, who cites esoteric works. On the use of this triple affirmation composed from fragments of three biblical verses in the liturgy and elsewhere, see Kimelman, The Rhetoric, Chapter five, “Pesuqei De-Zimra,” n. 151f.; and Zunz, Rites of Synagogue Liturgy, 190–91. 22 Midrash Tanhuma, ed. Buber, Introduction, 1:126. William Wordsworth employs the same technique to indicate eternity, saying: “Of first, and last, and midst, and without end” (Prelude 6:640f.) 23 See Zidkeiah b. R. Abraham Anav Harofei, Shibolei Ha-Leqet Ha-Shaleim 76, 297 with n. 1; and Schäfer, Synopse zur Hekhalot-Literature #406, 170. 24 See the same terms in the similar statement from Jellenik, Bet Ha-Midrasch 5:166: ‫“( ה' אחד ואין לו שׁני או דמוי ומישׁול ושׁיתוף וחיבור לא בשׁמים ולא בארץ‬A-donai is one,” and [or: i. e.] He has no second or anything akin, or comparable, or associated or connected, neither in heaven nor on earth”); see Siddur Rav Sa‘adyah Gaon, 64, n. 5–6. Already in the fourth century, the Samaritan Amram Dare 26, 107, l. 37f. states: ‫“( יחידאי דלית לך חבר לא תניאן ולא שותף‬You are one without a companion neither a second not as associate”). It also states there: “You are the beginning whose beginning nobody knows; You are the end that has no end.” 25 Judah Barzillai, around 1100, galvanizes the threefold position of Adon Olam that God has no beginning or end, that God is the creator of all, and that God’s existence implies incomparability in order to counteract dualism. He then states: “We know that there is nothing like Him and that He has no second and apparently this explains why those who err, saying He has a second, are not able to fully understand that He is one” (Sefer Yeṣirah, 56). The lack of understanding is due to taking one as an ordinal number, not as a cardinal number, understanding

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“I am first”—I have not received kingship from another “I am last” —I shall not hand it over to anyone else in the world. “And beside Me there is no other”—I have no second (or: partner).26

Lurking behind this midrash is Eccl 4:8, which was understood to say: “There is one, and there is no second, neither has he son or brother,” in which the subject was understood to be God. Thus, a version of the above midrash states: “I am first”—I have no father “I am last”—I have no son “And beside Me there is no other”—I have no brother.27

A liturgical poem of Yannai, who lived under Byzantine Christianity, combines all these elements into one line using the identical words that were to appear in Adon Olam, saying: "Know that there is one and there is no second to Him, singular and unique, without brother or son.”28 Similarly, Abraham ibn Ezra states: “ ‘One’ in the mouth of His band [Israel or angels] is He called in His sanctuary. He has no father or mother in His coterie, also He has no son or brother.”29 Lines 1–3 and 5 are equivalent to a statement that sums up the Maimonidean position: “God summoned the world from total nothingness into existence and that He [then] alone existed and nothing outside of Him. He then brought

|| “one” to mean “not two,” thereby making adding to one possible. But if “one” means unique, i.e, only one like it, then nothing can be added to that which is incomparable. By definition, there is no second to what is singular. See Maimonides, “Laws of the Foundations of the Torah,” 1:1–4. 26 Song Rab. 1, 9. For the “partner” reading, see y. Sanh. 1:1, 18a. Similarly, the Shir Yiḥud for Thursday states: “You did not receive Your kingdom, nor did You bequeath Your rule. It will forever be Yours alone, and not for others is the glory of Your splendor” (Goldschmidt, Maḥzor La-Yamim Ha-Noraʾim 2:70). 27 Ex. Rab. 29, 5. See Deut. Rab. 2, 33; Deut. Rab., ed. Lieberman, 65. The versions in Eccl. Zuta 4, 8, 126; and Eccl. Rab. 4:8, ed. Hirshman, 248, with n. 97, and 249, identify the “there is one” of the verse with God by referencing the Shema verse that ends “God is one.” The former then mentions son, brother, and spouse, while the latter mentions son, brother, and partner. For this material in the context of the ancient Jewish-Christian argument, see Kister, “The Manifestation of God in the Midrashic Literature in Light of Christian Texts,” 109–110. 28 ‫( דעו כי יש אחד ואין שני לו יחיד ומיוחד ובן ואח אין לו‬Rabinovitz, The Liturgical Poems of Rabbi Yannai 2:142, l. 46; see ibid, 2:145f. l. 78f., with note). Not much later, the Qur’an states: “God has not taken to Himself any son, nor is there any God with Him” (23:91). 29 Ibn Ezra, The Religious Poems of Abraham Ibn Ezra #141, 1:263.

The Poetics and Theology of Adon Olam | 195

all Being into existence by dint of His volition and approval.”30 Only God is eternal, not the world. The six lines of section one constitute a credo of creation theology: Line 1 affirms that God’s reign precedes creation. Line 2 affirms that God willed the world into existence. Line 3 affirms that God alone will outlast creation. Line 4 spells out God’s eternity, past, present, and future. Line 5 affirms that God’s oneness implies incomparability. Line 6 affirms that God is also without beginning or end, and alone exercises power and dominion.31

In the second section, lines 7–10, the focus on God’s transcendence of the first section paves the way to a focus on God’s immanence.32 Like Jer 23:23 (“Am I a God nearby, says the LORD, and not a God far away?”), Adon Olam finds no disparity between God who is both distant and near. According to the Talmud, the combination of God’s grandeur and solicitude can be documented in all three parts of Tanakh.33 As Abraham Heschel observed: “the dichotomy of transcendence and immanence is an oversimplification,” for “God remains transcendent in His immanence, and related in His transcendence.”34 Still, lines 1–6 talk about God in the third person, whereas lines 7–10 talk about God’s relationship to me as if all were in the second person, albeit expressed in the third person. This makes the point that the “He” who is my personal God is the same He who is the eternal, sovereign creator. All ten lines have the external rhyme of ah; five have also internal rhymes of ie. Of the last four lines, lines 7, 8, and 10, have triple internal rhymes of ie. The acoustics of Adon Olam produce a charged sonic environment. The first three

|| 30 Heschel, Maimonides, 142; “Laws of the Foundations,” 1:1–4. For the relationship between divine creation and volition, see above, n. 18. 31 Compare Clement of Alexandria: “How great is the power of God. His mere will is creation; for God alone created, since He alone is truly God” (Exhortation to the Greeks, 4 [LCL, 143]). 32 See Abrahams, Companion, 8; and Jacobson, Netiv Binah 1:92, 153. 33 b. Meg. 31a (R. Yohanan). 34 Heschel, The Prophets, 486. The idea behind the link between the affirmation of line 6 about God being without beginning and without end, and the personal address to God in line 7 was explained a millennium earlier by Plutarch as follows: God exists… for no fixed time, but for the everlasting ages… in which there is no earlier or later, no future nor past… without a beginning and not coming to an end. Therefore, in our worship we ought to hail him and address him with the words “Thou art,” or even… as some of the ancients did, “Thou art one” (The E at Delphi, 20, Moralia 5:393 [LCL, 345]), adapted from Grant, Gods and the One God, 79.

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lines are held together by the threefold occurrence of the term for “king” melek and the term for “all” or “anything” kol, one per line. More frequent is the sixfold term for “He” hu. It dominates line 4 and begins lines 5, 7, and 8, thereby bridging the first section (lines 1–6) with the second (lines 7–10). The suffix or indirect object li also links the two sections. It makes seven appearances, twice in line 6, thrice in line 7, and once each in lines 8 and 10. Added to those seven are another nine words of lines 5–10 whose final syllable is an ie. The result is that the ah sound consumes the final rhyme; the ie sound dominates the internal rhyme, indeed, the ten occurrences of “me” or “mine,” all end with an ie. The result is ten ahs of external rhyme and ten ies of internal rhyme. By matching sound and sense, assonance is added to substance, making a sound unit an ideational unit. The poet maintains a link between the two sections by using the same ending of ‫ לי‬twice in line 6 and thrice in line 7. The result is that line 6 is the only line of section one to have an internal rhyme (unless one counts the partial one of line 4), thereby linking up with the multiple internal rhymes of the second section (lines 6–10). The result of the whole sound system is a recognizable pattern without repetitive monotony. The repetitive patterns account for Adon Olam’s singular singability.35 Each section also has a line of repetitive alliteration. In the first section, line 4 is dominated by the tenfold occurrence of the letter ‫ה‬. The result is a series of short intense breaths. It forms a rhythmic cadence of rapid breathing. By content and articulation, it becomes a kind of exhaling of divinity. This may serve to anticipate lines 9 and 10 with their double focus on “my spirit,” which is about to be entrusted to God. If line 4 is also informed by the midrashic tradition behind the first three words of line 9,36 then it is possible that the breathing itself is evocative of the soul that is conceived, according to Gen 2:7, as the inbreathing of God in us.37

|| 35 Almost any tune is applicable; see, e.g., Nulman, The Encyclopedia of Jewish Prayer, 8a; and online ‫אתר הפיוט והתפילה‬, web.nli.org.il/sites/nlis/he/Song/Pages/Song.aspx?SongID 36 See below, nn. 47–49, and texts thereto. 37 The technique of using expressions of exhaling to forge a link between breath and soul also characterizes the prayer of awakening, Elohai, Neshamah; see Marx, When I Sleep and When I Wake, 55–56. The daily recitation of this prayer could have induced the author of Adon Olam to employ its method of raising awareness of the link between soul and breath. There is development in the direction of emphasizing the breathing element from its talmudic formulation (b. Ber. 60b) to its gaonic formulation (Teshuvot Rav Natronai bar Hilae Gaon, 108) to that of Seder Rav Amram Gaon 1:1, 2, l. 11–13, and more recent versions. The gaonic formulation would have been the one most likely familiar to our poet.

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In the second section, line 8 is characterized by the threefold use of ‫ נ‬and ‫ס‬, and the twofold use of ‫מ‬. The line aspires to match the alliterative brilliance, both assonant and consonant, of Jer 16:19: ‫נוּסי ְבּיוֹם ָצ ָרה‬ ִ ‫וּמ‬ ְ ‫וּמ ֻ זִּ י‬ ָ ‫ה' ֻ זִּ י‬. In fact, there is an alternative of line 8 that reads ‫הוא נסי ומנוסי‬.38 The parallel is made more striking by the realization that the last two words of the verse, ‫ ְבּיוֹם ָצ ָרה‬, are divided into the final word of the last expressions of line 7, ‫ ְבּ ֵ ת ָצ ָרה‬, and the first word of the last expression of line 8, ‫( ְבּיום ֶא ְק ָרא‬see Ps 66:10; 102:3). Images of conflict, not serenity, mark the transitional lines 7 and 8. They reflect an effort at grappling with distress through affirming God’s power and providence. Line 7 reflects the ambivalence by incorporating Job’s call of desperation who, out of fear of abandoning hope, cried out, “My redeemer still lives” (Job 19:25). There follows in rapid succession a series of images spelling out the precariousness of the poet’s situation. Nonetheless, the transcendent God remains a stronghold39 in distress, the banner around which to rally, the bastion40 to which to flee, and all else failing, the consummate cup of salvation to which the poet can call out. The image for “stronghold” in line 7 refers to God as ‫“( צוּר‬rock”). This biblical image for power and stability bears the connotation of invincible protection, a Gibraltar.41 Here its use rings with its consonant ‫“( ָצ ָרה‬distress”). The poetic counterpoint of ‫ ָצ ָרה‬is ‫ צוּר‬making God a dependable savior.42 Without attending to the alluded verses, which serve as the intertext, the elliptical nature of the last trope will be missed. Line 8a literally reads: “The lot of my cup on the day I

|| 38 See Siddur R. Herṣ Shaṣ 1:7f; and NY JTS MS 7443 Genizah; ENA 2491. This reading characterized pre-1600 siddurs; see Siddur Eizor Eliyahu, 4, note. Both readings can allude to Exod 17:15. 39 ‫וְ צוּר ֶח ְב ִלי‬. The expression exploits the polysemy ‫ חבל‬as rope, portion/destiny, and pain. For the double use of it as rope and pain, see Ps 18:5f., with Hakham, Sefer Tehillim 1:81, n. 12f. For the double use of it as portion/destiny and rope, see Sifrei Deut. 312, ed. Finkelstein, 354. For the synonymous use of it as lot, portion, and destiny, see Pirkei De-Rabbi Eliezer 24, ed. Luria, 54a (ed. Bӧrner-Klein, 265). For the fourfold use of it as rope, portion, pain, and area, see the Andulasian poet, Abu’l Hassan (Meir) ben Elezar, a contemporary of Moses ibn Ezra, in Fleischer, “A Collection of Andalusian Poems with Homonym Rhymes”, 221. Obviously, the expression can be intentionally polysemous. For the attendant problems of translation, see http://judaism.stackexchange.com/questions/48703/meaning-of-the-phrase-tzur-chevli-beittzarah-near-the-end-of-adon-olam. Michael Bohnen, of Boston, suggested “lifeline” as a connotation of “rope.” In any case, it evokes the associated use of ‫ חבל‬and ‫ צורי‬of Ps 18:3–5 combining them into ‫צוּר ֶח ְב ִלי‬. 40 See Isa 49:22 for banner; and Jer 16:19 for bastion. 41 See Ps 89:27, ‫“( אלי וצור ישועתי‬My God, and the rock of my salvation”). 42 See Fishbane, The JPS Bible Commentary Haftarot, 318.

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call.” This conflates two verses. The first is: “God is the portion of my lot and my cup” (Ps 16:5). The second is: “The cup of salvation shall I raise, and upon the name of the Lord shall I call.”43 Referring to God as “the lot of my cup” derives from the first verse. “On the day I call” derives, with the addition of “the day,” from the second verse. The cup of the first verse now merges with the cup of salvation of the second verse. The result is that the worshipper appeals to God as his cup of salvation.44 God does not just raise a banner or hold out a cup. Rather, God is redeemer, stronghold, banner, bastion, and cup in time of need. Both lines 7 and 9 use the same word for “when” (‫ )בעת‬as opposed to the first word of line 2 (‫)לעת‬. This allows the distress of line 7 to be specified by the apprehension at not waking up of line 9. The two concluding lines (9–10) account for how and why the hymn came to function as a bedtime prayer. Indeed, it may have been composed for that purpose. Upon retiring, the worshipper seeks assurance of awakening. Sleep is not portrayed in terms of reduced consciousness, but as the entrusting of the spirit into God’s care in expectation of its restoration. The opening three words of line 9 are from Ps 31:6, “In Your Hand I shall entrust my spirit.” According to one midrash, this is the warrant for the entrusting of the soul into God’s hands nightly as a precondition for its daily restoration and renewal.45 According to another, it is the basis of the idea that “As long as one is alive, the soul is in God’s charge.”46 Upon wakening with the restored soul, one acclaims God’s kingship.47 The Talmud has the whole verse recited before retiring at night.48 As a deathbed prayer, the awakening motif post-sleep becomes a resurrection motif post-mortem as happens often in the liturgy.49 Since God’s succor has been at my side through all adversity, He will surely manage to get me through the night allowing me to come to terms with my mortality upon falling asleep. Having restored my soul, in line 10, to what would

|| 43 Ps 116:13; see Ps 112:3. 44 See Jacobson, Netiv Binah 1:154. The cluster of words in Hebrew is evocative of the line from Ibn Gabirol, ‫( וצור מחסי וכוסי מנת חלקי וגורלי וחבלי‬Jarden, The Liturgical Poetry of Rabbi Solomon Ibn Gabirol 2:464). A similar line was penned by Ibn Ezra: ,‫ הוּא ֶח ְל ִקי וְ ֶח ְבלִ י‬/ ,‫גוֹר ִלי‬ ָ ‫הוּא ֶ זְ ִרי וְ הוּא‬ .‫ הוּא נֵ ִרי ְב ָא ְפ ִלי‬/ ,‫הוּא ָמנוֹס ְבּיוֹם ָצ ָרה לִ י‬ see The Religious Poems of Abraham Ibn Ezra 1:78, l. 16. 45 Midr. Ps. 25, 2, ed. Buber, 210. 46 Sifre Num., ed. Hurwitz, 139, 185; ed. Kahana, 466f. 47 Num. Rab. 20, 20. 48 b. Ber. 5a. 49 See Kimelman, “The Rabbinic Theology of the Physical,” 954–70.

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have been my corpse (‫)גְּ וִ יָּ ִתי‬, I know that YHVH will be there for me and fear not.50 Lines 9 and 10 not only have ‫רוּחי‬ ִ in common, but the first and last syllable of the last two words of line 9, ‫ישׁן וְ ָא ִע ָירה‬ ָ ‫ ִא‬, are condensed into the final word of line 10, ‫ ִא ָירא‬, thereby sounding out why when I sleep I fear not. Only the climatic last line contains the tetragrammaton YHVH, in its use of Ps 118:6, though earlier traces of the tetragrammaton permeate line 4. The repetitive rhyme scheme throughout guarantees that the sound at the end of each strophe is predictable. It structures the poem and provokes a desire for recurrence. Repeated sounds with a rhyme structure of predictability create the desired sense of security shielding me from the vagaries, if not threats, of the night. The structure of the poem assures me of a structured world. Along with the assurance of God’s closeness, perception of structure exorcizes the anxiety of sleep. With a God so powerful and providential, “I” can face whatever may come.51 This helps account for how what may have been a bedtime prayer became the opening of the morning service. “Such a history may suggest that Adon Olam guides one through sleep to awakening and provides the continuity that comes from abiding in the divine presence throughout the night.”52 For Adon Olam, God’s sovereignty, universality, eternity, and dominion prompt the Divine solicitude that renders the worshipper the object of Divine concern, so that God becomes “my redeemer” (line 6). The strategic placing of Adon Olam at the start of the service aims to cultivate faith in God as the eternal king, the protecting redeemer in the face of the tribulations of life. The rhetorical strategy consists in persuading the worshipper of God’s capacity and concern so that prayer proves to be neither futile nor frustrating. If God controls but does not care, prayer is frustrating; if God cares but lacks control, prayer is futile.53 For Adon Olam, eternity and infinity no more belie intimacy than sover|| 50 See Ps 118:6 and its context. The sentiment of entrusting the soul to God finds its complement in the popular English bedtime prayer: Now I lay me down to sleep, I pray the Lord my soul to keep. If I should die before I wake, I pray the Lord my soul to take. 51 The same effect is achieved by the fixed structure and repetitive sounds in the Arvitevening service; see Kimelman, The Rhetoric, chapter 6, “The Shema Liturgy,” n. 139. 52 This formulation is that of Michael Duggan of St. Mary’s University who also helped me clarify several points in this essay as did his co-editor Dalia Marx. In her book, When I Sleep and When I Wake, Marx shows how the beginning of morning prayer in the Jewish liturgy often takes its cue from the end of nighttime prayer creating a liturgical continuum from going to bed to getting up. 53 As in the other cases, the theological logic of Adon Olam harks back to Late Antiquity. In this case, the logic of the position is spelled out by Epicurus (341–270 BCE): God either wishes to take away evils and is unable; or he is able and is

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eignty belies solicitude. By interlocking God’s grandeur and grace, a mental matrix for prayer is formed through which Adon Olam emerges as the theological introduction to the service.54 Appropriately, Adon Olam, was placed in many rites right after Mah Tovu, the psychological introduction to prayer and the morning service.55

Bibliography Abot de Rabbi Nathan. Edited by Solomon Schechter. New York: Jewish Theological Seminary, 1997. Abraham b. Nathan (of Lunel). Sefer Ha-Manhig [Hebrew]. 2 vols. Edited by Yitshak Raphael. Jerusalem: Mossad Harav Kook, 1978. Abrahams, Israel. A Companion to the Authorised Daily Prayerboook, New York: Hermon Press, 1966. Amir, Yehoshua. “Avnei Binyan Miqraiyot Le-fiyyut ‘Adon Olam’” [Hebrew]. Beth Miqra 40 (1995): 13–18. Baḥ̣ya b. Asher. Kad Ha-Qemaḥ, Kitvei Rabbeinu Baḥ̣ya [Hebrew]. Edited by Hayim D. Chavel. Jerusalem: Mossad Harav Kook, 1970. Barzillai, Judah. Sefer Yeṣirah [Hebrew]. Jerusalem: Maqor, 1970. Brody, Robert, ed. Teshuvot Rav Natronai bar Hilae Gaon [Hebrew]. 2 vols. Jerusalem: Machon Ofeq, 1994. Cicero, The Nature of the Gods, cited from Frederick Grant, Ancient Roman Religion. Indianapolis: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, 1957.

|| unwilling; or he is neither willing nor able; or he is both willing and able. If he is willing but unable he is feeble, which is not in accordance with the character of God. If he is able and unwilling, he is envious, which is equally at variance with God. If he is neither willing nor able, he is both envious and feeble, and therefore not God. If he is both willing and able, which alone is suitable for God, from what source then are evils? Or why does he not remove them? Cited by Lactantius (c. 250 – c. 325), A Treatise on the Anger of God 28. 54 In this vein is the observation that ‫ אדון עולם‬is the numerical equivalent (207) of ‫אין סוף‬ (“infinity”) (see Horowitz, Seder Sha‘ar Ha-Shamayim, 59), indeed, the first and second words are each numerical equivalents. 55 For this role of Mah Tovu, see Kimelman, The Rhetoric, Chapter one. Adon Olan and Mah Tovu began to appear on the same page as early as the fifteenth century Siddur LON BL or 10186, accessible through ktiv.nli.org.il. By the early seventeenth century, some initiated the Shaharit synagogue service with Mah Tovu followed by the Yigdal, an alternative theological introduction, and then Adon Olam; see, e. g., Sofeir, Siddur of Shabbatai Sofeir 2:1–6; and Tabory, “Introduction,” Siddur Hanau of 1628, 36–37.

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Clement of Alexandria. Exhortation to the Greeks in Clememt of Alexandria. Edited by G. W. Butterworth. Loeb Classical Library. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1968. Cohen, Joshua, ed. Siddur Ezor Eliyahu, Al Pi Nusakh Ha-GR"A [Hebrew]. Jerusalem: Kerem Eliyahu, 2014. Davidson, Herbert. Proofs for Eternity, Creation and the Existence of God in Medieval Islamic and Jewish Philosophy. New York: Oxford University, 1987. Davidson, Israel, Simcha Asaaf, and Joel Isakhar, eds. Siddur Rav Sa‘adya Gaon [Hebrew]. Jerusalem: Mekize Nirdamim, 1970. Elizur, Shulamit, and Michael Rand. Rabbi El‘azar Berabbi Qillir: Liturgical Poems for Rosh HaShana [Hebrew]. Critical Edition, Introduction, and Commentaries. Jerusalem: World Union of Jewish Studies, 2014. Fishbane, Michael. The JPS Bible Commentary Haftarot. Philadelphia: The Jewish Publication Society, 2002. Fleischer, Ezra. “A Collection of Andalusian Poems with Homonym Rhymes [Hebrew].” Tarbiz 68 (1999): 211–71. Friedman, Shamma. Studies in the Language and Terminology of Talmudic Literature [Hebrew]. Israel: The Academy of the Hebrew Language, 2014. Goldschmidt, Ernst Daniel. Maḥzor La-Yamim Ha-Noraʾim Lefi Minhagei Benei Ashkenaz [Hebrew]. 2 vols. Jerusalem: Koren, 1970. Goldschmidt, Ernst Daniel, ed. Seder Rav Amram Gaon (Amram b. Sheshna). Jerusalem: Mossad Harav Kook, 1971. Gordon, Aryeh. ‘Siddur Oṣar HaTefillot [Hebrew]. 2 vols., Vilna: Romm, 1911. Hakham, Amos. Sefer Tehillim [Hebrew]. 2 vols. Jerusalem: Mossad Harav Kook, 1984. Heschel, Abraham. Maimonides. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1983. Heschel, Abraham. The Prophets. The Jewish Publication Society: Philadelphia, 1962. Heyman, Dov and Isaac Shiloni, eds. Yalkut Shimoni: Genesis--Latter Prophets [Hebrew]. 11 vols. Jerusalem: Mossad Harav Kook, 1973–2009. Horowitz, Isaiah. Seder Sha‘ar Ha-Shamayim [Hebrew]. Jerusalem: Levine-Epstein, 1957. Jacob b. Asher. Arba‘ah Turim, Orah Hayyim [Hebrew]. Standard editions. Jacob b. Jehuda (Ḥazan of London). Etz Hayyim [Hebrew]. Edited by Israel Brodie. Jerusalem: Mossad Harav Kook, 1962 (c. 1285, London, England) Jacobson, Issachar. Netiv Binah [Hebrew]. 5 vols. Tel Aviv: Sinai, 1964–1978. Jarden, Dov. The Liturgical Poetry of Rabbi Solomon Ibn Gabirol [Hebrew]. 2 vols. Jerusalem: Boys Town, 1979. Jellinek, Adolph. Bet Ha-Midrasch. 2 vols. Jerusalem: Wahrmann Books, 1967. Kasher, Menaḥem. Torah Sheleimah [Hebrew]. 42 vols. Jerusalem: Beth Torah Sheleimah, 1949–1991. Kaufman, Judah (Even-Shemuel). R. Yom Ṭov Lipman Mihlhoizn: Baʻal Ha-Nisaḥ̣on, Ha-Ḥoqeir Ṿe-Ha-Mequbal [Hebrew]. New York, 1926. Kimelman, Reuven. “The Rabbinic Theology of the Physical: Blessings, Body and Soul, Resurrection, Covenant and Election.” Pages 946–997 in The Cambridge History of Judaism, Volume 4: The Late Roman-Rabbinic Period. Edited by Steven T. Katz. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006. Kimelman, Reuven. The Rhetoric of Jewish Prayer: A Historical and Literary Commentary on the Prayerbook, Liverpool: The Littman Library of Jewish Civilization (forthcoming). Kister, Menahem. “The Manifestation of God in the Midrashic Literature in Light of Christian texts [Hebrew],” Tarbiz 81 (2013): 103–142.

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Marmorstein, Arthur. The Old Rabbinic Doctrine of God: I. The Names and Attributes of God. New York: KTAV, 1968. Maimonides, Moses. Mishneh Torah [Hebrew]. 17 vols. Edited by Shmuel T. Rubinstein. Jerusalem: Mossad Harav Kook, 1962. Marx, Dalia. When I Sleep and When I Wake: On Prayers Between Dusk and Dawn [Hebrew]. Tel Aviv: Yedioth sfarim, 2010. Lactantius (c. 250 – c. 325). A Treatise on the Anger of God, The Works of Lactantius. Vol. 2. Edited by William Fletcher. Clark: Edinburgh, 1871. Levin, Israel, ed. The Religious Poems of Abraham Ibn Ezra: Critical Edition with Introduction and Commentary [Hebrew]. Vol 1. Jerusalem: Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities, 1975. Mirsky, Aharon. Ha’Piyut: The Development of Post Biblical Poetry in Eretz Israel and the Diaspora [Hebrew]. Jerusalem: Magnes, 1990. Nulman, Macy. The Encyclopedia of Jewish Prayer: Ashkenazic and Sephardic Rites. Northvale MJ: Jason Aronson, 1993. Philo, On the Creation. Allegorical Interpretation of Genesis 2 and 3. Translated by F. H. Colson and G. H. Whitaker. LCL. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1962. Plutarch, Moralia 5:393, Loeb Classical Library. Edited by Frank Babbitt, Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1969. Rabinovitz, Zvi. The Liturgical Poems of Rabbi Yannai according to the Triennial Cycle of the Pentateuch and the Holidays [Hebrew]. 2 vols. Jerusalem: Bialik Institute, 1985–l987. Raziel Kretzmer, Vered. “The Palestinian Morning Service in Fragments of an Early Liturgical Rotulus” [Hebrew]. Pages 3–46 in Kobez Al Yad 24. Edited by Shulamit Elizur. Jerusalem: Magnes, 2016. Reuchlin, Johann. On the Art of the Kabbalah. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1993. Schäfer, Peter. Synopse zur Hekhalot-Literature. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1981. Siddur (Ha-Mequbal) R. Herṣ Shaṣ [Hebrew]. 2 vols. Repr. in Israel with commentary. Bnei Braq: Julius Klugman and Sons, 2004. Siddur of Shabbatai Sofeir [Hebrew]. Edited by Yishak Sats. 4 vols. Baltimore: Ner Israel Rabbinical College, 1987–2002. Sperber, Daniel. Midrash Yerushalem: A Metaphysical History of Jerusalem. World Zionist Organization: Jerusalem, 1982. Tabory, Joseph. “Introduction.” Pages 1–55 in Siddur Hanau of 1628 [Hebrew]. Edited by Meir Rafeld and Joseph Tabory. Ramat-Gan: Bar-Ilan University Press, 1994. Tertullian. Against Marcion, http://www.ntslibrary.com/PDF%20Books/TERTULLIAN%20Five% 20Books%20Against%20Marcion.pdf. Wordsworth, William. The Prelude, http://www.archive.org/stream/wordsworthsprelu00 greyuoft/wordsworthsprelu00greyuoft_djvu.txt Wolfson, Harry. Philo: Foundations of Religious Philosophy in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. 2 vols. Cambridge: Harvard University, 1968. Zidkeiah b. R. Abraham Anav Harofei. Shibolei Ha-Leqet Ha-Shaleim [Hebrew]. Edited by Shmuel K. Mirsky. New York: Sura, 1966. Zunz, Leopold. Rites of Synagogue Liturgy [Hebrew]. Edited by Avraham Fraenkel. Jerusalem: World Union of Jewish Studies, 2016.

Ruth Langer and Richard S. Sarason

Re-Examining the Early Evidence for Rabbinic Liturgy: How Fixed Were Its Prayer Texts? Abstract: A primary focus of scholarly dispute has been the degree to which early rabbinic liturgy was fluid in its verbal formulation or was centrally composed. This essay applies new methodology to the exploration of this question, restricting the evidence consulted to that of unquestionable Tannaitic origin. What are the consequences of excluding the Babylonian narrative of the formation of the Amidah in the late first century at Yavneh? We conclude that there is substantial evidence that liturgical structures retained flexibility throughout the Tannaitic period, a conclusion that is inconsistent with a presumption of centralized and absolute rabbinic authority emanating from Yavneh. Keywords: Amidah; Keriat Shema; Prayers, wording of; Berakhah: formula, wording of; Rabbinic liturgy: origins and development.

1 Background and method When modern academic students of Jewish liturgy began to propose theories about the origins of its central prayer, the Amidah (which the early rabbis called “the Prayer,” hatefillah),1 they reopened a question embedded in classical rabbinic texts: who initiated the various elements of this system of prayer, and when? Each generation has employed the conceptual tools available to it, gen-

|| We offer this essay as a contribution to a conversation in which Prof. Stefan Reif has been deeply involved, and in some ways, began. Each of the authors has benefitted over the years from his vast erudition and professional expertise, as well as his warm and generous collegiality. We wish him many more years of productivity and personal fulfillment. || 1 Hatefillah (and its associated verb, lehitpallel) is the most commonly employed term in classical rabbinic literature for this liturgical unit, but later, it is largely supplanted by shemoneh esreh (eighteen), referencing its original number of blessings on weekdays, and by amidah (standing), referencing the posture in which it is recited. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110630282-014

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erating a series of well-known answers. While the talmudic rabbis placed the Amidah’s origins both in mythological antiquity and at Yavneh in the decades following the destruction of the Temple in 70 CE,2 modern answers range from philologically-based reconstructions of earliest texts, usually dated to the late Second Temple period, to form-critical placement in various Second Temple institutional settings, to Ezra Fleischer’s 1989 claim that Rabban Gamliel II responded to the destruction of the Temple with a liturgical revolution that reshaped Jewish worship and created rabbinic liturgy.3 Fleischer’s initial article, and those that followed in its wake, significantly undercut the reigning theory.4 Stefan Reif was the first to publish an extended critical response and to join Fleischer in conversation.5 In the subsequent quarter-century and after, few have addressed these larger historical questions. Fleischer (d. 2006), through force of personality and volume of substantive publications, remains today the dominant voice in liturgical studies in the Israeli academy.6 Much new information is emerging on a number of fronts, though, that must be integrated in order to evaluate his theories and to carry forward Reif’s challenges. The complete publication of the Dead Sea Scrolls and deeper study of Second Temple liturgical texts provide a cultural context that Fleischer largely dismissed. Fuller study of the statutory prayer texts from the Cairo Genizah provides a more complete picture of the early medieval rabbinic reality. A focus solely on prayer texts, though, is problematic, as rabbinic literature records far more about the halakhic parameters and context of prayer than about its words. Fleischer made extensive use of these texts while also deploying them to make claims about the verbal character of the liturgy.

|| 2 See, most famously, b. Meg. 17b–18a and b. Ber. 28b. 3 For surveys of Jewish liturgical scholarship since Leopold Zunz, see Langer, Jewish Liturgy, 11–14. 4 Now collected and republished in Fleischer, Statutory. For an English summary (and review) of most of these articles, see Langer, “Revisiting,” as well as the subsequent published correspondence, Fleischer and Langer, “Controversy.” Fleischer’s work takes direct issue with Joseph Heinemann, Prayer in the Talmud. 5 Reif, “Development,” and Fleischer, “Rejoinder,” in Statutory, 49–54 (683–88). See also Reif, “Jewish Liturgy,” and Judaism, passim (see index). 6 See, for example, the articles collected in Tabory, From Qumran to Cairo; Ehrlich, “Prayer in the Land of Israel,” particularly 367–78; and Elizur, “Towards,” as well as her review of Ehrlich, Daily Amidah, 243–45.

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Current scholarly questions of how to read rabbinic literature as a historical source are also extraordinarily relevant.7 In his 1992 critique of Fleischer’s initial article, Reif suggested that Fleischer’s conclusions about dating and layers in his sources should not be made without critical editions and reliable historical analysis of rabbinic literature, then significantly unavailable. How could one discern where talmudic editors had reworked earlier materials, thereby distorting our understanding of them?8 Fleischer labeled such a method as “agnostic,” suggesting that it placed a huge burden on the researcher. Ultimately, he also considered it irrelevant as his theory began with a necessary logical presumption.9 However, today a growing number of internet resources and scholarly projects have greatly improved the scholar’s ability to understand textual history. Textual variants must be taken into account, but even more important is the recognition that rabbinic editors rewrote or even constructed their received texts to fit their own, non-historical agendas. While some despair of doing any historical work based on these texts, turning entirely to those non-rabbinic, particularly material, sources that they deem more reliable, there are no such alternatives for the early history of rabbinic liturgy.10 One solution is to look carefully at the texts as they emerge from particular periods and places, being alert to how context shapes their discussions. Within specific contexts, consistent views from certain rabbis or generations of rabbis may hint at historical authenticity, especially if one can trace change over time. Narrative vignettes are also of particular interest while still perhaps reflecting the historical reality of their redactors rather than their purported settings.11

|| 7 See the discussion in Schremer, “The Sages,” and the literature listed there, nn. 4–9. See the appendix, below, for a detailed study of how these methodological considerations apply to the key baraita about the formulation of the Amidah in b. Ber. 28b. 8 Reif, “On the Development,” 679. Critical editions of the Tosefta and various midrashic works were available then, as were editions of some tractates of the Mishnah and the Babylonian Talmud, although the Genizah evidence had not yet been fully integrated. 9 Fleischer, Statutory, 51–52 (685–86). 10 Synagogue archaeology shows a gap for this period. In any case, the synagogue might not have been the location of rabbinic prayer until the third century. See Langer, “Rabbis,” and Levine, Ancient Synagogue, 176, 472, 486–87, 494, 562, 566. 11 On these problems of method, see Langer’s forthcoming “Rabbis.” It should be acknowledged that, beginning almost half a century ago, Jacob Neusner posed most of these questions quite trenchantly. See, e.g., the essays in the three volumes of Neusner, Method. Although many at the time viewed his methodological skepticism as too extreme, growing numbers have come to accept its value.

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The earliest surviving redacted rabbinic literature presumes the central structures of the rabbinic post-Temple worship system, thereby indicating that, at least among the rabbis themselves, daily recitation of the Amidah had become the norm by the early third century CE. This central prayer consisted of an extended series of a specified number of blessings, eighteen on weekdays, and usually seven on special occasions. The question is, what more can we know? If modern scholarship teaches us that the classical rabbinic texts were constructed from a distinct ideological viewpoint with an agenda for shaping Jewish society and its memory, how do we discern historical reality amid their rhetoric? Given that we must exercise caution about overly positivistic readings of these texts, nevertheless, there are areas where we can glimpse elements of the historical reality. We must also be cautious about reworkings and inventions of Tannaitic traditions in Amoraic texts. Therefore, a careful reading of the Tannaitic corpus alone is important, i.e., one that excludes Tannaitic traditions that were preserved only in Amoraic literature (and particularly in Babylonia).

2 The Amidah in undisputed Tannaitic texts: Yavneh and its predecessors The most important consequence of this method for a study of the Amidah is that we exclude the baraita that had been central to academic discussions of this prayer’s origins, especially for Fleischer.12 We read in b. Ber. 28b: The rabbis taught: Shimon Hapaquli set the eighteen benedictions in order in the presence of Rabban Gamliel at Yavneh. Rabban Gamliel said to the sages: Is there anyone who knows how to enact (letaqen)13 the birkat haminim (the blessing/curse of the heretics)? Shmuel Haqaton stood up and enacted it. Another year, he forgot it; he contemplated it for two or three hours and they did not remove him [from leading the prayer].

While those like Heinemann, who place the origins of the Amidah in the Second Temple period, understand Shimon Hapaquli’s “setting in order” to be an act of || 12 “Baraita” refers to a text that the Talmud presents as received from the era of the Mishnah but not included in it. Recent scholarship has determined that some beraitot not attested in Tannaitic literature in fact are “pseudo-beraitot” ‒ Amoraic in their substance and composition. See, for example, Hauptman, Development of the Talmudic Sugya, and Rubenstein, Talmudic Stories, 261–62. See the appendix. 13 Perhaps better, “formulate,” but this does not express all the meanings of this verb. See Langer, Cursing, 18, 20.

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organizing pre-existent elements, Fleischer argues that logically this must have referred to the composition, anew, of a verbatim text rather than an organization of themes.14 This vignette (or series of vignettes) is the only source that locates the establishment of all the details of the Amidah at Yavneh. Yet it appears only in the Babylonian Talmud and therefore we must question whether it represents a reliable historical account or a myth of origins.15 What happens when we read the texts of the Mishnah and Tosefta (and the occasional Tannaitic midrash) without this baraita? Most of the traditions about the Amidah in the Mishnah and Tosefta are unattributed, making them fully undatable except to the time of editing of these texts. However, some attributions do exist, and, while there are pitfalls in taking these attributions literally, in the absence of external evidence, we have no better cues pertaining to the emergence of the rabbinic liturgical system. Indeed, the earliest discussions of the weekday Amidah are found among the second- and third-generation Tannaim (ca. 100 CE). m. Ber. 4:3 opens with Rabban Gamliel stating, “Every day a person recites eighteen,” to which his contemporary Rabbi Joshua retorts, “[No, only] an abbreviated eighteen.” Rabbi Aqiva, of the next generation, then mediates by teaching that non-experts or the less adept may recite the abbreviated prayer. There are numerous questions that must be asked about the Mishnah’s allusive language here. However, it is not necessary to read it through the lens of the Babylonian baraita, which clearly exists in order to fill in gaps in the picture that the Mishnah presents.16 Fleischer interprets Rabban Gamliel’s dictum to mean, “Every day [every] Jew [must] recite the [prayer of] eighteen[-benedictions, i.e., the Amidah].” Dismissing his predecessors’ speculative dating of the emergence of the Amidah to the late Second Temple period, Fleischer argues strenuously—and apparently correctly—that there is no evidence for this specific liturgy prior to Yavneh. Because this was a new requirement being made of all Jews, logically and pedagogically, he says, this necessitated a fully formulated text. Conflating the Mishnah and the baraita like most have done, he holds that Rabban Gamliel in this time of crisis delegated the task of composition to the otherwise unknown

|| 14 Fleischer, Statutory, 32–33 (426–27); 41–42 (435–36). All his subsequent discussions draw on these points. Compare Heinemann, Prayer, 13, for example, for a different treatment of this text. 15 See further on this point in the Appendix, below. 16 Thanks to Judith Hauptman for this insight (in private conversation with Langer, December 2017).

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and perhaps undistinguished Shimon Hapaquli.17 This new requirement, he asserts, quickly found universal acceptance. But what happens when we separate these two texts and read the Mishnah in a minimalist fashion, doing our best to limit ourselves to what it actually says? The frequency of language like “one must assume” in Fleischer’s articles points to this lack of evidence for his theories.18 In addition, evidence from the Second Temple period, studied more intensively in recent years, does suggest that linguistic registers of Jewish prayer language were emerging then in a variety of contexts. Even if such verbal prayer was not the formal worship of all Jews in the land of Israel, its sort of language was a broadly accepted cultural and literary norm. Subgroups of Jews, like those generating the Dead Sea Scrolls, did pray composed texts daily.19 However, these texts were not versions of the Amidah; at best they included similar vocabulary and rhetorical styles, including structuring prayers with Psalms-derived blessing formulae and some similar themes.20 We do need to be mindful about the paucity of evidence from this period. Generalizing from the Dead Sea Scrolls to all Jews,21 or, as Fleischer does, restricting their prayers simply to the Qumran community because of its rejection of Temple worship, are both dangerous.22 Given this, how might we read this Mishnah paragraph? According to the language we have received of his instruction, Rabban Gamliel wants everyone to recite a prayer of eighteen. Eighteen what? Analogous passages just detailing || 17 Fleischer is inconsistent in his assessment of Shimon. In his initial 1989 article, Statutory, 46 (440), he notes that Shimon was not a rabbi and was not central to the rabbinic endeavor-— suggesting that perhaps he was not particularly wise and that this opened his composition to criticism. In his 1992/3 article specifically on the Amidah (Statutory, 75 [195]), Fleischer reverses this verdict, and calls Shimon a great rabbi, thus enhancing the status of the original composition. However, given the formulaic use and significance of rabbinic honorifics within the literature, the absence of the honorific here most likely does convey something about social status. 18 Fleischer, Statutory, 20–21 (415–416) explicitly, and implicitly passim in essays 1 and 4. 19 See, for example, the articles in volumes 1 and 2 of Boda et al., eds., Seeking; and Chazon, “Liturgy.” 20 Sarason, “‘Intersections’,” 178–79. 21 Falk, Daily, searches for such continuities. 22 Fleischer, Statutory, 8 (402); 21 (415), n. 46. Noteworthy are the rhetorical similarities between elements found in the Qumran Divrei Hameʼorot and what the Mishnah presents as additional blessings for the public fast day liturgy. These latter conform to rhetorical patterns found elsewhere as well in prayers that appear in Second Temple-era literature; the rabbis subsequently incorporated them into an Amidah-structure. See Levine, “Temple Prayer.” These rhetorical patterns, sequentially invoking biblical instances of God’s saving grace, also figure prominently in early Christian litanies. See Heinemann, Prayer, 108–111; 146–47 and notes 12– 13, 15 there; 150–54.

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the number of segments are similarly vague,23 but our received Tannaitic corpus itself presumes elsewhere that these are berakhot (blessings). In m. Ber. 5:2, Rabbi Aqiva suggests that havdalah (marking the conclusion of the Sabbath) constitutes its own “blessing” in the Saturday night Amidah; 5:3 instructs that one replacing a prayer leader who has erred repeat the “blessing” in which the error occurred; t. Ber. 3:25 explicitly refers to the eighteen “blessings” before going on to detail the apparently independent blessings that should be combined in order to arrive at this number; t. Ta’an. 1:9 also refers to these as “blessings.” As Heinemann points out, various kinds of formulaic language similar to the rabbinic berakhah—some likewise drawing on biblical language—are evident in the Dead Sea Scrolls, suggesting that the concept of structuring liturgy this way was pre-rabbinic.24 At least by the time of the redaction of the Tosefta the “blessing’s” structuring formula apparently began barukh (blessed, praised),25 employed not only for the Amidah but also across the liturgy.26 However, caution is needed. Texts about and containing liturgy are particularly likely to have been “corrected” to a familiar form at any point in their transmission. Therefore, there is some possibility that the segments of Rabban Gamliel’s eighteen-part prayer were not yet demarcated by formulaic “blessings” in the later technical sense, but simply participated in an emerging concept of acknowledging God in verbal prayers that combined segments into a larger composition.27 It is difficult to divorce discussion of the prayer of eighteen in m. Ber. 4:3 from t. Ber. 3:10–13 and its discussions of how many segments the prayer must have on days that overlap with additional observances. Based on attributions, the earliest of these discussions is in 3:13 (= t. Rosh Hash. 2:17), where the first-

|| 23 Compare t. Ber. 3: 10–13, t. Rosh Hash. 2:17. 24 Heinemann, Prayer, 39–43. Heinemann suggests here that some of the forms sidelined in rabbinic liturgy may have become more important to Christians. If that is correct, this might have been an element in Jewish and Christian self-definition and self-differentiation, as suggested particularly in the work of Israel Yuval (see, for instance, his Two Nations). This requires further study. 25 t. Ber. 1:5 adds that whether or not to open a liturgical segment with barukh is nonnegotiable. 1:9 then discusses which blessings begin with the word barukh. This is a more reliable witness than liturgical texts themselves. 26 m. Pesah. 10:6, also ascribed to Aqiva; the short form of the Amidah for a time of danger in m. Ber. 4:4b and t. Ber. 3:7, citing Rabbis Eliezer, Yose, and Eleazar ben Tzadoq; 3:13, citing Rabbi. See also m. Ber. 6–9 and t. Ber. 4–6 for lists of examples. 27 For such a scenario as a precursor of the Amidah, see Reif, Judaism, 60, 66.

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century schools of Shammai and Hillel dispute over how to integrate recognition of the Sabbath into the nine-segment Rosh Hashanah or seven-segment festival prayers. The School of Shammai calls for inserting an additional independent segment, while the School of Hillel calls for integrating the Sabbath language into the existing structure. While it is difficult to date these schools, most presume them to have been active in the last decades preceding the revolt against Rome, i.e., earlier than Rabban Gamliel. This text thus suggests the existence of a pre-Yavnean Amidah, at least for Sabbaths and festivals.28 Fleischer acknowledges that this tradition points to the possibility that the sages themselves had taken steps towards the formation of prayer structures and texts even before the destruction of the Temple. However, he rejects its significance, writing, “But this evidence changes nothing from what has been clearly concluded …, that the Amidah, as formal communal worship of God and an absolute obligation on the individual, did not exist in any manner while the Temple stood.”29 In this, he drives a wedge between the Mishnah’s and the Tosefta’s traditions. The Toseftan tradition under discussion here contradicts his general emphasis on the formulation of the Amidah at Yavneh as a new

|| 28 In this context, it is worth noting that there are thirty instances in Tannaitic literature (one in the Mishnah, Eruv. 1:2; twenty-eight in the Tosefta: Ber. 5:30; Shev. 2:6; Ma’as. 1:5, 3:10; Ma’as. Sh. 2:16, 2:18; Shabb. 15:9; Pesah. 7:2; Betzah 3:10 (twice); Hag. 1:4; Naz. 2:10, 3:1; Git. 6:8; Ed. 2:4; Kelim Baba Metziʻa 1:2, 4:16, 5:1; Kelim Baba Batra 1:12, 4:9, 5:8; Tehar. 8:10, 10:10; Makhsh. 1:2; Zavim 1:4, 1:5, 1:7, 1:8; and one in Sifra, Tazriʻa, Pereq 1:6), in which Tannaim revise the terms of a Houses’ dispute, generally asserting that the Houses did not disagree about what is initially identified as a Hillelite opinion, but rather about some refinement of that opinion, which often is then mooted among either Yavnean or Ushan sages themselves. t. Ber. 3:13 = Rosh Hash. 2:17 is not one of those traditions, but a related topic is still mooted, within the Hillelite position, among Ushans (Aqiva and Yoḥanan b. Nuri) at m. Rosh Hash. 5:4 and t. Rosh Hash. 2:11; see below. So, too, the larger issue of integrating the liturgical themes and blessings of one occasion into those of another is a common trope in Tannaitic traditions. The fact that the Houses’ dispute here deals with the special prayers of Rosh Hashanah and the Sabbath, rather than with the daily Eighteen Benedictions, leads many scholars (Fleischer among them) to surmise that some kind of benedictions or series of benedictions for Sabbath and the festivals may have predated both the destruction of the Temple and the institution of the daily Eighteen Benedictions. This is a plausible surmise, though this Toseftan text does not constitute evidence that the particular developed liturgical structure in question was in use beyond rabbinic circles. But it is also possible that a basic Tannaitic dispute is here being retrojected onto the pre-70 Houses (and that the Houses-dispute form is being used as a mnemonic convention). There is no way to achieve certainty here. On the larger question of the reliability of attributions in Houses’ disputes, see Gilat, “Disputes,” Weiss, “Authenticity,” and Neusner, “Why We Cannot Assume.” 29 Fleischer, Statutory, 31 (425).

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entity. According to his logic, it is the universal nature of this new obligation that makes the formulation of a fixed text absolutely necessary. However, it is difficult to see any difference in obligation grounded in these texts. Where the Mishnah records Rabban Gamliel as saying, “Every day a person prays eighteen,” the Toseftan texts say, “On [X occasion] one prays [Y number].” The sentence structures are the same: both designate the time parameter and use the same participial verb (mitpallel); the Mishnah specifies the subject of the verb but in very general terms while the Tosefta presumes what is probably this same subject. Rabban Gamliel’s language of “a person” also does not necessarily generalize to “all people,” and even if it does, rabbis often use this term in reference to their ideal person, not a real community. Hence, the language is not descriptive of historical reality.30 Is Fleischer’s differentiation between these two, reading the Mishnah as a decree and the Tosefta as a description, legitimate? It seems hard to support. Rabban Gamliel’s words read descriptively could also refer to an earlier situation among the rabbis. The pre-destruction Rabbi Ḥanina ben Dosa continues “praying” without changing his location while a poisonous lizard bites him.31 Based on their placement of this tradition, the editors of the Tosefta obviously presumed that “praying” refers to the Amidah. t. Rosh Hash. 2:17 concludes by invoking the precedent of the seven-segment Sabbath and festival prayer led by one Ḥoni Haqaton, also of the pre-destruction era. One of the key questions, then, remains about when and how this emerging liturgical system spread beyond rabbinic circles. Fleischer’s argument, that this happened by Rabban Gamliel’s fiat at Yavneh, depends too much on logical presumptions while it is based on shaky historical foundations. Careful examination of the actual evidence for the Amidah in the second century (and later) is then necessary. We continue to see discussions about the structure of the Amidah attributed to second-century rabbis. The Hillelite position about combining themes into single benedictions became dominant, but there was no agreement yet as to how. m. Rosh Hash. 4:5 presents a debate between the early second-century Rabbis Yoḥanan ben Nuri and Aqiva over || 30 Adam (person) appears 458 times in the Mishnah and 666 in the Tosefta; 46 and 69 of these instances, i.e., about ten percent of them, modified by kol (all). Fleischer accepts the rabbinic self-description that portrays themselves as in control of Jewish society, but it is unlikely that their influence in this period spread beyond their immediate and rather small circles. See the literature cited in note 6, above. 31 t. Ber. 3:20b, and Lieberman, Tosefta Ki-Fshuṭah, 1:46. t. Ber. ch. 3 collects texts about the Amidah, and this particular tradition is juxtaposed with instructions that one should indeed move during this prayer without interrupting it if one’s location has become dangerous.

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how to combine the seven festival and the three Rosh Hashanah berakhot (named as such) to achieve the nine needed on Rosh Hashanah. Importantly, t. Rosh Hash. 2:11 records that both methods are acceptable prayer. Consequently, even when the rabbis gathered in Usha under Rabban Gamliel’s son and successor, Rabban Shimon ben Gamliel, someone32 leading the prayers presumed that Rabbi Yoḥanan ben Nuri’s method was acceptable. The Tosefta says nothing about his prayer being deemed so incorrect that it needed to be repeated. However, it records that Rabban Shimon ben Gamliel grumbled, “We were not accustomed to doing it this way at Yavneh.” The second day another rabbi followed Aqiva’s opinion and Yavnean custom, to the patriarch’s approval. Thus, these rabbis had a specific preferred custom for structuring this prayer, but legitimized other possibilities. As a consequence, both customs persisted, one in Judea and the other in the Galilee, as we learn from y. Rosh Hash. 4:6, 59c.

3 Fixed or flexible prayer language? According to t. Ber. 1:6, insertions of this type are among the permitted elongations of the prayers. This unattributed text elaborates on m. Ber. 1:4, which teaches first about the number of blessings surrounding the Shema and then mentions that in the evening, the two concluding blessings are “one long and one short.” The Mishnah then generalizes, “Where they said to elongate (leha’arikh), it is forbidden to abbreviate (leqatzer), and where they said to abbreviate, one may not elongate.” The Mishnah does not explain what it means by “long/elongate” or “short/abbreviate.” Later generations have been left to debate whether these terms refer to the actual length and consequently, perhaps, to specific wording, or, alternatively, to the structure.33

|| 32 Lieberman’s text reads Rabbi Yoḥanan ben Baroqa, but a more likely reading is that of y. Rosh Hash. 4:6, 59c, which attributes this to his son, Rabbi Yishmael. The father was a contemporary of the rabbis in the Mishnah’s dispute. See Lieberman, Tosefta Ki-Fshuṭah, 5:1052–53 on the many variants to this passage. 33 Later generations tried valiantly to reconstruct the Tannaitic sense of this teaching, putting forth often contradictory interpretations. See Langer, To Worship, 138–47, 159–66. If read without the preconceptions of the medieval halakhic literature, t. Ber. 1:6 makes it fairly clear, through examples, that the issue here is actual length and not structure. But this does not mean, as Fleischer concludes, that the wordings of these blessings of necessity were already fully fixed at this time. The term “short prayer” arises in the discussion of how to pray in situations of danger (m. Ber. 4:4b, t. Ber. 3:7); here it is definitely descriptive of length. However, as these texts and the talmudic commentaries on them make clear, there is no agreement as to the

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The Tosefta tries to clarify the phrase “where they said” in the Mishnah by listing certain specific categories of prayers that may be shortened or lengthened, none of them blessings for the Shema (the apparent context of this Mishnah) and not all of them blessings that later generations understood as (structurally) short or long. Those blessings that the Tosefta says may be lengthened are all expanded versions of the Amidah—for public fast days, Rosh Hashanah, and Yom Kippur, i.e., fraught days when it is particularly urgent that God accept prayers, and on which one might naturally desire to lengthen one’s prayers. These are also occasions on which the rabbis mandated specific thematically appropriate elongations of the liturgy through inserts or additional blessings in the Amidah.34 However, lengthening and shortening may also refer to actual flexibility in the text, as this Tosefta passage lists the blessings of the grace after meals among those that must be kept short. The Tosefta text discussed above recording the pre-Yavnean debate about combining themes also invokes the shortening of prayers. The School of Shammai suggests that Ḥoni Haqaton led a seven-segment prayer on a festival that fell on the Sabbath, not as a precedent for normal behavior on such a day, but because this was a unique occasion when abbreviating prayers was necessary. Thus, this flexibility was not just verbal, but also structural.35

|| precise content of this “short prayer.” Also relevant here is Mek. Vayasa 1 (ed. Horovitz and Rabin, 155; ed. Lauterbach 2:91–92) and its parallel at Mek. deRashbi, Beshalaḥ 16:25 (ed. Epstein and Melamed, 103), according to which the disciples of R. Eliezer mocked prayer leaders who either lengthened or abbreviated their prayers to a conspicuous extent; see below. Here we need only point out that the contested issue of drawing out or shortening a prayer need not imply a fixed text, only a conspicuous deviation from a social norm. Fleischer construes the need for “abbreviation” in m. Ber. 3:5 (a person remembering while praying that he is unclean on account of a seminal emission should abbreviate his prayer) and t. Ber. 3:5 (Aqiva prayed at length in private but abbreviated his prayer in public) as praying more rapidly rather than abbreviating the wording. But here, too, this interpretation is not unambiguously demanded by the text itself, which can also support the meaning of praying with fewer words. 34 Lieberman, Tosefta Zera’im, 3, n. to line 32, cites Sefer Hapardes that the last refers to the integration of the confessional prayers into the Amidah. This may well be a retrojection of later practice. The first two are the well-attested prayers of twenty-four (m. Ta’an. 2) and nine blessings (m. Rosh Hash. 4:5–6). However, t. Kip. 4:14 does debate about how to include the confession in the Amidah. 35 t. Rosh Hash. 2:17 end. Compare the meʻein shemoneh esreh that summarizes the intermediate blessings, as advocated by Rabbis Yehoshua and Aqiva for those who cannot pray the full Amidah (m. Ber. 4:3). The Talmuds discuss actual texts and methods of abbreviation in the names of early Amoraim (y. Ber. 4:3, 7d–8a; b. Ber. 29a). On the other hand, t. Ber. 1:9’s formal delineation of those blessings that do not (i.e., must not) begin with barukh—the blessing immediately preceding shema and any blessing immediately following another blessing, as

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This Toseftan commentary on m. Ber. 1:4 challenges Fleischer’s claims of an originally fixed wording of prayers (but he never mentions this text in his liturgical discussions). He argues strongly that the Mishnah’s prohibition on changing the length of prayers derives from its dictum that the blessings that follow the Shema in the evening be one long and one short. According to him, this insistence on precise length must logically point to fixed language. In addition, he posits, in the case of the Shema, that this is descriptive of a possibly widespread reality that predated the destruction of the Temple. He says that “if such be the case, we must of necessity assume that the Mishnah reproduces precisely, in pristine original language, what the Tannaim knew about this topic on the basis of (obligatory) traditions from Temple times.” Fleischer’s claim that many have misread this Mishnah does no more than imply that this includes their misreading the associated Toseftan traditions as well.36 However, the Toseftan discussion of short and long blessings continues, “From a person’s berakhot (i.e., from the manner in which a person recites—or formulates—his berakhot), we may discern if he is a boor or a sage.” There are various possible understandings of this statement, but all suggest that different social groups, notably rabbis and non-rabbis, prayed in different manners. Whether this difference was a matter of flexibility in language or manner of recitation is not obvious.37 Based on this lack of precision, Joseph Heinemann argues that the language that one chooses to employ for one’s prayers, even within the basic rabbinic structure, was quite free, but it would inevitably be a marker of one’s social status and degree of learning.38 The question that needs further exploration is whether an intermediate position between those of Fleischer and Heinemann better fits with the evidence. Was there an accepted structure and at least elements of expected language of prayer among the sages,

|| part of a series—looks to be a formal generalization of a rhetorical style already in practice and suggests the existence of at least partially formulated texts or textual models, or perhaps an established structure or latticework into which actual prayer language must fit. 36 Fleischer, Statutory, 767–68 (272–73), in an essay published posthumously in 2008 (our translation). None of his liturgical articles invoke this Tosefta passage; indeed, he generally turns to the Tosefta very little. 37 Cf. Fleischer, Statutory, 35 (429), n. 78. 38 Heinemann, Prayer, 47, 52. This basic conclusion would still hold even if the language were not as fluid as Heinemann imagines, but not as fixed as Fleischer maintains. See Sarason, “Communal,” 170, n. 69. The Tosefta’s statement also can be read as indicating that the rabbinic sages as a group were discernable through the particular style, rhetoric, and formal characteristics of their blessings. Fleischer’s interpretation, Statutory, 35 (429), n. 78, is not inconsistent with this understanding, but he rejects any mandate to improvise in prayer.

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even as there was a rabbinic sense that the non-sages, the “boors,” could employ different verbiage and/or mannerisms and still worship God adequately (at least after the fact)? This flexibility for non-rabbis extended even to the elements of the berakhah formula itself. t. Ber. 6:20 teaches that, while the sage will call upon God in this formulaic part of the opening and closing blessings by God’s personal name (abbreviated here yod ‒ heh) others’ use of alternative forms of invocation—using variously yod ‒ heh and elohim (abbreviated aleph – lamed)—is tolerated, although frowned upon as either boorish or middling. Only the consistent use of elohim, in both the opening and closing benedictory formulas, is forbidden as heretical (=following “another way”), even though the person who invokes God in this way may otherwise be following the rabbinic pattern of prayer.39 While at some level, this is a typical rabbinic Venn diagram of social possibilities it also marks the rabbis as an elite, a small sector of society distinguished by their unique customs for how to pray properly. t. Ber. 4:4–5 reinforces this observation, suggesting that a non-rabbinic formulation of a blessing over a particular food was a matter of dispute between the permissive Rabbi Meir and the stricter Rabbi Yose. While the former taught that a correct sentiment voiced through an unofficial formulation serves as a valid berakhah, the latter asserted that those who deviate from the rabbinically established formulation fail to fulfill their obligations.40 Indeed, the earliest Amoraim were still fighting this battle. Rav’s assertion that “any blessing that does not mention God’s name is not a liturgical blessing” suggests, by opposition, that some people indeed maintained other practices.41 Similarly, the Yerushalmi records his requirement that this formula mention God’s sovereignty and address God in the second person. That Shmuel, his contemporary, contested this second requirement also implies that this norm was still emerging

|| 39 Lieberman, Tosefta Ki-Fshuṭah, 1:122, suggests that this refers to the Qumran community, among whose liturgical texts such a name for God appears. This seems overly deterministic and also would date this tradition several centuries before the Tosefta. The “other way” referred to here is more likely (Jewish) Gnostic, by whom elohim could have been construed as a plural referring to “two powers;” cf., for example, Gen. Rab. 8:9. 40 Compare also b. Ber. 40b, which transmits the alternative blessing in folksy Aramaic; y. Ber. 6:2, 10b concludes its version of this discussion by stating that the halakhah follows Rabbi Meir. t. Ber. 4 provides many food blessings that did not become standard rabbinic practice. 41 b. Ber. 40b. Other elements of what would become the standard formula of the berakhah are also attributed to third-century sages: the requirement to mention God’s sovereignty and the second-person address to God.

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well into the third century.42 Taken all together, these traditions suggest the real possibility that rabbinic prayer was an evolving worship system the acceptance of which among all Jews in the land of Israel was more a rabbinic aspiration than a contemporary reality well beyond the Tannaitic period. Another segment of m. Ber. 4:3 points us in a similar direction. Rabbi Aqiva, who nuances Rabban Gamliel’s requirement, indicates that only the person for whom this prayer “flows in his mouth”43 need pray eighteen; otherwise that person may abbreviate. Related to this are other traditions clustered in his name and anonymously in t. Ber. 3 before the Tosefta moves on to the next subject in the Mishnah. t. Ber. 3:3 teaches that this experience of prayer flowing in one’s mouth is a good omen; its absence is a bad omen. Presumably, then, it is critical that one pray in such a way as to maximize the chances of fluent prayer, which would include not being faced with too difficult a task. And t. Ber. 3:5 is probably related. Rabbi Yehudah recounts that when Rabbi Aqiva would pray in public (probably meaning that he led the prayers) he would shorten his prayer; but when he prayed alone, his (ecstatic) bowing and prostrations would cause him to begin in one corner of the room and end up in the other. The contrast between the two parts of this tradition suggests that perhaps he also elongated the verbal content of this private prayer; at the very least, Rabbi Aqiva allowed his prayers to be driven by a deeper kavvanah (intentionality/attention, required by t. Ber. 3:4b) when not sharing a prayer space with others who might be reciting an abbreviated prayer.44 At the same time, the Tosefta limits this prolongation of prayer. Continuously praying is not permitted; there must be three separate services containing praise and petition (t. Ber. 3:6). The continuation of m. Ber. 4:4a also points to flexibility in prayer. Rabbi Eliezer, of the same generation as Rabban Gamliel, teaches that when one’s prayer is fixed, that prayer fails to be true supplication.45 Consistent with this, the Mekhilta records a pair of very telling vignettes:

|| 42 y. Ber. 9:1, 12d. 43 MS Kaufmann A 50 (http://kaufmann.mtak.hu/en/ms50/ms50-003r.htm) and most other MSS of the Mishnah read “shagrah” as does the Erfurt MS of the Tosefta, a past-tense verb instead of a passive participle. See Krupp, Berachot and Lieberman, Tosefta Zera’im. Jastrow, Dictionary, 1522, suggests this is merely a variant for the printed edition’s “shegurah,” but see at length Naeh, “Creates,” 186–91, who demonstrates that shagrah is the correct reading; the verbal form is an active perfect tense: “flowed.” 44 Fleischer, Statutory, 35 n. 78, argues that this refers to hurrying or prolonging the fixed text. 45 Compare m. Avot. 2:13 attributed to Rabbi Shimon (two generations later). To be sure, the specific nature of the “fixity” objected to in both of these dicta is unclear from the text itself— whether it refers to the wording of the prayers or to the manner of their performance.

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It happened that a certain student passed [before the ark to lead the Amidah] before Rabbi Eliezer and abbreviated his blessings. Other students said to [Rabbi Eliezer], “Rabbi, did you see X who abbreviated his blessings?” They mocked him and said about him, “This sage abbreviates his prayers.” [Rabbi Eliezer] responded, “No one abbreviated more than Moses our teacher, as it says: Please God, please heal her (Num 12:13). Again it happened that a certain student passed [before the ark to lead the Amidah] before Rabbi Eliezer and elongated his blessings. Other students said to [Rabbi Eliezer], “Rabbi, did you see X who elongated his blessings?” They said about him, “This sage is an elongater!” [Rabbi Eliezer] responded, “He did not elongate more than Moses our teacher, as it says: I fell before God forty days, etc. (Deut 9:25), for he said, “There is a time to abbreviate and a time to elongate.”46

Interpreting this passage correctly is important to any argument about Fleischer’s theory. Fleischer presents Rabbi Eliezer as the outlier who consistently objected to Rabban Gamliel’s new system of prayer with a fixed wording. That Rabban Gamliel’s system had become the norm, he says, is indicated by the students’ mockery; they expected conformity with it. The two students leading the prayers, in contrast, chose to follow their maverick teacher.47 However, great insight is to be gained by paying attention to these traditions that do not conform to the norms that later editors wanted to impose on their received materials. These vignettes are evidence that at least some— understanding prayer texts to be flexible—did not hesitate to abbreviate or elongate prayers in a public rabbinic context. Not only that, but the objections were to changes in length, not to deviation from fixed wordings (in contrast to similar third-century vignettes where the issue was indeed specific language48). Another cluster of Tannaitic rulings explicitly defines errors in prayer, indicating that, indeed, there were prayer leaders who understood themselves free to compose their own texts or at least to introduce language of which the rabbis did not approve. m. Ber. 5:3 mandates the silencing of a prayer leader who prays with the words, “Your mercies extend to the bird’s nest,” or “We acknowledge you, we acknowledge you.” The parallel at m. Meg. 4:9 makes more explicit that at issue are the heretical49 implications of these formulas—but not that the prayer leader has departed from any fixed wording. The very next phrase in m. Ber. 5:3 requires that a prayer leader who makes a mistake in his prayer be replaced

|| 46 Mek. Vayasa 1 (ed. Horovitz and Rabin 155; ed. Lauterbach 2: 91–92), cited as a baraita in b. Ber. 34a. See also the parallel at Mek. deRashbi, Beshalah 16:25 (ed. Epstein and Melamed, 103). 47 Fleischer, Statutory, 35 (429), and n. 78 there; 77 (197), n. 75. 48 y. Ber. 9:1, 12d; b. Ber. 33b. 49 The issue here again seems to be Gnosticism of some type. However, the label minim or minut is broadly applied to those resisting rabbinic authority. See Langer, Cursing, 59.

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by another. This discussion presumes a fixed structure for the prayers, as the substitute prayer leader begins “from the beginning of the blessing in which he [the first prayer leader] erred.” If these two rulings are to be read together,50 the error seems to be one of general content, and not of precise wording. The next two rulings also reinforce that the Mishnah knows a set structure for the Amidah, but they do not necessarily need to be read as reflecting a fixed wording. m. Ber. 5:4 forbids a prayer leader from responding “Amen” to the priests reciting the priestly benediction lest he (the prayer leader) become confused, i.e., lose his concentration. Similarly, if he is the only priest present, he must not bless the congregation unless he is confident that he can resume his prayer afterward. While these rulings might point to fixed, memorized prayer language, is not the question of confusion even more acute if the prayer leader bears some responsibility for the choice of specific language? However, transmitted opinions about changing the length of the Amidah or the possibility of erring in it suggest that something concrete did exist. The fixing of the number of services each day is perhaps early, though Rabban Gamliel only says “every day.”51 Their precise time parameters, though, were still under dispute in the mid- to late-second century.52 The Tannaitic texts preserve a sense that the structure of the Amidah’s outline of blessings was early. As discussed above, the Houses dispute at t. Ber. 3:13 (= t. Rosh Hash. 2:17) allows for the possibility that the number of blessings, at least for Sabbaths and festivals, was set before the destruction of the Temple. Various references in passing suggest that at least the order of the blessings and seasonal inserts into them were not only Tannaitic but—based on attributions—also Yavnean. The date when one should begin including the request for rain is attributed to Rabban Gamliel.53 Dispute nonetheless persisted about some of the details among his younger colleagues. m. Ber. 5:2 records that Rabbis Aqiva and Eliezer both inserted havdalah (the blessing for the end of the Sabbath), but at different points, into the Saturday evening Amidah. This same generation debates the date on which the mention of rain in the second blessing is to begin.54 We discussed above the debate between Rabbis Yoḥanan ben Nuri and Aqiva over how to integrate the additional Rosh Hashanah blessings into the Amidah.55 This Mishnah pericope || 50 They may be independent in origin, as m. Meg. 4:9 contains a longer listing of erroneous texts but no discussion of how to repair the error. 51 m. Ber. 4:3. 52 m. Ber. 4:1, t. Ber. 3:1–2. 53 m. Ta’an. 1:3, in dispute with another, anonymous, opinion there. 54 m. Ta’an. 1:1. 55 m. Rosh Hash. 4:5.

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lists by name all seven blessings of the festival liturgy, and all these discussions imply that this structure was generally agreed upon. Not only that, but the ordered recitation of the prayer matters; its component blessings may not be recited in reverse order. Moreover, those who arrive late to the public recitation must recite the entirety of the Amidah from the beginning; they may not simply complete on their own the parts that they have missed.56 This order, though, did not immediately extend to the relationship of the Amidah with other liturgical elements. This same tradition speaks of the Shema, the Amidah, the recitation of Hallel, and the reading of the Megillah as completely independent units, the internal order of which matters, but not their relative relationship to one another as components of a larger liturgy. The requirement that one begin the Amidah only in an appropriate state of mind makes no mention of its being preceded by other liturgical complexes, but conveys the impression that the community about to recite it has just been studying or chatting together (or that the individual about to recite it has just been engaging in other, non-prayerful activities).57 However, elements of the Tosefta suggest some evolution towards the more complex liturgy. t. Ber. 3:19 still allows for the rearranging of the various units when necessary to facilitate travel, presuming a normal order. But t. Ber. 1:2 teaches that the proper time to recite the Shema in the morning is when it may be juxtaposed with the Amidah, recited at its first permissible (and somewhat later) moment. t. Ber. 3:6 directs that “words,” i.e., private prayers, must follow the Amidah and not intervene between it and emet veyatziv. Tannaitic literature also contains scattered evidence for some fixed language in the Amidah. Its first blessing, instead of calling God “Sovereign of the universe,” invokes God’s relationship to the patriarchs as “God of our fathers, God of Abraham, God of Isaac, and God of Jacob.” The Mekhilta justifies this unusual berakhah formulation on the basis of Exod 3:15, The Eternal, the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, has sent me to you.58 As the midrash depends on this biblical language, its witness is reliable.59 m. Ta’an. 1:1 cites the precise formula for mentioning God’s power to

|| 56 t. Ber. 2:3–4; t. Meg. 2:1–3. 57 m. Ber. 5:1, t. Ber. 3:21. It is unlikely that these texts apply only to the afternoon service which, in Tannaitic texts, has no prefatory liturgy. 58 Mek. Pisḥa, 16 (ed. Horovitz and Rabin, 60; ed. Lauterbach, 1:136). 59 Parenthetically, the same reliance on biblical language and idioms to further formulate Amidah and Shema blessings is noteworthy later in Amoraic literature as well. Cf., for example, b. Ber. 11b, regarding the incipits of the blessings before the Shema in the morning, and y. Ber.

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bring rain, which is to be inserted into the second blessing of the Amidah during the rainy season.60

4 The Shema and its blessings in Tannaitic witness To this point, our discussion has focused primarily on the Amidah, but, as we have noted in passing, many of the same issues are relevant to the Shema and its blessings. While the custom of reciting the first biblical paragraph (Deut 6:4– 9) may go back to the late Second Commonwealth period, it is not at all clear that the surrounding, specifically rabbinic benedictions do. The strongest (but not inherently probative) evidence for a pre-70 custom of scriptural recitation is Josephus, Ant. 4:212–13, who paraphrases Deut 6:4–9 as exhorting the Israelites twice a day to ”bear witness to God of the gifts that He granted them when they were delivered from the land of the Egyptians.”61 Here the mention of the deliverance from Egypt might or might not allude to the end of the third paragraph of the Shema, Num 15:37–41. The evidence from Qumran in 1QS 10:10 is ambiguous at best.62 Only the presence at Qumran of tefillin and mezuzot, i.e., literal ritualizations of Deut 6 and Deut 11, makes plausible the practice of a scriptural recitation. Our only rabbinic evidence is in m. Tam. 5:1, which describes the recitation of the Shema in the morning by the priests in the Temple; but this might well be an imaginative retrojection of post-70 rabbinic practice. m. Tam. 5:1 also mentions blessings surrounding the Shema, but not ones that perfectly fit later known contexts. One unidentified benediction precedes the recitation of the Ten Commandments and the three biblical paragraphs of the Shema. The text continues: “They [the priests] blessed the people with three blessings: ‘True and firm’ (emet veyatziv), [for] the Temple service, and the Priestly Benediction (Num 6:24–26), and on the Sabbath they added a blessing

|| 7:3, 11c = y. Meg. 3:7, 74c, and b. Meg. 25a, regarding haʼel hagadol hagibor vehanoraʼ, the phrase in the Avot benediction that follows directly upon the incipit. 60 Krupp, Taanit, shows no variants for this phrase. That it is discussed in y. Ta’an. 1:1, 63d and b. Ta’an. 3b makes it less likely that it is a gloss. One might also point to the language of m. Ta’an. ch. 2 for the additional blessings on public fast days, but because these ceased to be observed, the texts provided are hard to evaluate. 61 Translation by Louis H. Feldman, in ed. Mason, Flavius Josephus, 3:406–7. 62 See the brief discussion in Sarason, “Communal,” 158–59, and the literature cited there in nn. 24 and 26.

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for the departing watch.” Elsewhere in Mishnah and Tosefta, emet veyatziv is the blessing that immediately follows the recitation of the Shema (see below); in known versions it functions as an affirmation of the scriptural text just recited, i.e., its statements about God, theodicy, and divine redemption, and, for that reason, it follows immediately upon the scriptural recitation. It is therefore curious that m. Tam. 5:1 places it in a series of three blessings recited for the people (although not recited directly in their presence).63 Scholars generally assume that the Mishnah understood the unidentified blessing preceding the scriptural recitation functionally as some kind of Torah benediction, introducing the proclamation of scriptural text.64 Within the context of the daily rabbinic recitation of the Shema, m. Ber. 1:4 mentions the surrounding benedictions only with respect to their number and (in the case of the two blessings that follow the scriptural paragraphs in the evening) relative length, but not with respect to their content or formulation.65 Indeed, Tannaitic literature does not mention the content or wording of any of these benedictions, except to say that the “long” benediction that immediately follows the scriptural recitation is referred to by its opening words, emet veyatziv.66 The fact that Tannaitic tradition in this instance provides an incipit suggests that the wording of this blessing has been fixed in some measure (or minimally, is more fixed than fluid). But t. Ber. 2:1 indicates that this blessing has been subjected to thematic expansion by the Tannaim—and this thematic expansion or complexification may be the reason why the blessing is referred to as “long” at m. Ber. 1:4. This Tosefta tradition provides crucial evidence for some degree of fluidity in the formulation of a rabbinic liturgical blessing. It teaches: The one who recites the Shema must mention the exodus from Egypt in emet veyatziv. Rabbi says: One must mention in it [God’s] sovereignty.

|| 63 Perhaps this series of blessings was understood by the framers of this tradition as formally analogous to the series of blessings attributed to the High Priest on the Day of Atonement (m. Yoma 7:1) and to the rabbinic series of blessings recited after reading the Haftarah. See Heinemann, Prayer, 130. 64 See, for example, Heinemann, Prayer, 129–30. 65 Cf. also m. Ber. 2:2 and t. Ber. 2:9. 66 m. Ber. 2:2, m. Tamid 5:1, t. Ber. 2:1 and 3:6.

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Others say: One must mention in it the smiting of the [Egyptian] firstborn and the splitting of the Reed Sea.67

An innocent reading of this text, without preconceptions, suggests that the several statements here simply mandate topics, “bullet-points” as it were, which must be included in the benediction. As with several Tannaitic texts examined above, in order for this text to make any sense, it must reflect a situation of some fluidity in the formulation of the benediction itself. If the wording were already fixed, there would be no need to mandate the inclusion of particular topics.68 This benediction is “long” because of the topical complexity generated by this mandate, i.e., the content of this and other “long benedictions” must touch upon a variety of “bullet-points.” Thematically, then, this ruling comports with those examined above regarding the Amidah: all of them show a pro|| 67 The tradition is cited verbatim at y. Ber. 1:5, 3d, at the end of which appears the (Amoraic) gloss: “R. Yehoshua b. Levi says: One must include all of them, and one must say [at the end, as the ḥatimah], ‘Rock of Israel and its Redeemer’ (tzur yisraʼel vegoʼalo).” 68 See further Sarason, “Communal,” 168–70, and n. 66 there. Fleischer, Statutory, 782 (287), n. 51, cites this passage without addressing its potential implications for his line of argumentation. Instead, he emends it on the basis of the late version of an Amoraic tradition in Midrash Tehillim 6:1. This expounds Ps. 119:164, Seven a day do I praise You for Your just rules, as referring to the number of units in the daily recitation of the Shema (cf. y. Ber. 1:4 [ed. Krotoshin, 1:8], 3c, which attributes the tradition to R. Yosi b. Abin in the name of R. Yehoshua b. Levi, but does not specify the seven textual units in the Shema). There are, of course, seven textual units in the evening Shema, three scriptural passages and four framing benedictions, but only six in the morning Shema according to the Mishnah’s enumeration of units (m. Ber. 1:4). In order to arrive at the number seven in the morning Shema, the tradition in our received version of Midrash Tehillim distinguishes between emet veyatziv and gaʼal yisraʼel, invoking the Babylonian [!] ḥatimah of the benediction (this, of course, could be a later scribal “correction” to the text). Fleischer, in order to maintain the purportedly early fixed verbal integrity of emet veyatziv, retrojects this later distinction between emet veyatziv and the geʼulah benediction into the Tannaitic stratum, proposing to emend the text of t. Ber. 2:1 by substituting birkat hage’ulah for emet veyatziv (so that it would be birkat hageʼulah rather than emet veyatziv that is the subject of the Tosefta’s ruling here). But the Tannaitic texts themselves never draw such a distinction. Indeed, the term ge’ulah is never used in Tannaitic literature to refer to the blessing following the Shema; it is only referred to as emet veyatziv. Hence there is no basis for Fleischer’s proposed emendation, and t. Ber. 2:1 should therefore be understood as it appears: the topical inclusions are indeed to be made in emet veyatziv. What is certainly true about this blessing in its received form is that it is thematically complex and falls into two parts: the first responding to the liturgical situation by acknowledging the truth of the scriptural passages just recited and their theological content, the second acknowledging the Israelites’ miraculous divine redemption from Egyptian bondage (alluded to briefly at the very end of the third scriptural paragraph) and implicitly anticipating the final redemption of the Jewish people.

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nounced Tannaitic concern for how to integrate multiple topical or occasionrequired units into single benedictions in order to maintain the formal and numerical stability and clarity of larger liturgical structures. Needless to say, all of this requires manipulation of verbal content and suggests the toleration of a certain amount of novelty and fluidity within that domain.

5 Conclusion The totality of the Tannaitic evidence thus suggests that the various aspects of the rabbinic liturgical system were emerging during the Tannaitic period but had not yet fully developed. Within this time-frame, precise wordings of the prayers were still in flux, at least to some extent. Some basic aspects of liturgical structure were established by the time of Yavneh, but decades later refinements to this were still being negotiated. There is also strong evidence that this liturgical system found more adherents among the rabbinic elite. The rabbis were conscious of what non-rabbis were doing and tolerated at least some of it. In general, though, they were silent and surprisingly unconcerned about the religious life of other social strata at the practical as opposed to the theoretical level. Thus, Fleischer’s logical argument that fixed texts were necessary in order to communicate this new liturgical system to the Jewish world is based on a presumption about rabbinic concerns and, more importantly, the extent of rabbinic influence, that Tannaitic evidence does not support.

Appendix The Baraita at b. Berakhot 28b The problems with using this baraita about the formulation of the Amidah as a historical source are several. First of all, it is integral to a discussion that significantly reworks a parallel sugya in the Yerushalmi (y. Ber. 4:3,7d–8b).69 There not only is this baraita absent, but it would undermine the logic of the sugya. Its literary context in the Bavli also raises grave suspicions: within the discourse of the sugya at b. Ber. 28b, it serves as a foundation-narrative justifying the specifi-

|| 69 The Aramaic term sugya refers to the talmudic “essay” constructed around the interpretation of a specific passage of the Mishnah.

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cally Babylonian liturgical custom of reciting nineteen rather than eighteen benedictions in the weekday Amidah. The second part of the baraita, in particular, supports the assertion by the redactors of the sugya that the nineteenth benediction is birkat haminim, the cursing of heretics. A different picture appears when one reconstructs the history of this sugya. The earliest known rabbinic source from which it grows is t. Ber. 3:25, a complicated text in itself. This text begins with a midrashic statement that the eighteen benedictions of the Amidah correspond to the number of occurrences of God’s name in Ps 29. It then apparently explains that one should achieve this number by combining certain pairs of available themes: about heretics and separatists; converts and elders; (the restoration of the royal house of) David and the (re-)building of Jerusalem. However, the text declares that separating these themes into distinct benedictions, while non-normative, is yet acceptable after the fact. In its Tannaitic context, such a discussion was not so unusual. The rulings that immediately precede it, at t. Ber. 3:23–24, also deal with combining blessings, here when one embeds the blessings for mourners into other benedictions.70 In its opening discussion of m. Ber. 4:3, the Yerushalmi (y. Ber. 4:3, 7d–8a = y. Ta’an. 2:2, 65c) includes this same midrashic question and literally plays with various possibilities for the number of blessings in the Amidah, ranging from seventeen to nineteen, but beginning and ending with eighteen. The framework for the sugya develops around various midrashic suggestions for justifying this number. The Talmud rejects several of these suggestions, pointing out that the particular source better supports a prayer of nineteen or seventeen benedictions. The Tosefta’s suggestion of looking to Ps 29 appears among these, now reattributed to the third-generation Amora, Rabbi Levi. To this, the Talmud records Rabbi Huna’s guidance that “if someone were to say to you that there are only seventeen, say to him that the sages already established (qavʻu) that ‘of the

|| 70 Lieberman, Tosefta Ki-Fshuṭah 1:50–53, in a discussion that draws heavily on medieval sources that probably had lost understanding of the original context of these blessings, argues that this refers to the embedding of the blessings for mourners into birkat hamazon, the blessings after meals, and that the Tosefta’s ruling parallels in its concerns that of m. Ber. 5:2, about the embedding of the havdalah blessing into the fourth Amidah benediction, ḥonen hadaʻat, when havdalah is recited as part of the Amidah on Saturday evening. He notes as well that the ruling is redacted at this point in t. Ber. 3 on account of its thematic and verbal affinity with the ruling of t. Ber. 3:25, kolel X b-Y. See also the discussions of other combinations of blessings above, pp. 209–12.

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heretics’ at Yavneh.”71 “Of the heretics” perhaps alludes to the Tosefta’s tradition; this is certainly its language. The Talmud then records that when Rabbi Elazar son of Rabbi Yose raised an objection in the presence of Rabbi Yose, offering an additional instance of a reference to God in Ps 29, Rabbi Yose responded by explicitly citing our baraita from the Tosefta about combining the various blessings. Thus, the Yerushalmi’s sugya does associate the establishment of the birkat haminim with Yavneh, but apparently simply along with the rest of the Amidah's eighteen benedictions (something that remains characteristic of the rite of the land of Israel, as witnessed by the Genizah manuscripts) and without the Babylonian Talmud’s very specific narrative vignette. This sugya then appears in the Babylonian Talmud in reworked form. There it reflects the Babylonian reality, confirmed by Genizah manuscripts, that the Amidah had come to have nineteen benedictions.72 This it explains—and justifies—through its baraita about the formulation of the Amidah in the presence of Rabban Gamliel. There are two possible ways to reconstruct this reworking. In one, the baraita is a legitimate Tannaitic tradition, unknown or at least uncited in rabbinic texts from the land of Israel, that provides background to m. Ber. 4:3. The sugya began with the juxtaposition of the Mishnah and baraita and then contorted the sugya from the Yerushalmi to fit its Babylonian context. Alternatively, the redactors received and reworked the Yerushalmi’s materials to fit their reality and constructed the baraita to support it. The reworking of the Yerushalmi’s sugya is obvious. The Bavli reduces the number of reasons for the number eighteen, and it attributes the two justifications that it retains to different rabbis, most of whom are still rabbis of the third and fourth centuries from the land of Israel.73 Instead of recording objections along the way that the supposed eighteen are really one fewer or one more, the anonymous redactor interjects at the end of the series of justifications, “But these eighteen are really nineteen!” It is at this point that the text cites as an explanation—now in the name of the Eretz Yisraeli Rabbi Levi—the tradition

|| 71 “Seventeen” is the reading of Mss. Leiden and Vatican, as well as ed. Venice and most subsequent printed editions. Mss. Paris and London, and ed. Amsterdam read, “nineteen,” likely a scribal corruption from the Bavli sugya. See Schäfer and Becker, Synopse, I:1–2: 120–21. 72 The Babylonian nineteen benedictions are achieved by splitting in two the single EretzYisraeli benediction for the restoration of Jerusalem and the Davidic monarchy (elohei david boneh yerushalayim, in the Genizah texts). This is permitted by t. Ber. 3:25. 73 In the Yerushalmi, the reference to Ps 29 is attributed to Rabbi Levi and the reference to the eighteen vertebrae in the spinal cord to Rabbi Simon; in the Bavli, these references are attributed, respectively, to Rabbi Hillel the son of Shmuel b. Naḥmani and Rabbi Tanḥum in the name of Rabbi Yehoshua b. Levi.

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that “They enacted (tiqqenu) the birkat haminim at Yavneh.”74 Allusion to, and indeed, any citation of, t. Ber. 3:25 has simply disappeared. The change in the verb from “established” to “enacted” enlarges the halakhic and historical import of what happened at Yavneh and changes the meaning of this statement, from the birkat haminim being an integral part of the eighteen to its being the nineteenth benediction. No rabbi from the land of Israel would have intended such a statement (unless there was flexibility there about which we are not aware). The Bavli next needs to correct the series of justifications that begin the sugya and presents these—again attributed to Rabbi Levi—as teaching what the previously cited rabbis would have said in order to justify the inclusion of a nineteenth benediction. (At least one of the rabbis is minimally a generation younger than Rabbi Levi.) Hence this is a rather clumsy late Babylonian reworking of the land of Israel tradition; it is easy to dissect its layers. Rabbi Levi’s statement about the birkat haminim sets the context for our baraita. The constructed literary connection is very explicit: both statements use the verb t-q-n about the birkat haminim, i.e., not the verb of the tradition from the land of Israel. Before turning to the origins of the birkat haminim, the baraita relates that one Shimon Hapaquli “organized” (hisdir) the eighteen benedictions at Rabban Gamliel’s request. This part of the baraita appears also in b. Meg. 17b in answer to the redactor’s question, “From whence came the Amidah?” There, however, it is juxtaposed with another tradition, ascribed in most versions to Amoraim, that “one hundred twenty elders, and among them several prophets, enacted (tiqqenu) the Eighteen Benedictions in their proper order.”75 The focus of the b. Meg. sugya is the precise order of the prayers; in its long explanation of the ordering of the various blessings that follows, the birkat haminim is just one of the blessings of the Amidah. The Babylonian Talmud’s || 74 In the Yerushalmi parallel, as noted above, Rabbi Levi introduces the tradition that the Eighteen Benedictions correspond to the eighteen mentions of the divine name in Ps. 29. Immediately following this, Rabbi Huna, responding to a possible objection that there are actually seventeen, declares that birkat haminim was instituted by the sages at Yavneh, implying that this is the eighteenth benediction. It is possible that the Bavli version has accidentally mangled the Yerushalmi’s attributions here, on the basis of proximity, but it is equally possible that the Babylonian tradents and redactors have simply gone their own way, as the observation in the previous note would suggest. 75 This tradition is attributed in ed. Venice and subsequent printings to “R. Yoḥanan or a Tannaitic source,” but most manuscripts attribute it to “Rabbi Yirmiah or if you like Rabbi Ḥiyya bar Abba or a Tannaitic source.” See the readings at http://www.liebermaninstitute.com/ (not a publicly available source) or the Hachi Garsinan site of the Friedberg Jewish Manuscript Society (https://bavli.genizah.org). y. Ber. 2:3, 4d attributes this tradition to Rabbi Yirmiah.

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resolution to the chronological conflict between b. Meg.’s two traditions about the origins of the Amidah is typical and ahistorical: during the intervening centuries, the prayer had been forgotten and Shimon Hapaquli had to go back and organize it again (b. Meg. 18a). As these are the only mentions of Shimon Hapaquli in the entirety of received rabbinic literature, it is impossible to evaluate the historicity of the vignette that this baraita presents—or even the import of its verb “organized.”76 However, in b. Ber. 28b, the focus of the sugya is on explaining how the Mishnah’s eighteen have become nineteen. For this purpose, the tradition about Shimon Hapaquli was insufficient and had to be expanded. Therefore, even if there were a received, authentically Tannaitic baraita about the organization of the Amidah at Yavneh, it now required supplementation in order to account for the Babylonian reality. The Yerushalmi’s tradition that the birkat haminim was established at Yavneh conveniently fits this bill. That the next segment of the Bavli’s baraita, which has no parallels at all in received literature, was constructed by the Babylonian tradition to explain the local custom is clear from its use of the same verb “enacted” (t-q-n) in both the Shmuel HaQaton vignette and the statement of Rabbi Levi that introduces the baraita. The second part of the baraita, therefore, is not authentically Tannaitic; it is instead a secondary development of the Yerushalmi tradition. The third part that apparently continues the baraita, the story of Shmuel HaQaton’s subsequent error in the blessing, appears in the Yerushalmi in Aramaic in a clearly Amoraic context, in a discussion of errors by the prayer leader.77 It too cannot be authentically Tannaitic, but instead, may well have served as a source for the Babylonian development of the story of the enactment of the blessing. However, key to the arguments of Fleischer and others about the origins of the Amidah is the first part of the baraita. What we observe is that in both of its appearances, in b. Ber. and b. Meg., the tradition about Shimon Hapaquli is juxtaposed, without rhetorical differentiation, to a second tradition that is Amoraic and mythic. May one still assume, as Fleischer and many other scholars before him have done, that the first tradition of each pair is historically reliable? Both of these foundation-narratives may be equally mythic in their details, since narrative verisimilitude is not a guarantor of historical fact. Such origin-stories in rabbinic tradition by their very genre and nature—and particularly the ones

|| 76 Some of the insights in this paragraph are thanks to the discussion following a lecture that Langer presented at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Department of Hebrew Literature, April 2017. 77 y. Ber. 5:4, 9c.

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appearing in Amoraic texts—cannot be assumed ab initio to be factual historical reports.78 As discussed in our main text, Fleischer’s historical reconstruction of the origins of the Amidah rests on his positing the historical reliability of the baraita at b. Ber. 28b. He then reads t. Ber. 3:25 through its lens to conclude that the Babylonian custom of reciting nineteen benedictions in the Amidah in fact preserves the original eighteen-blessing Amidah composed by Shimon that was then circulated to all Jews, including those in the diaspora. Jews in the land of Israel, who felt strongly about preserving an eighteen-blessing prayer, accommodated the addition of the birkat haminim by combining two benedictions, for David and Jerusalem and then reteaching the liturgy. This was “too difficult a process for diaspora Jews: these assiduously preserved the previous version of the Amidah, and, when the birkat haminim arrived from the Land of Israel, added it to the old version. In this way, the Amidah of diaspora Jews came to have nineteen benedictions.” 79 A simpler, far less tortuous and historically better-grounded explanation is that the birkat haminim was already included among the eighteen benedictions (as per the testimony of t. Ber. 3:25) when rabbinic culture, including its liturgical customs, was brought to Babylonia (in the late second-early third century CE?); there, over time, it took on its own local tincture. Part of that local tincture was the preference of Babylonian rabbis for liturgical-halakhic as well as structural simplicity in prayer: they ruled that the concluding blessing formula (ḥatimah) of liturgical benedictions should be confined to one topic only (b. Ber. 49a) rather than bundling topics together, as does the Eretz-Yisraeli ʼelohei Da-

|| 78 Schremer, 568–69, n. 41, acknowledges the question of the historical reliability of this talmudic tradition ascribing the institution of the Amidah to Rabban Gamliel at Yavneh, but is inclined to accept it in principle on the basis of what seems to follow from a “broad collection of sources,” and refers to the work of Fleischer. Fleischer also grounds his argument that a verbatim text was composed in the continuation of the baraita and its narrative about Shmuel’s forgetting the text (Statutory, 42 [436]). This narrative, too, appears only in the Bavli. 79 Fleischer, Statutory, 42–43 (436–37), and note 101 there. Fleischer probably focuses on this particular pair of themes because of the evidence from the Genizah, i.e., approximately a millennium later, that the rites of the Land of Israel and of Babylonia handled this differently. His argument that evidence from Ben Sira 51 proves the original status of the blessing for the Davidic monarchy has been proven problematic, since this language only appears in a Hebrew addition to the text (Wright, “Wisdom of Ben Sira,” 2348). He also deems the text of t. Ber. 3:25 corrupt and supplies a hypothetical correction that conflates “separatists (perushim, construed by him here positively as “pietists”) – converts – elders” as a joint foil for “heretics.” The reconstructed ruling then would mandate incorporating “heretics,” by way of contrast, into this benediction. This is an extremely tortuous reconstruction and interpretation of the text.

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vid boneh Yerushalayim (God of David [and] builder of Jerusalem); hence, the practice of splitting this benediction into two.80 As for Fleischer’s absolutist reading of the claim at the beginning of the baraita in b. Ber. 28b that the Eighteen Benedictions were instituted authoritatively in one action by Rabban Gamliel at Yavneh in all of their details and precise wording, the thrust of this article is to show that the sum of the Tannaitic evidence instead suggests a more nuanced, back-and-forth process, beginning at Yavneh no doubt (or perhaps even slightly earlier) but continuing at least throughout the Tannaitic period, during which much of the halakhic detail and some of the wordings continued to be worked out. The evidence as a whole suggests neither absolute fixity nor relative freedom, but a degree of variability from the outset that over time would gradually become reduced.

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|| 80 See Langer, To Worship God Properly, 27.

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Clemens Leonhard

The Introduction of the Hallel into the Passover Seder and the Split of the Chapters 114 and 115 in the Book of Psalms Abstract: During the Seder of Pesach, the Jewish celebration of Passover, one is used to sing Pss 113–118, the Hallel, in two parts, namely Pss 113–114 before and Pss 115–118 after the meal. The ancient manuscripts of the Psalms do not show any break between Ps 114 and Ps 115. The split of the text in the liturgy presupposes its original unity. Medieval manuscripts of the Genizah begin to indicate a division between Ps 114 and Ps 115. This split in the transmission of the Psalm as a biblical text reflects the spread of the liturgy of the seder. Keywords: Hallel, Genizah, Psalm 114–115, Pesach, seder

1 Introduction Jewish statutory prayer includes the recitation of the so called Egyptian Hallel (Pss 113–118). The following paper discusses the recitation of the Hallel during the seder of Passover (Pesach).1 In its traditional form, the seder is celebrated in Jewish groups and families, involving the reading (singing and performance) of a ritual text, the haggadah. Celebrants of the seder are used to reciting Pss 113– 114 before and 115–118 after the meal. In this essay, the seder as well as the haggadah of Pesach are regarded as resulting from developments in rabbinic times.2 || This short essay refers to Genizah texts from the Cambridge University Library as its most important data. Thus, it expresses its author’s gratitude to Stefan Reif for his tireless efforts to combine the Genizah research with the study of the history of Jewish liturgies. Even if it hardly extends the huge scope and depth of his work, it indicates that others gratefully walk on paths that he has beaten. || 1 I am grateful to the members of the workshop “Psalms in Rituals from Antiquity to the Present” (October 2018 in Erfurt), and to the Max Weber Kolleg in Erfurt for a fellowship in 2018 that enabled me to discuss questions of this paper especially with Günter Stemberger. 2 Cf. Leonhard, Jewish Pesach, 73–118 and “Pesach and Eucharist”, 287–305. Finkelstein’s (“The Origin”) approach to the history of the Hallel is out of the question for the present context, even though some of his observations are acceptable. Thus, he rules out the possibility of a celebration of Pesach (at least lege artis) outside of Jerusalem until the time of Antiochus (p. 332). If one moves this terminus ad quem towards the destruction of the Temple in 70 CE, it is valid; Leonhard, “Tempelfeste.” https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110630282-015

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Of course, Pesach was a major festival in Second Temple Jerusalem. The silence of Second Temple sources regarding rituals that could be compared with the seder is interpreted as an indication for the non-existence of this ritual in that epoch. Occasionally, scholars quote Matthew 26:30 and Mark 14:26 in order to claim that Jesus and his disciples recited the Hallel as the conclusion of a domestic celebration of Pesach. The description of that group’s behavior (hymnēsantes) is too vague to point to any concrete text.3 However, the idea that Jesus recited “the Hallel” contradicts the earliest sources that discuss its recitation in a domestic celebration at Pesach.4 In terms of the rabbinic seder, the gospels could only point to this group’s reciting the second half of the Hallel at this point in the celebration. On the one hand, modern readers tend to regard Pss 113–118 as a literary and hence a liturgical unit. They learn from centuries of Jewish practice that the Hallel is a literary unit. On the other hand, they want to see a performance of the Hallel during a domestic seder in Jesus’s time. They ignore the fact that this unit is split into two parts at the seder. The splitting point at Ps 114:8 and 115:1 need not be a textually obvious hiatus in the Hallel, because liturgies need not abide by the literary structures of texts. The manuscripts that contain the Hallel Psalms tend to vary in their delimitation of chapters.5 Furthermore, one cannot reconstruct otherwise unknown liturgies from literary texts.6 Nevertheless, liturgical structures may exploit literary features of a text. Conversely, a persistent liturgical use of a literary text may lead to changes in the literary transmission of the text. These observa-

|| 3 Cf. Leonhard, “Pesach and Eucharist,” chapter 2.6, 301–4. 4 Prinsloo (“Tremble,” 320) claims that the remark of the gospels implies the recitation of Ps 114, which is recited before the meal according to Hillel’s opinion in the Tannaitic texts. 5 Koch (“Der Psalter,” 247; cf. Prinsloo, “Unit Delimitation,” 246–47) claims that the extracanonical Ps 151 be a colophon to the whole book. The Septuagint calls the number 151 “outside of the numbering” (Auwers, “La numérotation,” 346). The rabbis know 147 chapters (Prinsloo, “Unit Delimitation,” 246 n. 33; Auwers, “La numérotation,” 362 referring to y. Shabb. 16:1, 15c). The number 147 is justified with the age of the patriarch Jacob, 3×7×7. 6 Initially, Zenger (“Der Gott Israels,” 145) tries to avoid this trap. Eventually, he falls back into genre analyses that (allegedly) point to liturgical performances: Ps 118 “reflects the two parts of a liturgy of thanksgiving,” (p. 159). Zenger takes an obscure idea about an imagined liturgy for granted as an explanation of formal aspects of this chapter of Psalms. He accepts “Psalm 115” as a literary unit. (Hossfeld and) Zenger (Psalms 3, 179) claims: “… the obvious liturgical saturation of the composition suggests that it was put together as a liturgical cantata by temple singers….” Cf. Prinsloo’s critique (“Tremble,” 307–8) of reconstructions of ritual contexts of Ps 114.

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tions raise the following questions: Why was the Hallel split at all? Why was it split at Ps 114:8 and 115:1? When did this custom emerge? What is the relationship between the literary transmission of the texts and the liturgical customs?

2 The Hallel Because of the performance of Jewish liturgies over the course of centuries, exegetes tend to regard Pss 113–118 as a literary unit.7 Its liturgical use also insinuates that it should be a liturgical and hence literary unit. The accepted literary setting shows that this group of verses is not part of its immediate context. Acrostics (Pss 111 and 112 as well as 119) precede and follow the Hallel in the Masoretic editions of the book of Psalms. The contents of Ps 119 do not suggest this text as a continuation of Pss 113–118. Likewise, Ps 112 is not interested in the Exodus from Egypt. Such evidence does not establish Pss 113–118 as a coherent text.8 In addition, both Ps 111 and Ps 112 begin with Allēlouia. In the Greek translation, Ps 119 also belongs to the Allēlouia psalms. The question of whether Allēlouia stands at the beginning or at the end of a psalm or between psalms is up for discussion.9 Thus, the Hebrew hallelujah psalms run from Ps 111 to Ps 118. The putative vorlage of the Greek translation included Ps 119 in this group. Even if the liturgical unit “Hallel” points to a literary unit of Pss 113–118, this does not prove that the literary unit should be related to a ritual performance. Sources of Second Temple times do not assign a liturgical use to the Hallel (Pss 113–118). Did they know Pss 113–118 as a literary unit? Even if Second Temple sources do not point to the Hallel as a liturgical unit, one may nevertheless refer to literary texts of the book of Psalms. The manuscripts of Qumran preserve precious evidence for cases of unit delimitation and the arrangement and sequence of the Psalms in Second Temple times. Thus, the famous Psalms manuscript from cave eleven (11QPsa = 11Q5) seems to point to a collocation of Pss 113–118 despite its fragmentary state of preservation. This would suggest that “the Hallel” could already have been a literary unit before

|| 7 Cf. Hammer, “Hallel.” 8 (Hossfeld and) Zenger (Psalms 3) collect observations in support of the coherence of Pss 113– 118. However, (Hossfeld and) Zenger (Psalms 3, 178) also regards the frame as an indication of the coherence of its contents: “Within the group of Psalms 111–119, the six Psalms 113–118 stand out as a clearly profiled composition.” 9 Cf. Auwers (“La numérotation,” 364 and 367–68) with regard to b. Pesah. 117a.

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the destruction of the temple in Jerusalem. However, Qumran texts occasionally combine Ps 118 with Ps 136. Ps 136 may even precede Ps 118.10 Thus, the literary transmission of Pss 113–118 does not suggest that this group of chapters was a primordial liturgical unit. In Jewish liturgical tradition, it is customary to omit verses of the Hallel (Ps 115:1–11; Ps 116:1–1111) on certain liturgical occasions.12 The custom is normally connected with a passage from the Babylonian Talmud, b. Ta‘an. 28b. The Talmud tells the story of Rav, who visits a congregation on the new moon. Seeing that the congregation performs “a hallel” (or the “hallel”), he wants to stop them. When he notices that they kept omitting certain (undisclosed) verses, he accepts their practice as a “custom from their forbears.” This implies that the deliberate violation of the integrity of this literary unit conveys a liturgical message.13 The ostentatious omission of verses attests to an understanding of Pss 113–118 as a unit of some kind. Only if these verses somehow belong together, can one encode a message in the liturgical practice of omitting parts of them. Nevertheless, the custom preserves the practical knowledge that the unit is flexible. Moreover, the textual transmission of Pss 113–118 points to further predetermined breaking points.14 Thus, Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia mentions

|| 10 Prinsloo, “Unit Delimitation,” 242–43 n. 22. According to Arad (“great hallel,”) 11QPsa (11Q5) is one of the witnesses for Ps 136 as Hallel of the seder night before the destruction of the temple. Arad (“great hallel,” 145 [and 146–57]) assumes that 11QPsa should convey an “ancient liturgy of (the) hallel,” even the “great hallel.” This approach cannot be discussed exhaustively in the present context. The theses of the present paper would be falsified, if Pss 113–114 and 115–118 were regarded as two independent literary texts to be performed in domestic liturgies of Pesach in Second Temple times. 11 Dalia Marx pointed out to me that the Rambam (Rabbi Moshe Ben Maimon) mentions Ps 117:1–118:4 as a third passage to be skipped, adding “This is the easy custom. There are some who omit other verses” (Halakot Megillah Weḥanukkah 3.8). 12 Hayes (“Unity,” 145) points to “the Tannaitic period” as the time of origins of this custom and mentions that Ismar Elbogen “1993” (as the translation of the monumental work of 1931) traces back liturgical usage into Second Temple times. 13 Cf. Hammer (“On the Origin,”) and Zeitlin (“The Hallel,” 28; cf. Zahavy’s, “Sources,” 107 objections) for the partial Hallel. T-S AS 60.84 is problematic, if one interprets the header both on the obverse and on the reverse to refer to the new moon liturgies. Because of this occurrence on both sides of the fragment, it cannot be a page number. One would expect Ps 115:1–12 to be skipped during the recitation of the Hallel in the new moon liturgy (cf. n. 27). 14 Some manuscripts begin a new chapter with verse Ps 115:12. Kennicott (Vetus Testamentum Hebraicum, note to col. 410b) mentions manuscripts 76, 97, 133, 150, 156, and 264 as witnesses for the beginning of a chapter here. In the note to Ps 115:1 (410a), he mentions 19 manuscripts that continue Ps 114 without beginning a chapter here. The two lists do not overlap. That is, none of Kennicott’s textual witnesses presents Ps 115:12–18 as a literary unit. It belongs either

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that “many” (i.e. more than 20) manuscripts begin a new chapter with verse Ps 115:12.15 The Greek tradition reads Allēlouia at the beginning of Ps 116:10. The liturgical as well as the textual traditions pass on ambiguous bits of information with regard to the integrity and internal structure of Pss 113–118. The Tannaim mention verses of Pss 113–118 in relevant contexts. Therefore, it is highly plausible that the rabbis associated Pss 113–118 with the designation “(Egyptian) hallel.”16 Thus, Ps 113:9 and 114:8 (t. Pesah. 10:9 Lieberman 198/m. Pesah. 10:6); Ps 116:1 (t. Pesah. 4:11 Lieberman 164/m. Pesah. 5:6); Ps 118:16 (t. Pesah. 10:7 Lieberman 197) are quoted.17 The Tannaitic traditions record deviant customs of the recitation of the Hallel during the seder.18 The prevailing custom

|| to the preceding or to the following chapter. Except for two (his nos. 76, 156), the manuscripts that begin Ps 115 at verse 12 do not mark a new chapter at Ps 116:1. For instance, Ginsburg’s, Liber Psalmorum, 258 oldest manuscript 9 (“circa 1160–1200”; NLI: 12th/13th cent.) indents Ps 115:1 (British Library add. 9403 fol. 189 obv.) and gives the no. “115” besides Ps 114:1 and “116” above (using the left indent before) Ps 115:12 on fol. 190 rev. (“117” for Ps 116:1 etc.). In Ps 115:11, the liturgical division corresponds to a textual one. Cf. Prinsloo (“Unit Delimitation,” 244–45 and n. 27) for a historical division of Ps 116. 15 Kennicott (Vetus Testamentum Hebraicum note to col. 410b) mentions manuscripts 76, 97, 133, 150, 156, and 264 as witnesses for the beginning of a chapter here. In the note to Ps 115:1 (410a), he mentions 19 manuscripts that continue Ps 114 without beginning a chapter here. The two lists do not overlap. That is, none of Kennicott’s textual witnesses presents Ps 115:12–18 as a literary unit. It belongs either to the preceding or to the following chapter. Except for two (his no. 76, 156), the manuscripts that begin Ps. 115 at verse 12 do not mark a new chapter at Ps 116:1. For instance, Ginsburg’s (Liber Psalmorum, 258) oldest manuscript 9 (“circa 1160–1200”; NLI: 12th/13th cent.) indents Ps 115:1 (British Library add. 9403 fol. 189 obv.) and gives the no. “115” besides Ps 114:1 and “116” above (using the left indent before) Ps 115:12 on fol. 190 rev. (“117” for Ps 116:1 etc.). In Ps 115:11, the liturgical division corresponds to a textual one. Auwers, (“La numérotation,” 368) advises readers to use Kennicott’s data with caution. Cf. Prinsloo, (“Unit Delimitation,” 244–45 and n. 27) for a historical division of Ps 116. T-S A13.46 1 rev. left page FGP C150040 (Davis, Taylor-Schechter Old Series, 35) marks the beginning of Ps 115 centering the first line. It gives the no. “106” to this psalm. The fragment is not part of a haggadah, but of a collection of psalms. 16 Finkelstein’s (“The Origin,” 331) claim that the term refers to Pss 113–114 in b. Ber. 56a is not supported by the context. According to Rashi, the Babylonian Talmud speaks about the “Egyptian” hallel, in order to distinguish it from the “great hallel.” Arad, “The ‘great hallel’,” claims that Pss 135–136 should be identified as “hallel” for the night of the seder in Second Temple times. 17 Cf. Witte (“Psalm 114,” 297) for the observation of the problem that the liturgy divides a text that the manuscripts and modern literary analyses understand as a literary unit. 18 Cf. Millard, Die Komposition, 31 n. 160. T. Pesah. 10:8–9 (Lieberman 197) proscribes the reduction of “the hallel” and the addition of something to it but continues to mention two sages who simplify/explain or double in its text. Any ramifications of their interpretation not-

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(to recite the Hallel until Ps 114:8) follows the Hillelites’ understanding. In m. Pesah. 10:6 (t. Pesah. 10:9 Lieberman 198), the Shammaites rule that “it” (the Hallel) should be recited until Ps 113:9 before the meal.19 T. Pesah. 10:9 (Lieberman 197–98) and m. Pesah. 10:7 remark that the Hallel is continued later in the course of the celebration. The discussion does not imply that Ps 113:9 or 114:8 should be inevitable breaking points.20 These observations show that rabbinic scholars understood Pss 113–118 as a literary and liturgical unit. At the same time, they know traditions which regard the literary unit as flexible. None of the traditions understand this unit to consist of Ps 113–114 and 115–118 as two distinct sections—except for the liturgical norms that govern the performance of the seder.

3 Psalms 114 and 115 Judith Gärtner claims that Ps 114 “is a fragment, without a beginning and without an ending,” although it somehow “shows a cohesive structure.”21 She understands the combination of Ps 114 with Ps 115 as secondary22 and collects hints

|| withstanding, these short remarks point to the rabbis’ awareness of the problems involved in the liturgical use of the literary unit of Ps 113–118. 19 The Tosefta and the old Mishnaic MSS skip hallelujah which is regarded as part of Ps 113:9 in the St. Petersburg Codex. 20 Apple (“Understanding the ‘Split’,” 255–56) claims “narration of the Exodus” as topic of Pss 113–114 and more general “praise” of Pss 115–118. Such categories are vague and applied in different ways by other scholars. 21 Gärtner, “Exodus Psalm 114,” 73–74. (Hossfeld and) Zenger (Psalms 3, 188 [and cf. the following pages there] claims that Ps 114 “represents an artistically developed poetic composition in itself and therefore originated as an independent psalm.” Lubsczyk (“Einheit und heilsgeschichtliche Bedeutung,” 161) remarks that Ps 114 is mostly regarded as preexilic because of its “poetic power,” whereas Ps 115 is considered postexilic because of the Godfearers mentioned there. Lubsczyk argues for the literary unity of Pss 114 and 115. The references to contemporary Psalm exegesis are designed to detach notions of coherence and consistence from the aesthetic judgement of the author of this essay. 22 Gärtner, “Exodus Psalm 114,” 73–74. Aesthetic judgments are elusive: “Scholarship regards Psalm 114 as a perfectly shaped work of art within ancient Hebrew poetry … Nevertheless, this Psalm lacks a proper beginning and ending.” One may wonder how a piece of poetry can be “perfectly shaped” if it does not have a proper beginning and end. Witte (“Psalm 114,” 294–95 and cf. p. 301 about Psalm 115:2–18): “…despite its composite nature … broadly consistent as a piece of literature…” (my paraphrases). Koch (“Der Psalter,” 251–52) divides the so-called fifth book of Psalms into subdivisions. One of these divisions is supposed to end in a “hymnic” part,

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in order to establish Pss 113–11523 as a group. Observations like this are important for answering the question of whether or not the contents of Ps 114 and Ps 115 point to literary structures. To some extent, Ps 115:1–11 is built around a different topic than Ps 114. In the same vein, one may also regard Ps 115:12 as beginning of a new topic. Prinsloo points to the differences of the division of Pss 113–118 into literary units between the Qumran material and the later manuscripts.24 In the ancient texts, Pss 114 and 115 always appear as a single literary unit.25 The Greek and Syriac26 translators and revisers of the Hebrew Bible read Pss 114 and 115 as a single text with Allēlouia in Ps 114:1 and Ps 116:1. Saadia Gaon regards Pss 114 and 115 as a single text.27 Both the St. Petersburg Codex (of 1008/1009 CE; fol.

|| Pss 113–118. Koch does not regard Pss 113–118 as a literary unit. Gärtner (“Exodus Psalm 114,” 79) regards Ps 113 as “hymn-like.” Zenger (“Der Gott Israels,” 157) thinks that Ps 114 is “hymnenartig”; cf. (Hossfeld and) Zenger (Psalm 3, 178) for Pss 113–115 as “hymnic praise.” Prinsloo (“Psalms 114 and 115,” 669–75) summarizes earlier approaches and argues in support of reading Pss 114 and 115 as a textual unit. Troublet (“Approche canonique,” 340 n. 4) lists further studies that point into that direction. In the rest of Troublet’s paper, the “Psalms” are treated as literary units within a network of other Psalms. The idea that Pss 113–118 should represent Pesach, Ps 119 Shavuot and Pss 120–137 Sukkot is an unwarranted claim; e.g. Troublet (“Approche canonique,” 341) and Prinsloo (“Tremble,” 307–8) regarding the purported Passover hymns: “…Gunkel’s hypothesis finds no support in the text.” 23 Cf. (Hossfeld and) Zenger (Psalms 3, 178–79) who thinks that “the hallel” consists of two parts, Pss 113–115 and Pss 116–118. In spite of his reference to the liturgy, he does not mention the fact that the seder liturgy splits the Hallel at Ps 114:8 instead of 116:1. 24 Prinsloo, “Psalms 114 and 115,” 236–39. 25 This is also true for MS Vatican Urbinati 2 (14th cent.; quoted by Prinsloo, “Unit Delimitation;” 239, transcription: appendix 4, 255) and the Qumran fragment Pso (4Q96, PAM 43.030 https://referenceworks.brillonline.com/media/dsselbt/43030C.jpg and Prinsloo, “Unit Delimitation,” 243). Cf. Troublet, “Approche canonique,” 339–340. The transition from Ps 114:8 to Ps 115:1 is not extant in Pso: “In frg. 1 Psalms 114 and 115 most likely form a single Psalm”; Skehan, Ulrich, and Flint, “Psalms,” 139. Zenger’s remark that this question should be controversial is wrong. There is just no ancient witness for a division of Pss 114 and 115. 26 The main manuscript of the Peshitta edition (Jenner and van der Kooij, Liber Psalmorum), 7a1 (Milan, Ambrosian Library MS B. 21 inferiore; seventh or eighth century), introduces Ps 114: “One hundred and fourteenth. Said by David about Moses, when he was uttering praises at the shore of the sea. 52 verses (= syntactic divisions in Psalm 114). When Israel went out of Egypt…,” 229 (cf. http://dukhrana.com/ms/ambrosiano/ for images of the ms.). Psalm 116 is entitled: “One hundred and fifteenth. Said by David when….” 27 Davidson, Assaf, and Joel, Siddur R. Saadja Gaon, 153–54 and n. to l. 25; cf. the manuscript of Saadia’s translation of the Psalms, T-S Ar.28.167 1 rev. FGP C179716 (Baker and Polliack, Arabic and Judaeo-Arabic Manuscripts, 2001) and T-S Ar.1c.1 43 rev. FGP C212783 and fol. 44

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390 rev.) and the Aleppo Codex (of 925 CE) present a single chapter of Ps “114” containing the text of Pss 114 and 115.28 “Liturgical purposes” is a murky but powerful argument in modern discussions.29 Two pivotal intuitions guide this argument. One of them is enlightening. The other one is wrong. It is enlightening to acknowledge a close link between the textual transmission of the Psalms and the history of the liturgies including the seder. It is wrong to assume that this encounter between liturgies and texts should have happened in Second Temple times. Genizah manuscripts are the first witnesses to a split of Pss 114 and 115 into two chapters of a biblical book. Manuscripts of the haggadah of Pesach (whose textual transmission begins towards the end of the first millennium) separate Ps 114 and Ps 115 by definition. These manuscripts are irrelevant for the question of the literary consequences versus prerequisites of the liturgical breaking point at Ps 114:8. Haggadah manuscripts attest to the liturgical division. Thus, this question requires a survey of manuscripts containing Pss 114 and 115 other than haggadot. In such a brief survey of a few dozens of manuscripts mostly from the Cambridge Genizah collections, sixteen follow the Masoretic standard codices and consider Pss 114 and 115 a literary unit, i.e., they regard Pss 114 and 115 as one psalm.30 Roughly the same number of manuscripts

|| rev. FGP C212785. Millard, Die Komposition, 13–14 and n. 50 (cf. Prinsloo, “Unit Delimitation,” 246) refers to 74 Hebrew MSS in which Pss 114 and 115 are not divided into two chapters. 28 Transcriptions: Prinsloo, “Unit Delimitation,” appendix 2–3, 254–55. 29 Cf. Prinsloo, “Unit Delimitation,” 246 especially 234–25 and 247 to the chapter “Jewish Tradition.” Cf. Millard, Die Komposition, 13–14. On 32 n. 154, Millard quotes the Mishnah and the Tosefta in support of this case. 30 Yeivin, “The Division,” esp. 78. T-S A13.48 1 obv. FGP C150051 (Davis, Taylor-Schechter Old Series, 35); Or.1080 A13.6 1 obv. FGP C147743 (Davis, Taylor-Schechter Old Series, 325); T-S NS 40.26 1 obv. FGP C335990 (Davis, Taylor-Schechter New Series, 78); T-S NS 69.1 1 rev. FGP C351047 (Davis, Taylor-Schechter New Series, 174); T-S NS 122.11 1 obv. FGP C354684 (Davis, Taylor-Schechter New Series, 226); T-S A13.49 1 obv. FGP C150053 (Davis, Taylor-Schechter Old Series, 35); T-S Misc.1.67 1 obv. FGP C104222 (Davis, Taylor-Schechter Old Series, 269); T-S NS 161.26 1 obv. FGP C367084 (Davis, Taylor-Schechter New Series, 230); T-S NS 281.67 1 obv. left page last line FGP C398627 (Davis, Taylor-Schechter New Series, 294); Lewis-Gibson (formerly Westminster) Bible VI.70 2 rev. left page FGP C489934 (Davis, Taylor-Schechter New Series, 408); T-S AS 54.12 1 obv. FGP C184473 (Davis and Outhwaite, Taylor-Schechter Additional Series 32–225, 254 no. 3883); T-S AS 50.96 1r FGP C184048 (Davis and Outhwaite, Taylor-Schechter Additional Series 32–225, 201 no. 3099); T-S AS 52.161 1 rev. FGP C184194 (Davis and Outhwaite, Taylor-Schechter Additional Series 32–225, 239 no. 3671); T-S AS 54.77 1 obv. FGP C184929/1 rev. FGP C184928 (Davis and Outhwaite, Taylor-Schechter Additional Series 32–225, 258 no. 3948); T-S AS 8.138 1 rev. FGP C165600 (Davis and Outhwaite, Taylor-Schechter Additional Series 1–31, 95 no. 1522); T-S AS 12.55 1 rev. FGP C137170 (Davis and Outhwaite, Taylor-Schechter Additional

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(twelve in the present sample) indicate some kind of a textual break.31 If the Qumran texts are added to this sample, sources from antiquity and late antiquity understand Pss 114 and 115 as a literary unit. Only much later do scribes (beginning in the epoch of the Genizah) start to restructure the text. A reader of the book of Psalms in antiquity would not regard Ps 114:8 as the natural boundary where Pss 113–118 partitions into two blocks of text. Splitting the text at a point where it would not divide into parts by itself conveys the feeling that one should not actually split it at all. If this is true, why did the Tannaim of the Tosefta and later the designers of the haggadah divide it at all and why did they divide it at this point? A possible answer to this question emerges from a juxtaposition of t. Pesah. 10:12 (Lieberman, 198–99) and 4.11 (Lieberman, 163 [m. Pesah. 5:7]). The rabbis’ study of the laws of the Pesach (offering) is a way to fulfill these laws in the absence of the temple. If the performance of the seder should include, replace, substitute, or depict the performance of the Pesach sacrifice, little can be done except for intellectual activities. One element of the ritual at the Second Temple (as the rabbis pretend to know it) can be taken over par for par. Nothing prevents the rabbis from reciting the Hallel. The Hallel comes into the seder, because the seder is the substitutional performance of the sacrifice, the offering, and the eating of the Pesach animals. Of course, the Levites did not split the Hallel in its performance at the temple of Jerusalem.

|| Series 1–31, 150 no. 2448). Not counted: T-S Misc.1.132 1 obv. FGP C120892 (Davis, TaylorSchechter Old Series, 274); T-S AS 62.167 1 obv. FGP C113756 (Davis and Outhwaite, TaylorSchechter Additional Series 32–225, 404 no. 6170); T-S Misc.20.28 1 obv. FGP C124407 (Davis, Taylor-Schechter Old Series, 301). 31 Lewis-Gibson (formerly Westminster) Bible 6.60 1 obv. FGP C489916 (Davis, TaylorSchechter New Series, 407); T-S AS 42.247 1 rev. FGP C160304 (Davis and Outhwaite, TaylorSchechter Additional Series 32–225, 91 no. 1418); T-S AS 55.210 1 rev. FGP C164278 (Davis and Outhwaite, Taylor-Schechter Additional Series 32–225, 284 no. 4356); T-S AS 57.122 1 obv. FGP C185403, 1 rev. FGP C185402 (Davis and Outhwaite, Taylor-Schechter Additional Series 32–225, 320 no. 4905); T-S AS 60.84 1 obv. FGP C187827 (Davis and Outhwaite, Taylor-Schechter Additional Series 32–225, 383 no. 5809); T-S AS 104.170 1 rev. FGP C199479 (Davis and Outhwaite, Taylor-Schechter Additional Series 32–225, 473 no. 7154); T-S AS 29.114 Fragment 1 obv. FGP C486984 (Davis and Outhwaite, Taylor-Schechter Additional Series 1–31, 421 no. 6864); Or.1080 A13.9 1 obv. FGP C147755 (Davis, Taylor-Schechter Old Series, 325); T-S NS 281.153 1 obv. FGP C398421 (Davis, Taylor-Schechter New Series, 300); T-S NS 150.231 1 rev. left page FGP C359475 (Shivtiel and Niessen, Arabic and Judaeo-Arabic Manuscripts, 1677); JTS 508 (Fragment Ec 22: Prinsloo, “Unit Delimitation;” 240, transcription: appendix 5, 256 = Yeivin, Geniza Bible Fragments, p. 141); JNUL/NLI ms. Heb. 8o 5241 (Yeivin, Geniza Bible Fragments, 256 no. Ec 94).

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As an explanation for this development, it may be assumed that one should split the Hallel, because one should not split it at all. Therefore, one splits it at a point where one would normally not see an obvious and fundamental hinge of two texts. The performance of the Hallel in two parts stages that the seder has (at least) two functions which should actually be represented by simultaneous actions. First, celebrants should represent the fulfilment of the law of the sacrifice (including its consumption) by discussing its rules and by eating some of the prescribed food. Second, they should sing the Hallel as the Levites did while the Israelites slaughtered the animals. The celebrants of the seder thus create a sequence out of two simultaneous activities. The simultaneity is first expressed by splitting the Hallel and second by splitting it at a point in its text where it would not normally be split. This explains the literary evidence and its chronology. Until the end of late antiquity, Pss 114 and 115 are regarded as one single chapter of the book of Psalms. Even the establishment of the seder ritual presupposes that Pss 114 and 115 comprise one chapter. Otherwise, its split could not have the aesthetic effect of pointing out the actual unity of the liturgical Hallel and the simultaneity of its recitation and the other activities of the celebration. With the spread of the seder ritual from rabbinic times onward, scribes and readers became accustomed to regarding Ps 114 and Ps 115 as two separate texts. Eventually, the medieval manuscripts began reflecting this understanding. As a by-product of these observations, Ps 114 and Ps 115 emerge as post-biblical texts with regard to their respective literary end and beginning.

4 Objections The reconstruction advocated here strongly suggests a post-destruction date for the splitting of the Hallel into Pss 113–114 and 115–118.32 The argument presupposes that singing the Hallel migrated from the slaughtering of the animals in the temple to the meal in the banquet room. The destruction of the temple was the occasion for this migration. If the performance of the Hallel at the meal and its split into two parts were a replacement of the temple cult, pilgrims would not have been used to singing the Hallel during their meals. A few sources seem to contradict this assumption.

|| 32 I am grateful to Harald Buchinger for a discussion of these objections. Cf. also Arad, “The ‘great hallel’,” 125–26 for the passages referred to here.

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Philo’s euchai kai hymnoi33 could point to the performance of the Hallel before the destruction of the temple. Philo describes the Pesach at the temple in Jerusalem.34 Two extra-biblical texts paraphrase Exod 12 and add singing to the performance of the Israelites’ meal. Thus, Wis 18:9 mentions the Israelites’ singing (proanamelpein) as part of the account of the first Pesach in Egypt. Jubilees 49:6 remarks that Israel was drinking wine, “glorifying, blessing, and praising God….”35 Wisdom 18:9 and Jub. 49:6 elicit explanations along the lines of Exod 12. The biblical text of Exod 12 projects the ritual at the temple back into the narrative of the Exodus from Egypt.36 Just as Exod 12 transposes the temple rite into the celebration of a meal in Egypt, Wis 18:19 and Jub. 49:6 explain temple rituals. Exodus 12 and its paraphrases tell the story of a prefiguration of that rite which could only have been a meal (because the temple was not yet available). The rabbis create a substitution for that rite, which could only be a meal (because the temple was no longer available). The most explicit text comes from m. Pesah. 9:3. It rules that the Hallel is recited during the slaughtering and the eating of the Pesach animals:37 “What is (the difference) between the first and the second (pesaḥ)38? … The first requires the Hallel with its consumption and the second does not require the Hallel with its consumption. This one and that one require the/a Hallel with their making.”39 The Mishnah states that the slaughtering of the Pesach (animals) requires the performance of the Hallel at the time of its consumption and preparation. M. Pesah. 5:7 rules that (the impersonal) “they” recite the Hallel.40 The Mishnah seems to suggest that “the Israelites”—who are mentioned in the pre-

|| 33 Philo, Spec. 2.148. Using three relativizing adverbs, Cohn (Über die Einzelgesetze, 150 n. 2) remarks that the phrase refers “arguably especially” to the Hallel, which was “probably” part of the celebration of Pesach in Philo’s time. 34 Philo, Spec. 2.145–48. 35 wayəsēbbəḥ wayəbārrək wayāʾakkwət ʾəgziʿabəḥēr. The terms sabḥa (I, 2 Dillmann, Lexicon Linguae Aethiopicae, 356–57) and more obviously ʾaʾkwata (II, 1 Dillmann, Lexicon Linguae Aethiopicae, 785–86) appear as translations of ainein and hymnein in biblical texts according to Dillmann. 36 Cf. for this argument Leonhard, Jewish Pesach, 15–72. 37 Cf. Goldsmith, “The recitation,” 80. 38 Num 9:1–13 deals with the situation of male Israelites who cannot celebrate the festival of Pesach at its proper date because of a case of impurity, especially death impurity. They should celebrate the festival in the following month. Apparently, the text does not consider menstruation in any way. The rabbis discuss differences between the normal—“first”—and the compensational—“second”—Pesach. 39 m. Pesah. 9:3. 40 Cf. Goldsmith, “The recitation,” 79.

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ceding text—sang the Hallel. This is not evident. “They” recite the Hallel twice or three times if necessary, “although they never came to recite (the Hallel) a third time in their days.” It is reasonable to assume that “they” are the same persons who sing the whole afternoon during the three groups’ preparation of the Pesach animals. According to m. Pesah. 5:5, the three groups of Israelites entered the temple court, “they locked the doors of the court,”41 and “they sounded/blew” (the bugles, trumpets etc.). The Israelites slaughter the animals (m. Pesah. 5:6). The Mishnah does not say who locked the doors and blew the trumpets. If any temple functionaries like the Levites were active in this case (locking doors and sounding instruments), they may also be the implied subjects of “they recited (the Hallel).” This suggests that the Mishnah may just not contradict t. Pesah. 4:11 (Lieberman, 163–64), which mentions the Levites reciting the Hallel. On the contrary, m. Pesah. 5:7 comes closer to the rabbis’ reality than t. Pesah. 4:11, because after the destruction of the temple, the Levites lost that role in the rites of Israel. Hence, they are not mentioned any more as the group of people who performed the only part of the rite that was taken up by the later rabbis and in a different context. In the liturgy of the Jerusalem temple, certain functionaries (especially kohanim and Levites) fulfilled certain roles. After the destruction, the character of the liturgy changed. Thus, the rabbis (as well as contemporary Judaism) restricted the special roles of kohanim and Levites to a minimum and ordered every Jewish person to perform most of the new rites and customs. The rabbis pass on the tradition that the Levites were in charge of singing the Hallel in the temple. The omission of a reference to the Levites in the Mishnah may be due to the abbreviated style of that text. Conversely, it may also point to the new state of affairs. The Tosefta compares the first and the second Pesach as does the Mishnah.42 In that context, it does not mention the recitation of the Hallel. It mentions singing in another comparison: “The Egyptian Pesach requires a song43 and the Pesach of (all following) generations requires a song.”44 Thus, the Tosefta only compares the first Pesach ever with all other instances of its celebration. The rabbinic Pesach appears in full continuity with the temple Pesach. Of course, this short rule does not differentiate between the meal and its prepa-

|| 41 The corrector of MS Kaufman changes the consonantal “the doors … were locked” to “they locked the doors” (corresponding e.g. to MS Parma, de Rossi). 42 t. Pesah. 8:10 Lieberman, 187. 43 The Tosefta does not identify the “song” (šir) as the Hallel. 44 t. Pesah. 8.22 Lieberman, 188.

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ration. At the temple, the preparation requires a song. After its destruction (and perhaps even after its future rebuilding), the meal inherits the song. The Tosefta seems to be engaged in a discussion about who was able to recite the Hallel in the framework of the seder pesaḥ: “Townspeople who do not have anybody who would lead (them) in reciting the Hallel go to the synagogue and recite the first chapter. They go (back) and eat and drink. They come again and complete all of it. If they are not able (apparently: to come back), they complete all of it (apparently: on their first visit).”45 One may envisage two reasons for the ruling of the Tosefta. First, this law could suggest that the performance of the Hallel requires a certain setting. However, the synagogue is not the only option. Diners may go to an expert’s home (eṣlo).46 Second, it seems more plausible that the Tosefta presumes the inability of the rabbis’ adherents to perform the recitation.47 This inability may hail from the rabbis’ concept (or memory) of the temple cult, where the Levites, and not the Israelites, recited the Hallel during the preparation of the animals and not during the meal. The people who are supposed to perform the singing are actually not considered able to do it. To sum up, the Mishnah (m. Pesah. 9:3) contains an erratic rule for the consumption of the Pesach animals, namely that the normal, i.e., the “first” Pesach, requires the diners (and not the Levites in the temple) to sing the Hallel during the meal in Second Temple times. In the light of the Tosefta and other texts mentioned here, this rule fits to the rabbis’ concern to blur the borderlines between the liturgy at the temple and in the domestic dining room. These liturgies are conceptualized as identical—in spite of some minor adjustments after the destruction of the temple. To cut the matter short, the phrase of the Mishnah “the first requires the hallel with its consumption” is just anachronistic for Second Temple times. It points to later practice although it is formulated as a rule that requires the temple in working order. As long as the temple was functioning, the Hallel was recited by the Levies (only). After its destruction, the Hallel came to be part of the customs surrounding the meal in the first night of the festival.

|| 45 t. Pesah. 10:8 Lieberman, 197. 46 Cf. Goldsmith, “The recitation,” 80. 47 Goldsmith, “The recitation,” 81.

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5 Conclusion The development that led to the split of Pss 114 and 115 can be summarized as follows. First, the rabbis’ construction of the seder implies that the whole of the temple procedures is encapsulated and substituted by the seder. Thus, the meal with its discussions and more ritualized elements came to represent the slaughtering (preparing, offering, etc.) and eating of the Pesach animal. Formerly, the Levites recited the Hallel during the slaughtering and preparation of the Pesach animals. The rabbis move the recitation of the Hallel Psalms from the temple performance into their dining rooms and entrust the singing to all Israelites. While slaughtering and eating of sacrificial animals must be replaced by the study of the respective laws, the Hallel can be recited outside of the temple. This liturgical custom presupposes the destruction of the temple and the reenactment of some of its rituals in a different setting, one that may be suitable for every Jew in any place. The case of the Hallel adjusts to the rabbis’ general repertoire of strategies to create liturgies. They abandon some customs of the temple and transform others. They also create new ones with new halakic networks of obligations and exemptions. Second, in order to stage the concept that the meal comprises the slaughtering, preparation, and eating of the Pesach animals, the rabbis actually needed to perform the Hallel at the same time when they ate the prescribed food (excluding, of course, the meat of a Pesach animal) and discussed the laws of the Pesach sacrifice. As this is not possible, they split the Hallel and performed half of it before and half of it after the meal. They decided to split the Hallel at a point where nobody would divide it, in order to express their understanding that it is performed as a whole. Thus, they divided one (literary) chapter of the book of Psalms (114 and 115) into two (liturgical) parts. Third, this explanation fits with the observation of the development of the textual transmission of Pss 114 and 115 in the first and early second millennium. Scientific (i.e., Masoretic) and old-style manuscripts preserve the original tradition of the text. Yet, the liturgy was a powerful factor that shaped the textual transmission. Some scribes grew accustomed to splitting the Hallel at Ps 114:8 and 115:1 during the celebration of the seder. They began to reshape the graphic presentation of this chapter of the book of Psalms in manuscripts other than the haggadah. Eventually the split of Pss 114 and 115 into two chapters in biblical manuscripts of the book of Psalms damaged the basis of the rabbis’ original intention in the integration of the Hallel into the seder. As soon as Pss 114 and Ps 115 are perceived as two separate chapters or even two individual songs or hymns, the

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split at 114:8 and 115:1 does not any more function as an aesthetic disturbance that expresses the theoretical unity of the performance of the Hallel as a whole. This is the current state of affairs. The literary text corresponds to the liturgy and the liturgy represents the literary text.

Bibliography Apple, Raymond. “Understanding the ‘Split’ and ‘Half’ Hallel.” JBQ 45 (2017): 253–59. Arad, Motti [Mordechai]. [“The ‘great hallel’ – The original hallel of the seder night.”] [Hebrew]. Pages 115–67 in Tiferet Leyisrael. Jubilee Volume in Honor of Israel Francus. Edited by Joel Roth, Menahem Schmelzer, and Yaacov Francus. New York: Jewish Theological Seminary of America, 2010. Auwers, Jean-Marie. “La numérotation des psaumes dans la tradition hébraïque. Une enquête dans le fonds hébreu de la Bibliothèque Nationale.” RB 109 (2002): 343–70. Baker, Colin F. and Meira Polliack. Arabic and Judaeo-Arabic Manuscripts in the Cambridge Genizah Collections. Arabic Old Series (T-S Ar. 1a–54). Cambridge University Library Genizah Series 12. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001. Cohn, Leopold (Isaak Heinemann). Über die Einzelgesetze. Buch 1–4. Über die Tugenden. Über Belohnung und Strafe. Die Werke Philos von Alexandria in deutscher Übersetzung 2. Breslau: Marcus, 1910. Davidson, Israel, Simcha Assaf, and B. Issachar Joel. Siddur R. Saadja Gaon. Kitāb gāmiʿ aṣṣalawāt wat-tasābīh [Hebrew]. Jerusalem: Mekize Nirdamim, 1941 [repr. 1970]. Davis, Malcolm C. Taylor-Schechter Old Series and Other Genizah Collections in the Cambridge University Library. Cambridge University Library Genizah Series 2.1. Cambridge: University Library, 1978. Davis, Malcolm C. Taylor-Schechter New Series and Westminster College Cambridge Collection. Cambridge University Library Genizah Series 2.2. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1980. Davis, Malcolm C. and Ben Outhwaite. Taylor-Schechter Additional Series 1–31. Cambridge University Library Genizah Series, 2.3. Cambridge: University Press, 2003. Davis, Malcolm C. and Ben Outhwaite. Taylor-Schechter Additional Series 32–225. With Addenda to Previous Volumes. Cambridge University Library Genizah Series 2.4. Cambridge: University Press, 2003. Dillmann, Chr. Fr. August. Lexicon Linguae Aethiopicae. Cum Indice Latino. Leipzig: Weigel, 1875. Finkelstein, Louis. “The Origin of the Hallel.” HUCA 23 (1950/1951): 319–37. Gärtner, Judith. “Exodus Psalm 114—the hermeneutical centre of the so-called Egyptian Hallel?” Pages 71–87 in Exodus. Rezeptionen in deuterokanonischer und frühjüdischer Literatur. Edited by Judith Gärtner and Barbara Schmitz. DCLS 32. Berlin: De Gruyter, 2016. Ginsburg, Christian David. Liber Psalmorum. Diligenter Revisus juxta Massorah atque Editiones Principes cum Variis Lectionibus e Mss. atque Antiquis Versionibus Collectis. London: Societas Bibliophilorum Britannica et externa, 1913.

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Goldsmith, Simḥah. “[The recitation of the hallel in the night of Pesaḥ—What is the difference between the custom of the Land of Israel and that of Babylon]” [Hebrew]. Mehqere Hag. A Journal of Jewish Culture 11 (1998): 79–85. Hammer, Robert Alan. “On the Origin of the Partial Hallel.” Conservative Judaism 23 (1969): 60–63. Hammer, Reuven. “Hallel: A Liturgical Composition Celebrating the Exodus.” Pages 101–13 in The Experience of Jewish Liturgy. Studies Dedicated to Menahem Schmelzer. Edited by Debra Reed Blank. BRLJ 31. Leiden: Brill, 2011. Hayes, Elisabeth. “The Unity of the Egyptian Hallel: Psalms 113–18.” BBR 9 (1999): 145–56. Hossfeld, Frank-Lothar, and Erich Zenger. Psalms 3. A Commentary on Psalms 101–150. Translated by Linda M. Maloney and edited by Klaus Baltzer. Hermeneia. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2011. Jenner, Konrad Dirk, and Arie van der Kooij. Liber Psalmorum. Vetus testamentum Syriace. Ed. Institutum Peshiṭtonianum Leidense, Ps. 2, Fasc. 3/Old Testament in Syriac. According to the Peshitta Version. Leiden: Brill, 1980. Kennicott, Benjamin. Vetus Testamentum Hebraicum. Cum Variis Lectionibus. Vol. 2. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1780. Koch, Klaus. “Der Psalter und seine Redaktionsgeschichte.” Pages 243–77 in Neue Wege der Psalmenforschung. Für Walter Beyerlin. Edited by Klaus Seybold and Erich Zenger. Herders biblische Studien 1. Freiburg: Herder, 1994. Leonhard, Clemens. The Jewish Pesach and the Origins of the Christian Easter. Open Questions in Current Research. SJ 35. Berlin: De Gruyter, 2006. Leonhard, Clemens. “Pesach and Eucharist.” Pages 275–312 in The Eucharist—Its Origins and Context. Sacred Meal, Communal Meal, Table Fellowship in Late Antiquity, Early Judaism, and Early Christianity. Volume I. Old Testament, Early Judaism, New Testament. Edited by David Hellholm and Dieter Sänger. WUNT I.376. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2017. Leonhard, Clemens. “Tempelfeste außerhalb des Jerusalemer Tempels in der Diaspora.” Pages 123–55 in Die Makkabäer. Edited by Friedrich Avemarie et al. WUNT I.382. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2017. Lieberman, Saul. The Tosefta. 5 vols. New York: Jewish Theological Seminary of America, 1955– 1992. Lubsczyk, Hans. “Einheit und heilsgeschichtliche Bedeutung von Ps 114/115 (113).” BZ 11 (1967): 161–73. Millard, Matthias. Die Komposition des Psalters. Ein formgeschichtlicher Ansatz. FAT 9. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1994. Prinsloo, Gert T. M. “Tremble before the Lord: Myth and History in Psalm 114.” OTE 11 (1998): 306–25. Prinsloo, Gert T. M. “Unit Delimitation in the Egyptian Hallel (Psalms 113–118). An Evaluation of Different Traditions.” Pages 232–58 in: Unit Delimitation in Biblical Hebrew and Northwest Semitic Literature. Edited by Marjo C. A. Korpel and Josef M. Oesch. Preicope. Scripture as Written in Antiquity 4. Assen: Koninklijke Van Gorcum, 2001. Prinsloo, Gert T. M. “Psalms 114 and 115: One or two Poems?” OTE 16 (2003): 669–90. Shivtiel, Avihai, and Friedrich Niessen. Arabic and Judaeo-Arabic Manuscripts in the Cambridge Genizah Collections. Taylor-Schechter New Series. Cambridge University Library Genizah Series 14. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006. Skehan, Patrick W., Eugene Ulrich, and Peter W. Flint. “Psalms.” Pages 7–170 in Psalms to Chronicles. DJD 16. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2000.

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Troublet, Jacques. “Approche canonique des Psaumes du Hallel.” Pages 339–76 in The Composition of the Book of Psalms. Edited by Erich Zenger. BETL 238. Leuven: Peeters, 2010. Witte, Markus. “Psalm 114—Überlegungen zu seiner Komposition im Kontext der Psalmen 113 und 115.” Pages 293–311 in “Einen Altar von Erde mache mir…”. Festschrift für Diethelm Conrad zu seinem 70. Geburtstag. Edited by Johannes F. Diehl, Reinhard Heitzenröder, and Markus Witte. Kleine Arbeiten zum Alten und Neuen Testament. 4/5. Waltrop: Hartmut Spenner, 2003. Yeivin, Israel. “The Division into Sections in the Book of Psalms.” Text 7 (1969): 76–102. Yeivin, Israel. Geniza Bible Fragments with Babylonian Massorah and Vocalization. Including Additional Bible Fragments with Babylonian Massorah and Vocalization, Together with a Description of the Manuscripts and Indices. III Hagiographa. Jerusalem: Makor, 1973. Zahavy, Tzvee. “Sources of the Seasonal Ritual in the Third through Fifth Centuries C.E.” Pages 103–10 in Art, Folklore, Theatre, Music. Edited by [Pinḥas Pelʾi]. Proceedings of the World Congress of Jewish Studies. Division D. Volume 2. [Jerusalem]: The World Union of Jewish Studies, 1985. Zeitlin, Solomon. “The Hallel: A Historical Study of the Canonization of the Hebrew Liturgy.” JQR 53 (1962): 22–29. Zenger, Erich. “Der Gott Israels und die Völker der Welt. Das Programm von Psalm 115 im Kontext des Pessach-Hallel.” Pages 145–61 in “Eine Grenze hast Du gesetzt”. Edna Brocke zum 60. Geburtstag. Edited by Ekkehard E. Stegemann and Klaus Wengst. Judentum und Christentum 13. Stuttgart: Kohlhammer, 2003.

David Levine

Ritual and Communal Responsibility: Hanina bar Hama and the Sepphoreans Abstract: This essay offers a literary analysis and historical interpretation of a narrative in the Palestinian Talmud (y. Ta’an 3:4, 66c) that presents fraught relations between Rabbi Hanina bar Hama and his townsfolk, the Sepphoreans. In the context of a communal ritual responding to drought, rabbi and community spar over appropriate ways of regarding the crisis. The public sermon expresses rabbinic valuation, although members of the community are not shy when demanding that the rabbinic figure provide immediate supernatural relief. The analysis informs itself of methodological concerns when moving from the literary dimensions of the narrative to the social reality which is reflected and fashioned in the text. Keywords: Hanina bar Hama, communal fasting, rabbinic sermon, talmudic biography, holy-man.

Writing talmudic history engages a wide range of interpretive disciplines and wrestles to appropriately define its main source material—rabbinic literature— on the grid of literature and history. The disciplines brought to bear run the gamut from an analysis of the text and its philological or discursive dimensions to endeavoring a social-historical reconstruction of events and processes. Any text under consideration presents the challenge of giving the literary artifact its discursive due while attempting to go beyond the text, seeing it either as expressing a cultural context, or as a means to retrieving a posited piece of socialhistorical reality. Adopting an entirely discursive approach runs the risk of not identifying the elemental day-to-day reality that produced the texts and their discourse and that was affected by them. On the other hand, any historical analysis and presentation must realistically recalibrate an expectation of transparent access to the “facts” of antiquity and consider the discursive nature of its sources.1 Elsewhere, I have proposed that that accounting for the insight, cri-

|| 1 Berkhofer, Beyond the Great Story, 19–24, 46–58, 243–63; Spiegel, Practicing History, 1–31; Clark, History, Theory, Text, 9–28, 106–29. For an overview of the “linguistic turn” in talmudic studies, see: Fonrobert, “Talmudic Studies since Foucault”; Secunda, “Gaze and Counter Gaze,” 151–52. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110630282-016

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tique, and skepticism of this past generation’s advances in interpretation, does not require abandoning the quest for the basic building blocks of history, be it a person, event, and development said to have occurred.2 The issue of the social standing of talmudic rabbis, their communal influence and rabbinic culture’s representation of broader religious norms presents both a methodological challenge when responsibly approaching the text; and a historiographical necessity for appreciating Jewish society in Late Antiquity.3 This essay offers a reading and historical interpretation of the narrative found in the Palestinian Talmud (PT) that relates the fraught relations between Rabbi Hanina bar Hama (HbH) and his townsfolk, the Sepphoreans (y. Ta’an. 3:4, 66c).

* As described in rabbinic traditions of Palestine, the communal event conducted on fast-days in the city square (‫ )סדר תענית ברחובה של עיר‬was colorful and widely-attended. A resonating public affair presents Jewish society in its variety and complexity, and this broad participation gives voice to different approaches and attitudes to the event at hand. Different people and groups fulfill various roles. The public-at-large meets individuals with pretensions of leadership, guidance, and influence. In addition, we find socially marginal figures being approached for solutions. Often, rabbinic perspective will cast these figures as suspect and potentially subversive. Rabbinic portrayals might present a picture of all participants contributing to a joint endeavor, but at times one element seems to capture center stage with others responding to this challenge. Even talmudic sources with their rabbinic perspective, present their protagonists—the rabbis— as being one element among several attending the event. Their impact depend-

|| For methodological reconsiderations in talmudic history, see: Alexander, “Using Rabbinic”; Lavee, “Rabbinic Literature and History”; Lapin, Rabbis as Romans, 39–45; Tropper, Rewriting Ancient Jewish History, 53–61, 106–33. 2 D. Levine, “Talmudic Biography.” 3 Schwartz, Imperialism and Jewish Society, 103–28; Herr, “Identity of the Jewish People”; Newman, “Normativity of Rabbinic Judaism”; D. Levine, “Leadership and Marginality”; Schremer, “Religious Orientation”; Lapin, Rabbis as Romans, inter alia 65–76, 113–23; Brody, “Rabbinic and Nonrabbinic Jews.” On different trends in critical historiography of the period, see: Schwartz, “Historiography”; Miller, “Where Matters Stand.”

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ed on their versatility, being able to negotiate and maneuver among groups and interests present, at times yielding and integrating at times confronting.4 Attempting to offer guidance, especially of an ideological nature, posed a complex challenge. The fast-day sermon presents itself as a defined literary location incorporating both rabbinic valuation and their attempted influence. This sermon is framed against a backdrop of ceremonial actions: sprinkling of ash on the heads of participants, symbolic mourning of the ark (‫)תיבה‬, and prominence of troubled leaders. The leitmotif of rabbinic preaching in this context critiques elements of the event in which they participated. The Mishnah perceives the sermon as follows (m. Ta’an. 2:1b):

‫ אחינו לא נאמר באנשי נינווה וירא אלהים את‬,‫הזקן שבהן אומ' לפניהם דברי כיבושים‬ ,(10 ‫שקם ואת תעניתם אלא "וירא אלהים את מעשיהם כי שבו מדרכם הרעה" )יונה ג‬ .(13 ‫ובקבלה מהוא אומ' "וקרעו לבבכם ואל בגדיכם ושובו אל ה' אלהיכם וגו'" )יואל ב‬ The elder among them speaks words of admonition to them: “Our brethren, it is not said of the people of Nineveh that ‘God saw their sackcloth and their fasting,’ rather ‘God saw their deeds, how they turned away from their evil way’” (Jonah 3:10). And in tradition (=Prophets) it says, “Rend your hearts, rather than your garments, and return to the LORD your God” (Joel 2:13).

The words of the elder endeavor to direct the community’s attention towards various components of the rite at hand. All the ritual trappings were relegated to mere background, and as the fast-day prayer approached there was need to state unequivocally that introspection and tangible repentance were the pertinent features in resolving the crisis. As envisioned by talmudic tradition, such a sermon was always delivered by a rabbinic figure. Regarding other roles and functions in the fast-day event, other figures either had priority or were social and religious competitors of the rabbis. In rabbinic depiction, declaring a communal fast could come from the nasi (Patriarch), the bet din (court), or an individual rabbi. At times the sage is a key figure responsible for resolving the crisis, but in other instances there were other figures such as the nasi or a miracleworker/rainmaker. However, the fast-day sermon is always presented as being

|| 4 Talmudic literature has preserved over fifty traditions (with parallels, almost 75 different sources) that describe purported events and instances of communal fast-day rituals. D. Levine, Communal Fasts, 220–40.

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delivered by members of rabbinic circles.5 In other words, the sermon is perceived as the singular contribution of the rabbis to the communal ritual. For our purposes suffice it to say that the rabbis saw an opportunity to express their opinion about what was happening and attempt to leave their imprint on the ritual.6 And this unique contribution has a uniform message. The idea that runs throughout the rabbinic fast-day sermons is that emphasis must be placed on genuine repentance and worthy behavior as keys to resolving the dire situation in which the community finds itself. This introspective process holds precedence over the external ritualistic trappings of the fast: “Neither sackcloth nor fasting are factors, but rather repentance and good deeds” (b. Ta’an. 16a). Almost all of the fast-day sermons convey this idea. Mishnah Ta’an 3:3–4 deals with a community’s ritual response to a local crisis. The passage distinguishes between the afflicted city suffering from a drought or an epidemic, which carries out the prescribed arrangements for a communal fast—it “fasts and sounds the shofar”—and its unharmed surroundings, which express solidarity by carrying out only one of the two practices: they either fast or sound the shofar. This situation, in which a particular area experiences difficulty or is affected by crisis, while a neighboring area is unscathed but still expresses solidarity, brings us to the story of Rabbi Hanina bar Hama (=HbH) and the people of his town, where communal solidarity is under conten-

|| 5 The issue of the role of the rabbis as preachers of public sermons in general is not discussed here. There are intimations of non-rabbinic competition and variety in this area as well, see D. Levine “Rabbis, Preachers, and Aggadists.” 6 Some fifteen fast-day sermons or excerpts from such sermons, have been preserved in Tannaitic and Palestinian Amoraic sources. None of these traditions can be regarded as conveying the literal text of the sermon delivered at any specific communal fast-day ritual. Not only would this assume something the sources do not intend, it is also unreasonable that such brief texts— a few sentences for each sermon—represent the full length of a public oration. In Bereshit Rabba 33:3, ed. Theodor and Albeck, 304; and Vayikra Rabba, 34:14, ed. Margaliot, 806, there is an allusion to a lengthier oration. These sources are properly identified as elements of sermons attributed by their transmitters and editors to communal fast ceremonies (or possibly recollected from such events). This contrasts with the traditions of Babylonian Amoraim. There are no fast-day sermons attributed to Babylonian rabbis, neither in the Bavli nor the Yerushalmi. This fact reinforces the general diminution of the public resonance of communal fasts in Babylonian Talmudic sources. See D. Levine, Communal Fasts, 167–83.

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tion.7 The Palestinian Talmud (PT) places the story in the context of the above cited Mishnah (the story will be presented scene by scene).8

[I] ‫מותנא הוה בציפורין לא הוה עליל גו אשקקה דהוה ר' חנינה שרי בגויה והוון ציפוראיי‬ ‫ עאל‬.‫ ומדינתא אזלא בבאישות‬,‫ ויתב שלם הוא ושכונתיה‬9‫ מה ההן סבא ]ב[ינכי‬,‫אמרין‬ ‫ ואנו כמה זמרי יש‬,‫ זמרי אחד היה בדורו ונפלו מיש' עשרים וארבעה אלף‬,10‫ואמ' קומיהון‬ .‫בדורינו ואתם מתרעמין‬ There was an epidemic in Sepphoris, but it did not enter the area in which Rabbi Ḥanina was dwelling. The Sepphoreans said, “How is this old man amongst you sitting in peace, he and his neighborhood, while the town is being devastated?” He entered and said before them, “There was one Zimri in his generation, and 24,000 Israelites perished, and how many Zimris are there in our generation, and you complain?!”

The people of Sepphoris view HbH as a miracle-worker capable of bringing about a solution and expect his intervention and prayer to solve the community’s troubles. This relationship deteriorates when the city suffers a plague that spreads throughout the city, while HbH’s vicinity remains unharmed. The Sepphoreans see this as a deliberate refusal by HbH to intervene and provide help for the city, something they believe he could in fact accomplish.11 HbH himself does not hesitate to interpret the plague as a divine punishment for the community’s sins. Those sins are not spelled out, but a parallel is drawn to the act of Zimri ben Salu (Num 25), which alludes to a pronounced display of both idolatry and forbidden sexual relations. The rabbi’s stance in this instance gains wide notoriety, being publicly proclaimed. The wording “He entered and said before

|| 7 See previous scholarship on this story: L. Levine, Rabbinic Class, 107; Miller, “Hanina Bar Hama at Sepphoris,” 192–93; idem, “Cantankerous Sepphoreans,”' 561–62; idem, Sages and Commoners, 92–95. 8 y. Ta’an. 3:4, 66c; ed. Academy of Hebrew Language, col. 270. Textual witnesses: MS Leiden; Geniza fragment, in Ginzberg, Genizah Studies, 420–421; Sussman, Thesaurus, 2:646. 9 ‫ בינכי‬- amongst you. The above edition of the Palestinian Talmud indicates that this word has been “corrected” in the Leiden manuscript. The Geniza fragment has ‫—מנכי‬lose or harmed— which would yield “How is this old man harmed?'” (Lieberman, Studies, 169; Sokoloff, Dictionary, 350–51). See y. Kilayim 9:4, 32d: ‫“( יעקב כל הן דהוא מה הוא מנכי‬Jacob, wherever he is [buried], how is he harmed?”). 10 See Assis, Concordance, 2:1170. 11 This would contrast with the Mishnah where solidarity with neighboring communities is taken for granted.

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them…” indicates delivering a sermon or public oration (see below). The audience expects him to provide miraculous intervention and solve its problems; the rabbi expresses the perspective viewing the public’s difficulties as the result of its own doing.

[II] ‫ בדרומא‬12[‫ עבד רבי יהושע ]תעניתא‬,‫חד זמן צרכון מיעבד תעני]ת[ ולא נחת מיטרא‬ ‫ ר' יהושע בן לוי מחית מיטרא לדרומאיי ורבי חנינה‬,‫ והוון ציפוראיי אמרין‬.‫ונחת מטרא‬ .‫ מן ציפוראיי‬13‫עצר מיא‬ One time they needed to proclaim a fast but no rain fell. Rabbi Yehoshua‘ ben Levi proclaimed [a fast] in the south,14 and rain fell. The Sepphoreans were saying, “Rabbi Yehoshua‘ ben Levi brought down rain in the south, but Rabbi Ḥanina withheld water from the Sepphoreans.”

The tension in Sepphoris is intensified during an ensuing drought, when a communal fast is declared and proves unsuccessful in bringing relief. On this occasion, the figure of HbH contrasts with that of his colleague Rabbi Yehoshua‘ ben Levi (YbL). Lod suffered a drought as well, and YbL declared a communal fast that proved effective, and rain fell. The Sepphoreans attributed that success to the readiness of the local sage there to share in the public’s distress and intervene on the public’s behalf, while the problem in Sepphoris was prolonged by HbH’s unwillingness to identify with the suffering of the masses and to advocate for them. The Sepphoreans’ argument is intensified in the transition from section I, where we are told that the sage does not assist the city even though he is able (since “he and his neighborhood sit in peace”), to section II, where the sage is accused of being a partner to the creation of the crisis: “Rabbi Hanina withheld water from the Sepphoreans.”

[III] ‫ מישגח מרי מיפוק‬,‫ שלח ואייתי לרבי יהושע בן לוי אמ' ליה‬.‫צרכון מיעבד זמן תיניינות‬ ‫ לא רבי‬,‫ עאל ואמ' קומיהון‬.‫ נפקון תריהון לתעניתא ולא נחת מיטרא‬.‫עימן להתענות‬ ‫ אלא‬,‫יהושע בן לוי מחית מיטרא לדרומאיי ולא רבי חנינה עצר מיטרא מן ציפוראיי‬ || 12 The Leiden manuscript has this word added in the margins. 13 The Geniza fragment has ‫ – מטרא‬rain. Withholding water resonates more dramatically than preventing rain. 14 The town of Lod is referred to as “the south.”

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‫ וציפוראיי ליבהון קשי ושמעין‬,‫דרומאיי ליבהון רכיך ושמעין מילה דאורייא ומתכנעין‬ .‫מילה דאורייא ולא מיתכנעין‬ They needed to declare [a fast] a second time. He sent for Rabbi Yehoshua‘ ben Levi and said to him, “Would my master be willing to go out15 with us to fast?” They both went out to the fast, but no rain fell. He entered and said before them, “It Is not Rabbi Yehoshua‘ ben Levi who brought down rain for the southerners, nor is it Rabbi Ḥanina who withheld rain from the Sepphoreans. Rather, the southerners’ hearts are soft [=receptive], and they hear words of Torah and submit/yield, while the Sepphoreans’ hearts are hard [=obstinate], and they hear words of Torah and do not submit/yield.”

The talmudic narrator shares the perspective of the protagonist and blames the suffering on the behavior of the community. The story continues with a scene intended to counter the arguments of the Sepphoreans. YbL is invited by HbH to participate in a communal fast at Sepphoris, perhaps because the drought had continued for an extended period, so that he too is engaged in the efforts of the Sepphoreans—but to no avail. HbH’s view is borne out. If YbL took part in communal fasts at both Lod and Sepphoris, and rain fell only at Lod, then YbL’s presence is not the decisive factor. Rain fell in the south because of the repentance of the people of Lod. By the same token, it is the people of Sepphoris who are responsible for their situation, for the drought and its long duration. As in section II, here too HbH’s words are introduced by the words “He entered and said before them,” and thereby gain public resonance. The local sage is responsible neither for the problem nor for its solution. Instead, it is the community’s receptiveness (or obstinacy) and their ability to listen and to attend to “words of Torah”, that point toward a resolution.

[IV] ‫ ונדר על‬,‫ מיד נחת מיטרא‬.‫ עד כדון הכין‬,‫ אמר‬16.‫מי עליל תלה עינוי וחמא אוירא שייף‬ .‫ מה אנא מימור למרי חובא דלא יגבי חוביה‬,'‫ אמ‬.‫גרמיה דלא למיעבד כן תובן‬ As he went his way, he raised his eyes and saw the air clear. He said, “So much so?” Rain fell immediately. [However,] he took an oath upon himself not to do so again. He said, “Who am I to tell the creditor not to collect his due?”

|| 15 The verbs denoting “going out” or “emerging” indicate participation in the fast-day ritual which took place outside, in the city square. Here the rabbis join the community in this venue. 16 ‫ — שייף‬clear or shiny, see Sokoloff, Dictionary, 38. In other places the Palestinian Talmud contrasts metal which is ‫ שופה‬or ‫( שפיה‬filed and burnished and therefore shiny) and metal that is ‫( חלודה‬rusty), albeit in Hebrew (y. Git. 3:8, 45b; B. Bat. 6:1, 15a).

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The last scene of the story deals with Rabbi Hanina’s ability to work wonders. The story’s message has already been expressed in the rabbi’s own complementary public statements (see below), and his rhetorical upper hand at the end of section III is unmistakable. HbH’s power to protect his own neighborhood already finds expression in section I (the epidemic “did not touch the area in which Rabbi Ḥanina was dwelling”).17 The narrator, however, is unable to make do with just that and chooses to dramatize his protagonist’s broad supernatural abilities. After the public confrontation with the people of his town, and after his unambiguous words regarding communal responsibility, HbH continues on his way. It was as he pressed on alone, out of the public’s eye, that he issued his spontaneous outburst: “So much so?!” i.e., “Is it still like this?!” Powerful expression is given to the rabbinic figure and the efficacy of his words. For the sake of propriety, there immediately follows a demurral from this accusation and a disclaimer stating that such intervention in the natural order of the world is inappropriate (“He took an oath upon himself…”). By now, however, the reader—or listener—is already informed that HbH holds the keys to rainfall.18 This act by the rabbi stands in opposition to his own words: to his earlier public statements to the people of his town, and to his concluding remark after the rainfall. However, actions are more powerful than words. It may be that this duality stems from different audiences for whom the story was intended: outwardly, for general consumption, there is an accentuation of the community’s responsibility for its fate, while inwardly, for a rabbinic audience frequenting the bet midrash, HbH’s power to represent the public interest strengthens the rabbi’s figure. It may also be that this duality declares, specifically to an outside, non-rabbinic audience, a dialectical balance. While a sage might have the ability to intervene in the natural order of the world, his theurgic virtuosity is no substitute for the community assuming responsibility for its actions.

* The expression “He entered and said before them” appears twice in this story. The first instance emphasizes the reason for the troubles: “How many Zimris are there in our generation?” (section I). The second offers a path toward resolu|| 17 A literary enveloping emerges, in which the story begins and ends with HBH's prowess while intervening in the natural order of things. This enveloping heightens the contrast between the sage's public pronouncements regarding the public's culpability and responsibility, and the display of his miracle-working. 18 See b. Ta’an. 2a-b.

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tion—or explains the lack of one: “Their hearts are soft, and they hear words of Torah and submit” (section III). The use of “He entered and said before them” serves not only to give public expression to the rabbi’s view, but also to link the two statements to form a coherent approach toward the community’s distress. It is because of sins that suffering appears, and it can be solved by communal recognition of this fact and a humbling of the heart, individually and collectively. Thus, the narrative has been shaped to express the recurring attitude in rabbinic traditions toward communal fasting noted above—ritual action is not the decisive factor but rather introspection, contrition and changed behavior. In this context, the community is responsible for its distress, and concomitantly for the resolution as well. That resolution is not the meticulous performance of the ritual, nor divine favor shown to a rabbinic figure, or his prowess when advocating for the collective, but rather the ability to open one’s heart and internalize “words of Torah.” This overt message of the narrative is expressed through the tension between rabbi and community and the unequivocal nature of the rabbi’s expectation. This tension and rigorous demand are assumed as they frame and accentuate the moral of the story.

* Two traditions, which immediately follow the conclusion of the story, also deal with the public’s responsibility for its own fate and the dependence of leaders upon their communities to be able to guide and offer assistance: “What should the leaders of a generation do, given that the public is judged only according to its majority?”

[V] ‫ שכן‬.‫ מה יעשו גדולי הדור ואין הציבור נידון אלא אחר רוב‬,‫רבי זעורה בשם רבי חנינה‬ ‫מצאנו שכל שלשים ושמונה שנים שהיו ישראל כמנודים לא היה מדבר עם משה‬ ‫ מה‬,(‫ טז‬,‫שנאמר "ויהי כאשר תמו כל אנשי המלחמה למות מקרב המחנה" )דברים כ‬ ".‫כתיב בתריה "וידבר ה' אלי לאמר‬ Rabbi Ze‘ora [said] in the name of Rabbi Ḥanina, “What should the leaders of a generation do, given that the public is judged only according to its majority? Accordingly, we find that during the third-eight years which Israel were like people subject to a ban [the years of wandering in the wilderness], [God] did not speak with Moses, as it is said, ‘When all the warriors among the people had died off…,’ (Deut 2:16) and what is written next? — ‘The LORD spoke to me, saying…’.”

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[VI] .‫ מה יעשו גדולי ואין הציבור נידון אלא אחר רובו‬,‫רבי יעקב בר אידי בשם רבי יהושע בן לוי‬ "‫ ה' הוא האלהים‬,‫שכן מצאנו שאילולא שאמרו ישראל בהר הכרמל "ה' הוא האלהים‬ .‫)מל"א יח( לא ירדה האש מן השמים ושרפה את הקרבנות‬ Rabbi Ya‘akov bar Idi [said] in the name of Rabbi Yehoshua‘ ben Levi, “What should the leaders of a generation do, given that the public is judged only according to its majority? Accordingly, we find that had Israel not said on Mount Carmel, ‘The LORD is God, the LORD is God’ (1 Kgs 18:39), fire would not have come down from Heaven and burnt the sacrifices.”

One tradition is attributed to HbH and the other to YbL. HbH’s statement focuses on the leader and the negative consequences of a culpable generation. Direct divine revelation was withheld from Moses as long as the wilderness generation was still alive.19 In contrast, YbL’s statement presents a community that engaged in introspection, repentance, and a mending of its ways, and thereby achieved positive results. The congregated public’s profession of allegiance while they were gathered on Mount Carmel is what made it possible for Elijah to prevail in his response to the challenge of Ba‘al worship. Each of those traditions is appropriate to the rabbis in the previous story. The Sepphoreans were a crowd whose “hearts are hard”, and HbH was powerless to help. The Southerners were a worthy community, and YbL declared a fast that had a successful conclusion. The two models of rabbi-community relations, one antagonistic the other cooperative, highlight an alternative to HbH’s duress and present the potential of more harmonious communal life.

* In this section of the PT, the narrative of HbH and the Sepphoreans is the first of three stories dealing with drought, communal ritual, and a rabbinic attempt to intervene. The Sepphoris narrative opens the series since it is directly connected to the Mishnah’s concept (see above). These are the two stories that follow:20

|| 19 Correlating HbH and Moses may imply a more barbed allegation. An unworthy community holds its leader back. In countering the Sepphoreans’ accusation, there is an implicit claim on the part of the rabbi against the community: he is being held back and paying a personal, spiritual price because his fellow towns-people are as delinquent as the biblical Zimri ben Salu. 20 y. Ta’an. 4:3 66d, ed. Academy of Hebrew Language, col. 720–21.

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‫ עאל ואמר‬.‫ עבד רבי עקיבה תעני' ונחת מיטרא‬.‫רבי ליעזר עבד תעני' ולא איתנחת מיטרא‬ ‫ אמשול לכם משל למה הדבר דומה? למלך שהיו לו שתי בנות אחת חצופה ואחת‬:‫קומיהון‬ ‫ יבון לה מה דהיא בעייא‬,‫ אימת דהות בעייא ההיא חציפתא עלת קומוי הוה אמר‬.‫כשירה‬ ‫ הוה מאריך רוחיה מתחמד מישמוע‬,‫ ואימת דהות ההיא כשירתא עלת קומוי‬.‫ותיזיל לה‬ .‫ ואית שרי מימור כן? אלא שלא לחלל שם שמים בי רבי אליעזר‬.‫שועתה‬ Rabbi Eliezer declared21 a fast and rain did not fall. Rabbi Akiva declared a fast and rain fell. He [Akiba] entered and said before them22 [an unidentified group], “I will offer you a parable, to what is this likened? To a king who had two daughters, one insolent/bold and the other proper/respectful. When the former would ask to enter before him [with a request], he would say “Grant her request so that she will leave.” When the latter would ask to enter before him, he would lengthen the audience [lit. extend his patience/spirit] desiring to listen to her voice/conversation.”23 And is it permitted to say so? [i.e. to imply that God was impatient with Akiba’s prayer/fast]. Rather, to avoid desecrating the name of Heaven because of Rabbi Eliezer.

,‫ מי עליל פגע ביה חד כותיי אמר ליה‬.‫רבי אחא עבד תלת עשרה תעניין ולא נחת מיטרא‬ ‫ חייו דההוא גברא שמייא מיעבד ניסין ושתא‬,‫ אמר ליה‬.‫רבי ר' עצור גולתך מן מיטרא‬ .‫ ומית ההוא כותייא‬,‫ ועבדון שמיא ניסין ואצלחת שתא‬.‫מצלחא וההוא גבר' לית הוא מיחי‬ .‫ איתון חמון פורין דשמש‬,‫והוון כל עמא אמרין‬ Rabbi Aha declared thirteen fasts24 and rain did not fall. As he went his way, he encountered a Cuthean [=Samaritan] who said to him, “Rabbi, Rabbi tighten your cloak on account of the rain.” He replied to him, “By the life of that man [euphemistic, indirect speech], Heavens will perform miracles, and the year will be successful, and that man will

|| After the two traditions dealing with the theme of a leader's dependence his constituency's merit (V, VI) – and before these two additional stories about rabbis and rainfall – the PT cites a tradition dealing with "Three things that God created, but pondered regarding their creation: Chaldeans, Ishmaelites, and the evil inclination" (a parallel in b. Sukkah 52b adds 'exile', see Benowitz, BT Sukkah IV and V, 585–86). The contexts for citing this tradition of Divine regret is unclear. It might be in concert with the relations between leaders and their charge; possibly God's remorse is tied to the scene of Elijah on the Carmel; perhaps the evil inclination is to be equated with idolatry and the priests of Baal on the Carmel. 21 ‫ עבד‬- declared/proclaimed/rendered a ruling, Sokoloff, Dictionary, 392 #9, #11. The Hebrew ‫ עשה‬has this sense as well, see Lieberman, Studies, 277–78; Newman, Ma’asim, 39–40. 22 ‫ עאל ואמר קומיהון‬- RA wants wide resonance for his response to counter the awkwardness of the contrasting results of the efforts of the two rabbis. 23 Compare a complementing metaphor also dealing with desired rainfall: “This may be likened to a slave that asks his master for a portion (of food), and he (the master) responds: ‘Give it to him so that I will not hear his voice’ (b. Ta’an. 25b, ed. Malter, 118). 24 See m. Ta’an. 1:6. Observing thirteen fasts became shorthand for a full ritual response to draught.

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not live.” And the Heavens performed miracles, and the year was successful, and that Cuthean died. All the people said, “Come see the bed/bier laid out in the sun.”25

Compiling these three stories in sequence indicates a conscious framing of an issue. The compilers assume, as a matter of course, that rabbis can cause rain to fall during a drought, and it is a rabbi’s inability to do so that requires explanation and clarification. In the first story, of HbH, the townspeople were angry because the rabbi refrained from bringing down rain for the town. The sage is forced to demonstrate publicly that the long-standing drought should be pegged on the community and not on him. In the second story, which deals with two Tannaim, Rabbi Eli‘ezer (RE) and Rabbi ‘Akiva (RA), the failure of the former’s fast leads into the parable of the king’s two daughters. The lesson implicit in RA’s explanation is that God’s desire for more of RE’s beseeching words is what prevented a positive response to them.26 In the third story, in response to the Samaritan’s ridicule, Rabbi Aḥa forsees that rain will indeed fall and that the Samaritan will pay for his public challenge. What these stories have in common is the tension between the expectation that a rabbi will be able to provide rain and the ongoing drought. The rabbinic storytellers expressed concern regarding the role of rabbis as rainmakers, whether the expectation was from society at large, or an internal expectation from themselves. Rainmaking is a highly profiled expertise, with an unequivocal test of the purported rainmaker’s power. This public and vulnerable profile is treated in each story in a different context of rabbinic activity: among themselves (RE and RA), within the Jewish community (HbH and the Sepphoreans), and vis-à-vis more distant figures of society around them (Aḥa and the Samaritan). And thus, the fashioning of a rabbi as a θεός άνήρ (see below), the expectation of the people around him, and the anxiety over ineffectual performance; all resonate throughout the different dimensions of rabbinic activity.

* The transition from a literary analysis to a social-historical description must account for the resonance that this narrative has with other developments and

|| 25 Alon suggests an emendation that would yield “See the bier of the Samaritan” (Jews, Judaism, 354–55 note 5). Compare the commentary of David Frankel, Korban Ha'edah ad locum, “Come and see the bier of the Cuthean laid out in the sun.” 26 Regarding this short story, see Fraenkel, Methods of Aggadah, 1:349–50; D. Levine, Communal Fasts, 157–58.

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tendencies that have been identified in the world of the rabbinic sages. Both inner perspectives and broader social and cultural contexts facilitate this analysis. The thorny issue of rabbinic biography encapsulates shifting paradigms in the scholarly interpretation of rabbinic texts and the historical settings within which this emerging strand of Judaism developed. Elsewhere, I have proposed to re-establish the challenge of talmudic biography, utilizing the perspective that situates the rabbis of Palestine in a multifaceted, and not necessarily rabbinic, Jewish society in late roman times; and employing the refined techniques of text interpretation and literary appreciation that have been developed over the past decades. Thus it is possible to engage in a critically defensible and interpretively meaningful discussion regarding people and events of the past; and assume that our sources, properly treated, can allow access – however partial – to this past. A skeptical dimension balances the desire to see some talmudic figures as knowable and prone to biographic perspective, with full recognition of the nature of the material and the type of discourse its facilitates.27 With Hanina bar Hama of third century Sepphoris, we are in the proverbial vicious circle having (almost) only talmudic sources at our disposal.28 How are we to disentangle the literary figure developed and portrayed by talmudic tradition, from the person who lived and functioned in mid-third century Galilee? The following three considerations point to an historical underpinning of the tension between HbH and his townspeople. Firstly, diverse texts refer to this complex relationship from different vantage points and with different interests. I will only refer here to the famous patriarchal “will and testament” found later on in this same tractate (y. Ta’an. 4:2 68a). There we hear of a patriarchal appointment withheld from HbH for political reasons, be they the objections of the Sepphoreans, or a falling out between HbH and Judah the Patriarch.29 Controversy around Hanina seems well attested in rabbinic tradition. Secondly, HbH is of Babylonian lineage, most likely an immigrant himself.30 This sets him up as an outsider. There would be a monitoring of his actions and suspicion of his || 27 D. Levine, “Talmudic Biography.” 28 “Almost,” because of a Hebrew inscription found in the Beit Shearim catacombs identifying one ‫ אנינא הקטן‬buried in Cave #14, which has the most data pointing in the direction of patriarchal circles, at the time of Judah the Patriarch. See Avigad, Beth She'arim, 62–65; L. Levine, “Bet Se’arim,” 210. 29 L. Levine, Rabbinic Class, 144; Hezser, Social Structure, 396; Miller, “Sepphoris and Diaspora,” 190–91; idem, Sages and Commoners, 96–100; D. Levine, “Talmudic Biography,” 56–63. 30 See y. Pe’ah 7:3, 20a.

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belonging to, and solidarity with local society. Any pretension of leadership or authority on his part would evoke misgivings and some type of resentment on the part of the indigenous community.31 Thirdly, the intensity, colorfulness, and tenacity of the strained relations, make it difficult (albeit not impossible) to assume that this picture is a literary construct with no origins in the lived experience of the rabbi and the people with which he interacted. The relations among the rabbis themselves (either HbH and YbL in our main story; or the RA and RE text incorporated in the larger sugya) allude to both collegiality and competition, which is implicit in the pairing of these figures. These various experiences of the rabbis present both tension between them and also, ideally, solidarity that they might share. This solidarity is delicate and cherished because of the protection it may provide the rabbi as he functions in a challenging ambience. Different types of relations between rabbi and community are present and can promote mutual concern in different contexts and locations.32 As in other instances, so too in the sources dealing with HbH and the Sepphoreans one can trace their formation and development and tentatively outline the ancient foundations that were established around the middle of the 3rd century. The tension between the sage and his townsfolk is not the result of a late discursive development of the story alone, in which the figure of the sage constitutes a metaphor or an example of possible challenges regarding sages in general. We can learn of a Babylonian sage who settled in Sepphoris and found himself embroiled in problematic relations with the local residents, whether because of his Babylonian foreignness, his views regarding his role in society, or his proximity to patriarchal power.

* In the context of rabbis among non-rabbis and their interaction with society at large, we have a depiction of a rabbinic protagonist within a community that expects his expertise (however defined) to be available. This anticipation of the rabbi’s imminent solution to the crisis creates tension when that leader refrains from intervening, or when opinions differ regarding an appropriate solution. A

|| 31 For historical discussions on HbH, see the literature cited in Miller, Sages and Commoners, 63 n. 102. Immigrants in Palestine, “olim,” were variously regarded, see Lieberman, “That is how it was”; Schwartz, “Tension”; idem, “Babylonian Commoners.” 32 L. Levine, Rabbinic Class, 55–59; Hezser, Social Structure, 228–254.

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refusal might have been ritual and educational, using the crisis to set a process in motion; the rabbi’s reticence might reflect a principle of non-intervention in the natural order; or the hesitation might have come from anxiety of performing in such a public arena. This literary depiction is aware of the public profile and exposure to other, challenging elements in society. This sensitivity reverberates through much of Palestinian talmudic tradition. Rabbinic compilations of the Land of Israel tend to cast their leading characters in dialogue and rivalry with other elements in Jewish society and beyond. There is a constant challenge to the rabbi as social leader and even as religious authority as he is presented in the traditions of rabbinic Palestine. This is strikingly different from the Babylonian Talmud (BT), where it is much rarer to find accounts of challenge and rivalry to rabbinic figures and their authority. This divide is markedly felt when comparing the short Babylonian story that parallels the complex Palestinian narrative of HbH and the Sepphoreans. The BT minimizes and dilutes the character of the wider non-rabbinic constituency that looms so forcefully in the Palestinian rendition. The centrality, almost exclusivity of the rabbinic figure in the Bavli leaves only a faint, vestigial echo of an unnamed group with whom he interacts. There is no parallel to HbH’s forceful public orations:33

‫ והא רבי יהושע בן לוי‬,‫ אמרו ליה‬.‫רבי חמא בר חנינא]![ גזר תעניתא ולא אתא מיטרא‬ ‫ דניתי וניכוין‬,‫ אמרו ליה‬.‫ הא אנא הא בר ליואי‬,‫ אמ' להו‬.‫גזר תעניתא ולא אתא מיטרא‬ '‫ אמ‬.‫ בעו רחמי ולא אתו מיטרא‬.‫דעתין איפשר דתברי ציבורא לבייהו דאאתי מיטרא‬ ‫ לא‬.‫ רקיע רקיע כסי פניך‬,‫ אמר‬,‫ הין‬,‫ אמרו ליה‬.‫ ניחא לכו שיבא מטר בשבילנו‬,‫להו‬ .‫ איכסי ואתא מיטרא‬.‫ כמה עזין פני רקיע‬,‫ אמר‬.‫איכסי‬ Rabbi [Hanina bar Hama]34 decreed a fast but rain did not fall. They said to him, “Has not Rabbi Yehoshua ben Levi decreed a fast and rain fell?” He said to them, “Here am I and here is the son of Levi.” He/they said to him, “We/he will come and direct/concentrate our minds/intent, perhaps the public will subdue (lit. break) their hearts so that rain may fall.”35 They prayed but rain did not fall. He/they said to them, “Is it acceptable to you that

|| 33 B. Ta’an. 25a. The text here is copied from the early Spanish printing of this talmudic tractate (Guadeljara, Spain 1476–1479? possibly the editio princeps, see Dimitrovsky, Sridei Bavli, 40–41); for variants see ed. Malter, The Treatise Ta‘anit, 114. 34 All manuscripts (but one) have “Hanina bar Hama” instead of “Hama bar Hanina.” The exception is the Yemenite manuscript (Yad Harav Herzog, Jerusalem) that accords here with the printed text. 35 Who is the speaker in this sentence? Is it HbH addressing YbL, inviting him to join the communal ritual; or is it the public collectively approaching YbL? The acronym ‫ א"ל‬or '‫אמ' לי‬ can be deciphered as ‫ אמר‬in the singular, or ‫אמרי‬/‫ אמרו‬in the plural. Also, the subject in the next sentence 'they prayed' is unclear; is it the two sages or the community as a whole? See

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rain will fall for us?” They said, “Yes.” He said, “Heavens heavens (lit. sky, sky) cover/hide you face.” They did not become covered (i.e. with clouds). He said, “How harsh is the appearance (lit. face) of heaven!” They became covered and rain fell.

The generic opening of our story36 comes in place of describing the tense relations between HbH and his townspeople as is laid out in the PT. Instead of the outspoken Sepphoreans of the Palestinian storyteller, what remains in the Babylonian version is a nameless group alluded to only by a pronoun: “They said”; “He said to them.” The focus of the Babylonian story is the ability of the two rabbis to cause rainfall. The option of “the public subduing their hearts” does not bring rain, and only on account of “us,” the two rabbis, does rain fall. Empowering the rabbinic figure relegates the literary role of the public as passive and in the background. The rabbinic fast-day oration as the locus of interaction between rabbi and community, prominent in the Palestinian story, is absent in this Babylonian iteration.37 HbH’s censure “How harsh is the face of heaven?” is the climactic ending of the story in the Bavli. This contrasts with the PT’s appended, discreet presentation of HbH’s prowess, well out of the public’s view, and set apart from the story’s main thrust. The Palestinian tradition has the rabbinic figure set in the midst of a spirited scene, sparring with a recalcitrant constituency. This jibes well with the composite picture emerging from the PT and early aggadic midrashim and contributes to placing the rabbis of the third and fourth centuries in a culturally varied Jewish society.38

* The image of the talmudic rabbi as a “holy man” interceding and mediating, as a matter of course and in times of crisis, has close parallels in pagan and Christian cultures. In the words of Peter Brown:

|| Malter, ibid. However, he uses the PT narrative to decide the correct text in the Bavli, which is conflating and problematic. 36 The opening formula “Such-and-such decreed a fast but rain did not fall” recurrs 10 times in this Babylonian sugya where stories and anecdotes regarding communal fasts are compiled and edited (b. Ta’an. 24b–25a). 37 A fast-day sermon is absent from all relevant depictions and narratives in the Babylonian Talmud, even where one is present in a Palestinian parallel. 38 See literature cited in note 3 above and D. Levine, “The Rabbi and his Audience” (forthcoming).

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In the period between 200 and 400, Mediterranean men came to accept, in increasing numbers and with increasing enthusiasm, the idea that divine power was represented on earth by a limited number of exceptional human agents, who had been empowered to bring it to bear among their fellows by reason of a relationship with the supernatural that as personal to them, stable and clearly perceptible to fellow believers.39

As Jewish religious life after 135 contended with the permanency of a destroyed temple and was receptive to other foci of religious expression, rabbinic circles and the synagogue and its leadership were joined by mystics, poets, tenacious priests, Jewish Christians/Christian Jews, and others less clearly defined to us. The foregrounding of the endowed individual—be he mystic, rabbi, or pious recluse—came as one of the anchoring developments in these first centuries after the destruction.40 HbH’s figure as a “holy-man” in our narrative is particularly telling as it places itself on the chronological cusp of a development in rabbinic selfportrayal. Morton Smith has pointed to the absence of the figure of rabbi-asmiracle-worker in the Mishnah and Tosefta, and its appearance as in the traditions of the Amoraim, where this figure is detailed and developed.41 This might reflect an inner rabbinic development: from an early desire to separate its religiosity and leadership aspirations from other such claimants including wonderworkers, to accommodating a more diversified form of leadership.42 However it may be, this dovetails with the broader turn from established religious institutions to endowed individuals, from temples to holy men. Nonetheless, the talmudic figure has a singular characteristic as it embeds itself in a charged social situation that challenges its authority and at the same time demands action. In our HbH text, the community is at odds with its “holy man.” While they want him to intercede, he presents himself as mere facilitator for the community that remains responsible for its own prospects. For the public, rabbinic aloofness is not an option; for the rabbi, the general shirking of culpability and duty is un-

|| 39 Brown, Making of Late Antiquity, 12. Brown's portrayal of the “Rise and Function of the Holy Man in Late Antiquity” has been seminal, both engendering critique and facilitating further inquiry (Brown, “Rise and Function”; idem, “Town, Village and Holy Man”). For a convenient summary of the critique, see Rousseau, “Ascetics as Mediators”; Kofski, “Byzantine Holy Person,” 261 n. 2. On the evolution of Brown's thought on the subject see Cameron, “Defining the Holy Man”; R. Kosiński, Holiness amd Power, 6–11. See Peter Brown's more recent syntheses of the issue in Cambridge Ancient History, 13:601–31; 14:781–810. 40 See the following studies and the literature cited: Kalmin, “Holy Men, Rabbis, and Demonic Sages”; D. Levine, “Rabbis and Holy Men,”; Safrai and Safrai, “Rabbinic Holy Men.” 41 Smith, Tannaitic Parallels to the Gospels, 51. 42 Green, “Palestinian Holy Men”; B.M. Bokser, “Wonder-Working.”

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thinkable. While we cannot prove that the story is of mid-third century provenance, the story-teller’s choice of HbH as his protagonist provides an articulation of an evolving rabbinic self-perception, confident both in its (potential) leadership and in its insistence on accountability from its constituency.

* One particular aggadic narrative has proven instructive when regarded rhetorically and analyzed historically. In moving from the literary to the social, from the inner-rabbinic to the broader societal, and then on to comparative dimensions, we ventured to focus on a specific place and time. In third century Sepphoris, rabbi and community played out their terms, as the world of the rabbis was in transition and a new religious reality was developing in the region. It is perhaps fitting to conclude with a placating portrayal of the communal regard for Rabbi Hanina bar Hama. A passage in the Palestinian Talmud (y. Baba Metzi’a 2:11, 8d) tells of his death in Sepphoris where “all the people rushed to attend to him (= to his funerary needs)” and Rabbi Yohanan, representing the upcoming generation, made a display of rending his Shabbat garments to heighten the honor due to his deceased master.

Bibliography Alexander, Philip. “Using Rabbinic Literature as a Source for the History of Late Roman Palestine.” Pages 7–24 in Rabbinic Texts and the History of the Late Roman Period. Edited by Martin Goodman and Philip Alexander. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010. Alon, Gedalyahu. Jews, Judaism, and the Classical World. Jerusalem: Magnes Press, Hebrew University, 1977. Assis, Moshe. A Concordance of Amoraic Terms, Expressions, and Phrases in the Yerushalmi [Hebrew]. 3 vols. Jerusalem and New York: Jewish Theological Seminary of America, 2010. Avigad, Nahman. Beth She'arim: Report on the Excavations during 1953–1958. Vol. 3. Jerusalem: Israel Exploration Society and Massada Press, 1976. Benowitz, Moshe. BT Sukkah Chapter IV and Chapter V with Comprehensive Commentary. Jerusalem: Society for the Interpretation of the Talmud, 2013. Berkhofer, Robert F. Beyond the Great Story, History as Text and Discourse, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1995. Bokser, Baruch “Wonder-Working and the Rabbinic Tradition: The Case of Hanina ben Dosa,” JSJ 16 (1985): 42–92. Brody, Robert. “‘Rabbinic’ and ‘Nonrabbinic’ Jews in Mishnah and Tosefta.” Pages 275–91 in The Faces of Torah; Studies in the Texts and Contexts of Ancient Judaism in Honor of Steven

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Fraade. Edited by Michal Bar-Asher Siegal et al. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2017. Brown, Peter. “The Rise and Function of the Holy Man in Late Antiquity.” JRS 41 (1971): 80–101. Brown, Peter. The Making of Late Antiquity. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1978. Brown, Peter. “Town, Village and Holy Man.” Pages 153–66 in Society and the Holy in Late Antiquity. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1982. Cameron, Averil M. “On Defining the Holy Man.” Pages 27–43 in Transformations of Late Antiquity: Essays for Peter Brown. Edited by Philip Rousseau and Manolis Papoutsakis. Farnham, UK: Ashgate, 2009. Clark, Elizabeth A. History, Theory, Text, Historians and the Linguistic Turn. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2004. Dimitrovsky, Hayim Z. Sridei Bavli: Mavo Biliographi Histori [Hebrew] (English title: Fragments from Spanish and Portuguese Incunabula and Sixteenth Century Printings of Babylonian Talmud and Alfasi). New York: Jewish Theological Seminary, 1979. Fonrobert, Charlotte E. “On ‘Carnal Israel’ and the Consequences: Talmudic Studies since Foucault.” JQR 95 (2005): 462–69. Fraenkel, Jonah. The Methods of Aggadah and Midrash [Hebrew]. 2 vols. Givatayim: Massada Press and Yad La-talmud, 1991. Ginzberg, Louis. Ginzei Schechter [Hebrew] (English title: Genizah Studies in Memory of Solomon Schechter), Vol. 1. New York: Jewish Theological Seminary, 1928. Green, William S. “Palestinian Holy Men: Charismatic Leadership and Rabbinic Tradition.” ANRW II.19.2 (1979): 619–47. Herr, Moshe D. “The Identity of the Jewish People before and after the Destruction of the Second Temple: Continuity or Change?” Pages 211–36 in Jewish Identities in Antiquity; Studies in Memory of Menahem Stern. TSAJ 130. Edited by Lee I. Levine and Daniel R. Schwartz. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2009. Hezser, Catherine. The Social Structure of the Rabbinic Movement in Roman Palestine. Tübingen: J. C. B. Mohr, 1997. Kalmin, Richard. “Holy Men, Rabbis, and Demonic Sages in Late Antiquity.” Pages 213–49 in Jewish Culture and Society under the Christian Roman Empire. Interdisciplinary Studies in Ancient Cultures and Religion 3. Edited by Richard Kalmin and Seth Schwartz. Leuven: Peeters, 2003. Kofski, Aryeh. “The Byzantine Holy Person: The Case of Barsanuphius and John of Gaza.” Pages 261–85 in Saints and Role Models in Judaism and Christianity. Jewish and Christian Perspectives 7. Edited by Marcel Poorthuis and Joshua J. Schwartz. Leiden: Brill, 2004. Kosiński, Rafał. Holiness and Power, Constantinopolitan Holy Men and Authority in the 5th Century. Millennium-Studien 57. Berlin; Boston: De Gruyter, 2016. Lapin, Hayim. Rabbis as Romans; The Rabbinic Movement in Palestine, 100–400 C.E. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012. Lavee, Moshe. “Rabbinic Literature and the History of Judaism in Late Antiquity.” Pages 319–51 in Rabbinic Texts and the History of the Late Roman Period. Edited by Martin Goodman and Philip Alexander. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010. Levine, David. Communal Fasts and Rabbinic Sermons [Hebrew]. Tel Aviv: HaKibbutz Hameuchad, 2001. Levine, David. “Rabbis and Holy Men in Talmudic Antiquity.” Pages 45–47 in Saints and Role Models in Judaism and Christianity. Edited by Marcel Poorthuis and Joshua J. Schwartz. Leiden: Brill, 2004.

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Levine, David. “Between Leadership and Marginality: Models for Evaluating the Role of the Rabbis in the Early Centuries CE.” Pages 195–209 in Jewish Identities in Antiquity; Studies in Memory of Menahem Stern. TSAJ 130. Edited by Lee I. Levine and Daniel R. Schwartz. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2009. Levine, David. “Is Talmudic Biography Still Possible?” [Hebrew]. Jewish Studies 46 (2009): 41– 64. Levine, David. “Rabbis, Preachers, and Aggadists: an Aspect of Jewish Culture in Third and Fourth Century Palestine.” Pages 279–94 in Studies in Jewish History and Culture in Honor of Lee I. Levine. Edited by Zeev Weiss et al. Winona Lake, ID: Eisenbrauns, 2010. Levine, David. “The Rabbi and his Audience.” (forthcoming). Levine, Lee I. The Rabbinic Class of Roman Palestine in Late Antiquity. Jerusalem: Yad Izhak Ben-Zvi, 1989. Levine, Lee I. “Bet Se’arim in its Patriarchal Context.” Pages 197–225 in “The Words of a Wise Man’s Mouth are Gracious” (Qoh 10,12): Festschrift for Günter Stemberger on the occasion of his 65th birthday. SJ 32. Edited by Mauro Perani. Berlin: De Gruyter, 2005. Lieberman Saul. Studies in Palestinian Talmudic Literature, Jerusalem: Magnes Press, 1991. Lieberman Saul. “‘That is how it was and that is how shall be: The Jews of Eretz Israel and World Jewry during Mishnah and Talmud Times” [Hebrew]. Cathedra 17 (1980): 3–10. Malter, Henry. The Treatise Ta‘anit of the Babylonian Talmud [Hebrew]. New York: American Academy for Jewish Research, 1930. Miller, Stuart S. “R. Hanina Bar Hama at Sepphoris.” Pages 175–200 in The Galilee in Late Antiquity. Edited by Lee I. Levine. New York: Jewish Theological Seminary of America, 1992. Miller, Stuart S. “Those Cantankerous Sepphoreans Revisited.” Pages 543–73 in Ki Baruch hu: ancient Near Eastern, biblical, and Judaic studies in honor of Baruch A. Levine. Edited by Robert Chazan et al. Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 1999. Miller, Stuart S. “Sepphoris and the Diaspora; The Ongoing Influence of a Galilean Talmudic Center” [Hebrew]. Pages 189–216 in Center and Diaspora. Edited by Isaiah M. Gafni. Jerusalem: Zalman Shazar Center, 2004, Miller, Stuart S. Sages and Commoners in Late Antique ʼErez Israel. Texts and Studies in Ancient Judaism 111. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2006. Miller, Stuart S. “The Study of Talmudic Israel and/or Roman Palestine: Where Matters Stand.” Pages 433–54 in The Faces of Torah; Studies in the Texts and Contexts of Ancient Judaism in Honor of Steven Fraade. Edited by Michal Bar-Asher Siegal et al. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2017. Newman, Hillel I. “The Normativity of Rabbinic Judaism: Obstacles on the Path to a New Consensus.” Pages 165–71 in Jewish Identities in Antiquity; Studies in Memory of Menahem Stern. TSAJ 130. Edited by Lee I. Levine and Daniel R. Schwartz. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2009. Newman, Hillel I. The Ma‘asim of the People of the Land of Israel: Halakhah and History in Byzantine Palestine [Hebrew]. Jerusalem: Yad Ben-Zvi, 2011. Rousseau, Philip. “Ascetics as Mediators and as Teachers.” Pages 45–59 in Transformations of Late Antiquity: Essays for Peter Brown. Edited by Philip Rousseau and Manolis Papoutsakis. Farnham, UK: Ashgate, 2009. Safrai, Chaim and Zeev Safrai. “Rabbinic Holy Men.” Pages 59–78 in Saints and Role Models in Judaism and Christianity. Edited by Marcel Poorthuis and Joshua J. Schwartz. Leiden: Brill, 2004.

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Schremer, Adiel. “The Religious Orientation of Non-Rabbis in Second-Century Palestine: A Rabbinic Perspective.” Pages 319–41 in Studies in Jewish History and Culture in Honor of Lee I. Levine. Edited by Zeev Weiss, et al. Winona Lake, ID: Eisenbrauns, 2010. Schwartz, Joshua. “Tension between Palestinian Scholars and Babylonian Olim in Amoraic Palestine.” JSJ 11 (1980): 78–94. Schwartz, Joshua. “Babylonian Commoners in Amoraic Palestine.” JAOS 101 (1981): 317–322. Schwartz, Seth. Imperialism and Jewish Society, 200 B.C.E. to 640 C.E. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2001. Schwartz, Seth. “Historiography on the Jews in the ‘Talmudic Period’ (70–640 CE).” Pages 79– 114 in The Oxford Handbook of Jewish Studies. Edited by Martin Goodman. Oxford: Oxford University Press 2002. Secunda, Shai. “Gaze and Counter Gaze, Textuality and Contextuality in the Anecdote of Rav Assi and the Roman (b. Baba Mesiʿa 28b).” Pages 149–71 in The Aggada of the Bavli and its Cultural World. BJS 362. Edited by Geoffrey Herman and Jeffrey L. Rubenstein. Providence, RI: Brown Judaic Studies, 2018. Smith, Morton. Tannaitic Parallels to the Gospels. Philadelphia: Society of Biblical Literature, 1951. Sokoloff, Michael. A Dictionary of Jewish Palestinian Aramaic of the Byzantine Period. Ramat Gan: Bar Ilan University Press, 1990. Spiegel, Gabrielle M. ed. Practicing History, New Directions in Historical Writing after the Linguistic Turn. New York: Routledge, 2005. Sussman, Yaacov. Thesaurus of Talmudic Manuscripts [Hebrew]. 3 vols. Jerusalem: Friedberg Genizah Project and Yad Ben-Zvi, 2012. Tropper, Amram. Rewriting Ancient Jewish History: The History of the Jews in Roman Times and the New Historical Method. New York: Routledge, 2016.

Alona Lisitsa

Whom to Remember: Sarah or Noah? Abstract: In the rabbinic texts, two verses from Genesis are mentioned as possible candidates to be included in the blessing of Zikhronot for Rosh Hashana: Gen 8:1 and 21:1. In reality, however, only one of these (8:1) was actually included in the blessing, while the other (21:1) became an opening part of the traditional Torah reading for the first day of Rosh Hashana. In this article, I discuss some differences between these verses as alternative candidates from the book of Genesis for inclusion in the Zikhronot blessing and offer some thoughts on the exclusion of the verse about Sarah from the blessing. Keywords: Noah, public fasts, remembrance, Rosh Hashanah, Sarah, Zikhronot blessing The Amidah (the Eighteen Benedictions prayer) is a central component of every Jewish service and is said three times daily.1 On the weekdays, it actually comprises nineteen blessings, despite its name. On Shabbat and festivals, there are only seven blessings in this prayer. While the first three and the last three blessings remain the same as during the weekdays, the central fourth blessing, the “Sanctification of the Day” (Qdushat haYom) is different for Shabbat and for the festivals and reflects the uniqueness of the day. On Rosh Hashanah (New Year), during the additional service (Mussaf), recited as a fourth service on the festival, three special blessings are added to the festive Amidah of seven blessings. These special blessings, Malkhuyot (“Kingships”), Zikhronot (“Remembrances”), and Shofarot,2 are mentioned explicitly for the first time only in the Tannaitic literature. Unlike the rest of the rabbinic blessings, which are original texts composed for their designated liturgical purpose, these three special blessings are comprised of biblical verses3 connected to the theme encapsulated in their title.4

|| 1 On Shabbat, New Moon (Rosh Chodesh) and festivals, the Amidah is recited four times during the day, and on Yom Kippur, five. 2 Goldschmidt, Makhzor; Heinemann, The Order, 258–67; Heinemann, Studies, 54–72; Finkelstein, The Development, 1–43; Tabory, Malkhuyot, 30–34; Mack, Introduction, 67–78. 3 See m. Rosh Hash. 4:6 regarding the number of the verses in the blessings. 4 Levine, Communal Fasts, 82–96; and Levine, Temple Prayer, 95–112. Levine assumes that since Temple times the ancient structure of the blessings was comprised of the biblical verses. According to Heinemann, the rabbis’ preference for the biblical verses demonstrates their https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110630282-017

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This article concentrates on the second special blessing, Zikhronot (“Remembrances”), and the verses from the book of Genesis it includes. The Zikhronot blessing focuses on God’s remembering His covenant with the Jewish people throughout its history. The biblical verses included in this blessing refer, among other themes, to God’s remembering Noah, the children of Israel in Egyptian bondage, and God’s covenant with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. According to the rabbinic tradition, God judges His creatures on Rosh Hashanah, and accordingly, through the blessing of Zikhronot, the good memories of the people of Israel and its ancestors are presented before the Divine Judge in order to encourage Him to judge His people favorably. In the rabbinic texts, two verses from Genesis are mentioned as possible candidates to be included in the blessing of Zikhronot for Rosh Hashanah: Gen 8:1 and 21:1. In reality, however, only one of these (8:1) was actually included in the blessing, while the other (21:1) became an opening part of the traditional Torah reading for the first day of Rosh Hashanah. The verse that found its way into the blessing refers to God remembering Noah:

ַ ‫וַ יִּ זְ כֹּר ֱא ִהים ֶאת ֹנ ַ וְ ֵאת ָכּל ַה ַחיָּ ה וְ ֶאת ָכּל ַה ְבּ ֵה ָמה ֲא ֶשׁר ִאתּוֹ ַבּ ֵתּ ָבה וַ יַּ ֲ ֵבר ֱא ִהים רוּ‬ .(‫ א‬:‫ )בר' ח‬:‫ַ ל ָה ָא ֶרץ וַ יָּ שׁ ֹכּוּ ַה ָמּיִ ם‬ And God remembered Noah and all the animals and all the cattle that were with him in the ark, and God caused a wind to blow across the earth, and the waters subsided (Gen 8:1).

The verse that became part of the Torah reading talks about God taking note of Sarah:

.(‫ א‬:‫ )בר' כא‬:‫וַ ה' ָפּ ַקד ֶאת ָשׂ ָרה ַכּ ֲא ֶשׁר ָא ָמר וַ יַּ ַ שׂ ה' ְל ָשׂ ָרה ַכּ ֲא ֶשׁר ִדּ ֵבּר‬ And God took note of Sarah as He had said, and God did to Sarah as He had spoken (Gen 21:1).

In this article, I discuss some differences between these verses as alternative candidates from the book of Genesis for inclusion in the Zikhronot blessing and offer some thoughts on the exclusion of the verse about Sarah from the blessing. A liturgical unit consisting of the Zikhronot and Shofarot blessings was probably already in use in the Temple worship for the public fast services dur-

|| reluctance to create prayers and “to declare the praise of the Holy One, blessed be He…” (b. Meg. 18a), since their generation was unworthy of the task of creating prayers. Accordingly, they preferred to quote biblical verses. See Heinemann, Prayer, 59–60.

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ing the Second Temple period.5 In the second chapter of the Mishnah, Ta’anit—a tractate dealing with fasts—these two blessings are described as the first of the six additional blessings introduced into the daily Amidah prayer on the days declared as public fasts. Although the Mishnah does not reveal the full text of the six blessings, nor the biblical verses they include, it describes their general structure. All the additional blessings for the fast days, including Zikhronot and Shofarot, are comprised of three parts: a section of the biblical verses; a concluding part evoking a biblical figure who was heard by God and saved; and a concluding rabbinic formula or seal (hatimah): “Blessed are You Eternal who....” While there is no record of the biblical verses used,6 the concluding parts of all the blessings are similarly structured: “May He, who answered X7 [a biblical figure], answer you….” So, for the blessing of Zikhronot the final part according to the Mishnah is as follows:

‫על השניה הוא אומר מי שענה את אבותינו על ים סוף הוא יענה אתכם‬... (‫ד‬:‫ תענית ב‬,'‫ )מ‬...‫וישמע קול צעקתכם היום הזה ברוך אתה ה’ זוכר הנשכחות‬ …To the second he shall say, “May He who answered our fathers on the Red Sea, answer you, and listen to the voice of your outcry this day. Blessed are You, Eternal, who remembers all the forgotten...” (m. Ta’an. 2:4).

According to the Mishnah, the theme of God remembering us is represented by God’s answering our ancestors’ cry for help at the Red Sea after the exodus from Egypt. The seal (hatimah) of the blessing alludes to the “forgotten” children of Israel in Egypt. The next paragraph in this chapter (m. Ta’an. 2:5) reports the tradition of reciting the blessings without the congregation answering “Amen,” followed by the blowing of the shofar after each one. When the sages heard about this practice, they said it was a practice in the Temple and not outside of it (m. Ta’an. 2:5). This response proves that the tradition of the blessings goes back to the Temple era.8 Within the context of our discussion concerning the Zikhronot blessing (as well as Malkhuyot and Shofarot), another important requirement is that no bib|| 5 Levine, Temple Prayer, 102–8. 6 Heinemann, Prayer, 47. Heinemann argues that the Mishnah states the general rules while each individual could make his own choice of the verses. 7 All the biblical figures mentioned there are male: Abraham, our fathers, Joshua, Samuel, Elijah, Jonah, David and Solomon. 8 Cf. t. Ta’an. 1:11–13; b. Ta’an. 16b.

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lical verse associated with calamity should be mentioned in the blessing (m. Rosh Hash. 4:6). The discussion about the individual verses that might be used for the blessings appear in the Tosefta:

"‫ "פקד פקדתי אתכם‬,(‫א‬:‫ שנ' "ה' פקד את שרה וגו" )בר' כא‬,‫ כזכרונות‬9‫פקדונות‬ ...‫ לא היה אומרן עמהן‬:‫ אומרן עם הזכרונות רבי יהודה אומר‬:'‫ ר' יוסה אומ‬.(‫טז‬:‫)שמ' ג‬ .(‫יג‬:‫)ת' ראש השנה ב‬ Pikdonot [“taking note,” “recalling”] are like Zikhronot [“remembering”] as it is said “God took note of Sarah,” (Gen 25:1) “I have taken note of you” (Exod 3:16). Rabbi Yosey says: One recites them [the verses] with the Zikhronot [blessing]. Rabbi Yehuda says: One should not say them within [the blessing] (t. Rosh Hash. 2:13).

The verse regarding Sarah is quoted here as an illustration of the rule that “pikdonot” (“taking note”) counts as “zikhronot” (“remembrances”) for the purpose of their use as part of the blessing. However, this halakah also reports a difference of opinion between the rabbis: Rabbi Yosey says that the verse could be included in the blessing of Zikhronot while Rabbi Yehuda disagrees.10 The Babylonian Talmud provides the reason for the rabbinic disagreement about the verse:

"‫ וכגון "פקוד פקדתי אתכם‬,(‫א‬:‫ כגון "וה' פקד את שרה" )בר' כ‬,‫פקדונות הרי הן כזכרונות‬ .‫ דברי רבי יוסי‬, (‫טז‬:‫)שמ' ג‬ .‫ אינן כזכרונות‬:‫רבי יהודה אומר‬ .‫ פקדון דיחיד הוא‬,"‫ נהי נמי דפקדונות הרי הן כזכרונות "וה' פקד את שרה‬,‫לרבי יוסי‬ 11.(‫ לב ע”ב‬,‫ ראש השנה‬,'‫כיון אתו רבים מינה כרבים דמיא )ב‬ Pikdonot are equivalent to zikhronot, for example: “And God took note of [pakad] Sarah” and, for example: “I have taken note of [pakadeti] you,” these are the words of Rabbi Yosey. Rabbi Yehuda says: They [pikdonot] are not equivalent to [verses of] remembrances. [But even] according to the opinion of Rabbi Yosey, although verses that speak of God taking note of a person [pikdonot] are equivalent to verses of remembrances [zikhronot], the verse: “And God took notice of Sarah,” is taking note of an individual [and therefore, it

|| 9 The verb ‫( פקד‬pakad) in Hebrew has various associated meanings, including: “to remember” [“to take note of”], “to visit,” “to be present,” “to command,” and “to count.” 10 This is not the only halakah Rabbi Yosey and Rabbi Yehuda disagree over in the context of the special blessings for Rosh Hashanah. See t. Rosh Hash. 2:13–14. 11 The text from b. Rosh Hash. is cited according the New York manuscript (JTS), EMC, 270, the Maagarim website of the Academy of the Hebrew Language. https://maagarim.hebrewacademy.org.il/Pages/PMain.aspx?mishibbur=80019&mm15=0000000000000002XX.

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does not count for the blessing of Zikhronot as it was stated above that a remembrance must refer to the collective]. [It is proper] since many descendants came from her, she is considered like many (b. Rosh Hash. 32b).

According to the Talmud, the verse about God remembering Sarah could be also rejected on the grounds that the remembrances that qualify for the blessing should be public— the remembrances of many— rather than because it uses the word “pikdonot” and not the word “zikhronot.” According to the Talmud, Rabbi Yosey may have responded that while he might accept this general rule, he holds Sarah as one of the matriarchs of the nation, and accordingly her remembrance by God equals the remembrance of many. Another Barayta found in the Talmud strengthens the connection between Sarah and Rosh Hashanah:

‫ י‬,‫ ראש השנה‬,'‫בראש השנה נפקדה שרה רחל וחנה )ב‬... :‫תניא רבי אליעזר אומר‬ .(‫ע”ב‬ Rabbi Eliezer taught: … on Rosh Hashanah Sarah, Rachel, and Hannah were remembered by God [and conceived] (b. Rosh Hash.10b).

According to the text above Sarah and some other matriarchs, who had been barren, conceived their sons on Rosh Hashanah, as they had been promised by God. Therefore, it seems only proper to mention the verse in the blessing of Zikhronot. It describes an event that occurred precisely on Rosh Hashanah; the word “pikdonot” (“taking note”) which is equivalent to “zikhronot” (“remembering”) is explicitly mentioned in the verse; though an individual, Sarah is a matriarch, and thus remembering her being blessed with the child is tantamount to recalling the continuity of the Jewish people in general. Despite all these arguments, the verse was not included in the Zikhronot blessing, following the opinion of Rabbi Yehuda. Nevertheless, it did find its way into the Rosh Hashanah liturgy as a part of the Torah reading. The Torah reading for the first day of Rosh Hashanah (Gen 21:1–34) begins with this verse and continues to recount the story of God remembering Sarah, the birth of Isaac, and expulsion of Hagar and Ishmael.12 Therefore, although the verse about remembering Sarah is mentioned in the rabbinic literature as a candidate for two liturgical functions during Rosh

|| 12 This tradition is already recorded in t. Meg. 3:6 along with another traditional reading from Lev 23 which is also mentioned in m. Meg. 3:5. The Mishnah does not mention the reading from Genesis while the Tosefta mentions both readings. Similarly, the Mishnah does not specify which verses could be used for the special blessings of Rosh Hashanah while the Tosefta does.

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Hashanah (i.e., the Zikhronot blessing and the Torah reading) it was ultimately adopted in only one of these functions. Conversely, the verse about God remembering Noah was included in the Zikhronot blessing:

‫וַ יִּ זְ כֹּר ֱא ִהים ֶאת ֹנ ַ וְ ֵאת ָכּל ַה ַחיָּ ה וְ ֶאת ָכּל ַה ְבּ ֵה ָמה ֲא ֶשׁר ִאתּוֹ ַבּ ֵתּ ָבה וַ יַּ ֲ ֵבר ֱא ִהים‬ (‫א‬:‫ )בר' ח‬:‫רוּ ַ ַ ל ָה ָא ֶרץ וַ יָּ שׁ ֹכּוּ ַה ָמּיִ ם‬ And God remembered Noah and all the animals and all the cattle that were with him in the ark, and God caused a wind to blow across the earth, and the waters subsided (Gen 8:1).

This verse has not been mentioned in the rabbinic texts as an option for the Zikhronot blessing.13 Although it includes the word “remembered” (which makes it an appropriate candidate for the blessing) the Talmudic rule applied above regarding the verse about Sarah could also be applied here: the verse refers to the remembering of an individual. Interestingly, there is no discussion in the rabbinic texts suggesting that the question raised about Sarah was also mentioned with regard to Noah.14 Like the verse about Sarah (Gen 21:1), this verse (Gen 8:1) about Noah can also easily be interpreted as implying the remembering of many: Noah was not alone in his ark rather with his wife, their sons, and their wives; moreover, the verse mentions “all the animals and all the cattle” that were there with Noah. And, like Sarah, Noah is a father of many as he is the father of the new humanity after the flood. The interpretation that views Noah and the animals as remembered together by God seems closely connected to the rabbinic understanding of Rosh Hashanah as a day of universal judgment for all creatures, as reflected in the Mishnah:

‫ שנ’ היוצר‬15,‫ובראש השנה כל באי העולם עוברים לפניו כבנומרון‬... || 13 See Lieberman, Commentary, 1056. He states that Tosafot, Bikkurim interpreted t. Rosh Hash. 2: 4 as also referring to this verse. This halakah discusses the verses about the covenant of rainbow in Gen 9, where the verb “to remember” occurs in verses 15 and 16. Should they be treated as one unit or as individual verses? Rabbi Yehuda holds as the latter: “The first ones”— on their own and “the second ones”—on their own.” According to the Tosafot mentioned above, “the first ones” refers to Gen 8:1 and “the second ones” to Gen 9:15–16. 14 This may be a reflection of gender bias: the rabbis do not have any difficulty in perceiving Noah, a man, as the father of many, while this same perspective about a female, Sarah, is something they need to ask about and re-confirm. The female is always an individual, while the male is perceived as “us,” even though Noah is gentile while Sarah is Jewish. 15 In the Parma manuscript, “‫( ”בני מרון‬bney maron); in the Tosefta, Berlin manuscript and in the first printed edition, “‫( ”כבני מרון‬like/as bney maron), and in the Vienne manuscript “‫”נומרין‬

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(‫ב‬:‫ א‬,‫ ראש השנה‬,'‫ )מ‬16;‫יחד לבם המבין אל כל מעשיהם‬ …On Rosh Hashanah, all the world [lit. all those who come into the world, the creatures] pass before Him as in Numeron, as it says, “He that fashioned the hearts of them all, that considers all their doings” (Ps 33:15) (m. Rosh Hash. 1:2). Another possible connection between Noah and Rosh Hashanah may be found in the Book of Jubilees: And on the first day of the first month and on the first day of the fourth month, and on the first day of the seventh month, and on the first day of the tenth month are the days of remembrance, and the days of the seasons in the four divisions of the year… And on the first day of the first month he [Noah] was bidden to make for himself an ark, and on that (day) the earth became dry and he opened (the ark) and saw the earth…And on the first day of the seventh month all the mouths of the abysses of the earth were opened, and the waters began to descend into them… (Jub. 6:23–27). 17

According to this story, Rosh Hashanah is one of the four days of remembrance that divide the year into four equal parts, or seasons (tekufot). Rosh Hashanah, according to the Book of Jubilees, is the day when the waters of the flood began to dry as God remembered His promise to Noah. Although God had established the order of the seasons and the events according to God’s word, Noah was the first human to celebrate the day along with other three days of remembrance as the day when God remembered him and stopped the flood for his sake. Moreover, as the father of humankind, Noah is the one who established the first celebration of the date; this seems to be congruent with the rabbinic perception of Rosh Hashanah as a universal new year and day of judgment for all creatures. On the other hand, this verse may be understood as connected too closely to the painful remembrance of humans’ sins, Divine affirmation that humans are evil, and the following calamity of the flood and total destruction of all creatures, since the above-mentioned text of the Mishnah (m. Rosh Hash. 4: 6) views these as a memory not fitting the spirit of Rosh Hashanah. Even though Noah || (Numeron). In the Mishnah cited in Talmud Yerushalmi, Leiden manuscript “‫( ”כבנו מרון‬like/as bno meron). See Epstein, Introduction to the Mishna Style, 722; Epstein, Introduction to Tannaitic Literature, 368; and Lieberman, Commentary, 1022–23. According to both Epstein and Lieberman, the versio “‫( ”כבנומרון‬like/as in Numeron, ([Νουµερον]) is the correct one in the meaning “like a military unit” or “as in the military unit.” See also: b. Rosh Hash. 18a: “as corps of the King David” (‫)כחילות של בית דוד‬. The Talmud discusses the expression “‫ ”כבני מרון‬and gives three options: like the sheep, like the heights of Beit Maron (according to Reish Lakish) and like David's corps (according to Shmuel). 16 The Mishnah is cited according to the Kaufman manuscript. 17 Kugel, “Jubilees,” 315–16.

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was saved, all the rest of humanity was judged to perish. Therefore, it seems rather surprising that such a verse would be included in the blessing of Zikhronot. But in its original context, as a blessing for the public fasts, the blessing of Zikhronot might have included the verse about Noah as very relevant and fitting. In the midst of the destruction, which seems to be the end of Creation as well as the end of humanity, God remembers His promise to Noah and stops the flood. In the context of a public fast issued in the case of famine, drought or any other severe distress, the verse about God answering Noah, in the midst of the catastrophic destruction by the flood, reflects an optimistic note. God answers all, God’s mercy is universal and even when the world seems to end;18 hence, one still might pray and hope for the divine intervention. Another indication of Noah’s verse having been a first verse of the ancient Zikhronot blessing comes from the blessing’s poetic introduction for Rosh Hashanah, “You remember” (Ata zokher). Many expressions used in this poetic introduction could be traced to both Talmuds, Yerushalmi and Bavli,19 with many of them attributed to Rav.20 This introduction is known in its form starting from the Seder of Rav Amram Gaon. While the text primarily speaks of God remembering the world and all its creatures, towards the end it switches to Noah in particular. It seems that the author or authors of this text made an intentional connection to the first biblical verse to follow, namely Gen 8:1, even though the rest of the verses and the seal of the blessing remained unconnected.21 The very last lines of the poetic introduction exhibit compliance with the Talmudic requirement that the remembrance should be collective and not individual and hint that remembering Noah was not for his sake alone:

.‫צוּרי ֶק ֶדם‬ ֵ ְ‫וּפוֹקד ָכּל י‬ ֵ ‫עוֹלם‬ ָ ‫זוֹכר ַמ ֲ ֵשׂה‬ ֵ ‫ַא ָתּה‬ .‫אשׁית‬ ִ ‫ְל ָפנֶ י נִ גְ לוּ ָכּל ַתּ ֲ לוּמוֹת וַ ֲהמוֹן נִ ְס ָתּרוֹת ֶשׁ ִמּ ְבּ ֵר‬ . ‫בוֹד וְ ֵאין נִ ְס ָתּר ִמנֶּ גֶ ד ֵ ינֶ י‬ ֶ ‫ִכּי ֵאין ִשׁ ְכ ָחה ִל ְפנֵ י ִכ ֵסּא ְכ‬ || 18 At the end of the flood, God promises Noah that He will never again destroy all of humankind and the rainbow is a sign of this covenant or promise. Therefore, it seems that Gen 9:15– 16, which speaks of God's merciful promise, would be more suitable for the Rosh Hashanah liturgy. Once again, it seems that the verse (8:1) which is more closely connected to the trouble and miraculous salvation from it, is a remnant and reminder of Zikhronot blessing when it was part of the liturgy for public fasts. 19 See y. Rosh Hash. 1:3 [57a] and y. Avod. Zar. 1:2 [39c]; b. Rosh Hash. 27a. 20 Rav is a Babylonian Amora of the first generation (the second or third century CE). See Elbogen, Jewish Liturgy, 119–20. Elbogen argues that for the possibility that Rav may have instituted all the poetic introductions to the three special blessings for Rosh Hashanah. 21 See Elbogen, Jewish Liturgy, 119–20.

Whom to Remember: Sarah or Noah? | 281

. ָ‫ וְ גַ ם ָכּל ַהיְ צוּר לֹא נִ ְכ ַחד ִמ ֶמּךּ‬.‫זוֹכר ֶאת ָכּל ַה ִמּ ְפ ָ ל‬ ֵ ‫ַא ָתּה‬ .‫וּמ ִבּיט ַ ד סוֹף ָכּל ַהדּוֹרוֹת‬ ַ ‫צוֹפה‬ ֶ ,‫ַהכֹּל גָּ לוּי וְ יָ דוּ ַ ְל ָפנֶ י ה’ ֱא ֵהינוּ‬ .‫ִכּי ָת ִביא חוֹק זִ ָכּרוֹן ְל ִה ָפּ ֵקד ָכּל רוּ ַ וָ נָ ֶפשׁ‬ .‫ְל ִהזָּ ֵכר ַמ ֲ ִשׂים ַר ִבּים וַ ֲהמוֹן ְבּ ִריּוֹת ְל ֵאין ַתּ ְכ ִלית‬ .‫ית‬ ָ ‫אוֹתהּ גִּ ִל‬ ָ ‫וּמ ְלּ ָפנִ ים‬ ִ ,‫הוֹד ְ ָתּ‬ ָ ‫אשׁית ָכּז ֹאת‬ ִ ‫ֵמ ֵר‬ .‫ זִ ָכּרוֹן ְליוֹם ִראשׁוֹן‬, ‫זֶ ה ַהיּוֹם ְתּ ִח ַלּת ַמ ֲ ֶשׂי‬ :‫ִכּי חוֹק ְליִ ְשׂ ָר ֵאל הוּא ִמ ְשׁ ָפּט ֵלא ֵהי יַ ֲ קֹב‬ :‫וְ ַ ל ַה ְמּ ִדינוֹת בּוֹ יֵ ָא ֵמר‬ ,‫שּבע‬ ַ ‫ וְ ֵאיזוֹ ָל‬,‫ ֵאיזוֹ ָל ָר ָ ב‬,‫ וְ ֵאיזוֹ ַל ָשּׁלוֹם‬,‫ֵאיזוֹ ַל ֶח ֶרב‬ .‫וּב ִריּוֹת בּוֹ יִ ָפּ ֵקדוּ ְל ַהזְ ִכּ ָירם ְל ַחיִּ ים וְ ַל ָמּוֶ ת‬ ְ .‫ ִכּי זֵ ֶכר ָכּל ַהיְ צוּר ְל ָפנֶ י ָבּא‬.‫ִמי לֹא נִ ְפ ַקד ְכּ ַהיּוֹם ַהזֶּ ה‬ .‫וּפ ֻק ָדּתוֹ וַ ֲ ִלילוֹת ִמ ְצ ֲ ֵדי גָ ֶבר‬ ְ ‫ַמ ֲ ֵשׂה ִאישׁ‬ .‫בּוּלוֹתיו וְ יִ ְצ ֵרי ַמ ַ ְל ֵלי ִאישׁ‬ ָ ‫ַמ ְח ְשׁבוֹת ָא ָדם וְ ַת ְח‬ , ‫וּבן ָא ָדם יִ ְת ַא ֶמּץ ָבּ‬ ֶ , ָ‫ַא ְשׁ ֵרי ִאישׁ ֶשׁלֹּא יִ ְשׁ ָכּ ֶחךּ‬ . ‫חוֹסים ָבּ‬ ִ ‫ וְ ל ֹא יִ ָכּ ְלמוּ ָלנֶ ַצח ָכּל ַה‬,‫עוֹלם ל ֹא יִ ָכּ ֵשׁלוּ‬ ָ ‫ ְל‬, ‫דוֹר ֶשׁי‬ ְ ‫ִכּי‬ .‫דוֹרשׁ ַמ ֲ ֵשׂה ֻכּ ָלּם‬ ֵ ‫ִכּי זֵ ֶכר ָכּל ַה ַמּ ֲ ִשׂים ְל ָפנֶ י ָבּא וְ ַא ָתּה‬ .‫וְ גַ ם ֶאת ֹנ ַ ְבּ ַא ֲה ָבה זָ ַכ ְר ָתּ‬ ,‫וַ ִתּ ְפ ְק ֵדהוּ ִבּ ְד ַבר יְ שׁוּ ָ ה וְ ַר ֲח ִמים‬ .‫יהם‬ ֶ ‫יא ֶאת ֵמי ַה ַמּבּוּל ְל ַשׁ ֵחת ָכּל ָבּ ָשׂר ִמ ְפּנֵ י רוֹ ַ ַמ ַ ְל ֵל‬ ֲ ‫ַבּ ֲה ִב‬ .‫ ְל ַה ְרבּוֹת זַ ְרעוֹ ְכּ ַ ְפרוֹת ֵתּ ֵבל וְ ֶצ ֱא ָצ ָאיו ְכּחוֹל ַהיָּ ם‬,‫ַ ל ֵכּן זִ ְכרוֹנוֹ ָבּא ְל ָפנֶ י ה’ ֱא ֵהינוּ‬ You remember the Creation and You consider the deeds of all creations from ancient times. In Your Presence are revealed all hidden things and the multitude of secrets from the beginning of Creation. For there is no forgetfulness before the throne of Your Glory, and there is nothing hidden from Your eyes. You remember every deed, and even all that is formed is not concealed from You. All is revealed and known before You, Eternal, our God who observes and looks until the end of all generations. For You set a law of remembrance, to judge every soul and being. To remember numerous deeds and the multitude of creatures without end. From the beginning of Creation, You have made this known, and from before time You have revealed it. This day [Rosh Hashanah] is the beginning of Your work, a memorial of the first day. For it is a statute for Israel, a judgment of the God of Jacob. And over the countries it is pronounced on this day: which of them is destined for the sword [war], and which for peace, which for famine and which for abundance. And on it, creatures are taken note of to be remembered for life or for death. Who is not taken note on this day? For the remembrance of all creatures comes before You. The deed of man, and the decree of his fate, and the misdeeds of man’s steps, the thoughts of man and his schemes, and the motives for the deeds of man. Fortunate is the man who does not forget You, the son of man who gains strength in You. For those who seek You will never fail, and those who trust in You will never be disgraced.

282 | Alona Lisitsa

For the remembrance of all their deeds come before You, and You examine the deeds of all of them. And Noah too, You remembered with love, graciously saving him when You released the flood to destroy all creatures because of their evil deeds. Therefore, his remembrance came before You, the Eternal, our God, to multiply his seed as the dust of the earth, as the sand of the sea.22

The descriptions of the descendants of Noah, the patriarch of humankind,23 resemble those of the descendants of Abraham and Jacob, the patriarchs of Israel:

.(‫ טז‬:‫ )בר' יג‬...‫וְ ַשׂ ְמ ִתּי ֶאת זַ ְר ֲ ַכּ ֲ ַפר ָה ָא ֶרץ‬ I shall make your off springs as the dust of the earth… (Gen 13:16).

(‫ ב‬:‫ )בר' יז‬:‫אוֹת ִבּ ְמאֹד ְמאֹד‬ ְ ‫וּבינֶ וְ ַא ְר ֶבּה‬ ֵ ‫יתי ֵבּינִ י‬ ִ ‫וְ ֶא ְתּנָ ה ְב ִר‬ I shall establish My covenant between Me and you, and I will make you exceedingly numerous (Gen 17:2).

.(‫ד‬:‫)בר' כו‬...‫כוֹכ ֵבי ַה ָשּׁ ַמיִ ם‬ ְ ‫יתי ֶאת זַ ְר ֲ ְכּ‬ ִ ‫וְ ִה ְר ֵבּ‬ I will make your heirs as numerous as the stars of heaven…(Gen 26:4).

.(‫ יג‬:‫ )בר' לב‬...‫וְ ַשׂ ְמ ִתּי ֶאת זַ ְר ֲ ְכּחוֹל ַהיָּ ם‬... …and [I] make your offspring as the sand of the sea… (Gen 32:13).

That connection between the universal patriarch, Noah, and national patriarchs, Abraham and Jacob, is also obvious from the seal of the blessing Zikhronot, which explicitly mentions the covenant with Abraham, not with Noah:

, ‫בוֹד‬ ֶ ‫ וְ ֵאין ִשׁ ְכ ָחה ִל ְפנֵ י ִכ ֵסּא ְכ‬,‫עוֹלם‬ ָ ‫זוֹכר ָכּל ַהנִּ ְשׁ ָכּחוֹת ַא ָתּה הוּא ֵמ‬ ֵ ‫ִכּי‬ .‫זוֹכר ַה ְבּ ִרית‬ ֵ ,’‫ ָבּרוּ ַא ָתּה ה‬.‫ ְלזַ ְרעוֹ ַהיּוֹם ְבּ ַר ֲח ִמים ִתּזְ כֹּר‬,‫וַ ֲ ֵק ַדת יִ ְצ ָחק‬ You remember all things forgotten; for before Your Holy Seat there is no forgetting. This day in mercy remember the binding of Isaac on behalf of his descendants. Blessed are You, the Eternal who remembers the covenant.

We may therefore conclude that the blessing of Zikhronot had been in liturgical use for the public fasts before it became part of the Rosh Hashanah liturgy.24

|| 22 My translation (AL). 23 In Sir 44:17–18, Noah is praised as one of the ancestors of humanity, just before Abraham: “Noah, found just and perfect, renewed the race in the time of devastation. Because of his worth there were survivors, and with a sign to him the deluge ended. A lasting covenant was made with him, that never again would all flesh be destroyed.”

Whom to Remember: Sarah or Noah? | 283

Within this earlier context, the blessing included the verse about Noah; when it was incorporated into the Rosh Hashanah liturgy, the verse was preserved and the introductory poem was arranged to lead into it. The introduction refers to Noah and God’s saving of him for the sake of his descendants, humankind, in a manner that interweaves into following verse. The language parallels serve to connect with the sealing, even though that created an incompatibility with the final part and the sealing of the blessing that is centered on the binding of Isaac and the covenant with Abraham. In t. Rosh Hash. 2:13, the rabbis suggested also incorporating the verse about Sarah as it could be seen as more fitting in view of the allusion to the tradition of Sarah’s being remembered by God on Rosh Hashanah (b. Rosh Hash. 10b). The verse about Noah has obvious disadvantages for the festival use: it is connected to calamity and it accounts of remembering of an individual who is gentile. Nevertheless, it seems that the blessing of Zikhronot had been already consolidated among a selection of verses by the 2nd century CE; therefore, this excluded the possibility of introducing another—albeit more fitting— verse.25 Moreover, the rabbis might have not seen it fit to introduce two verses from the same book of Pentateuch. Their solution was to keep the verse through the Torah reading for the festival. This decision seems to follow one of the very prominent rabbinic liturgical rules, “‫“( ”הלכך לימרינהו לכולהו‬If so, let us say all of them…”), attributed to Rav Papa (b. Ber. 12b, 59a, 60b; and more). This rule is also described by Jakob Petuchowski: “When the choice is between one or more versions of a prayer, the usual decision is to say them all.”26 In this case the verses are not said all in the same blessing (perhaps in an effort not to prolong it) but are spread between two different liturgical units, serving different ritual needs, the blessing in the Mussaf Amidah and the Torah reading.27 || 24 See m. Rosh Hash. 4: 5. There is a dispute between Rabbi Akiva and Rabbi Yohanan ben Nuri as to the place of the blessing of Malkhuyot in the Amidah. There is no such disagreement about Zikhronot and Shofarot blessings. Both are perceived as a stable unit, while each one is a full-fledged blessing with its own seal structured according to the rabbinical instituted blessing coin. 25 Gender may have played a role here. As mentioned above, in all six of the additional blessings for the public fasts, the biblical allusions are exclusively masculine. 26 Petuchowski, ”Some Laws,” 155. The classical example of this law function may be found in b. Ber. 11b where three different versions of the blessing before the Torah study are discussed. The final ruling is to say them all. 27 Other examples of keeping all the versions but avoiding the prolongation of a prayer are the different versions of these blessings: the second blessing before the recitation of Shma in the morning (Ahava Rabba) and in the evening (Ahavat Olam); and the blessing for peace, the last blessing of the Amidah, in the morning (Sim shalom) and in the evening (Shalom rav).

284 | Alona Lisitsa

To summarize, I have attempted to demonstrate that Zikhronot blessing, while being included into the Rosh Hashanah liturgy, has not only acquired some new flavors, but also maintained ones that reflect its origins as part of the public fasts liturgy. The rabbis had made some adaptations in order to keep the blessing's ancient form. Nevertheless, in the course of doing so, they did not give up on their decision to connect the verse about Sarah to the festival liturgy. They came up with a creative solution to include both.

Bibliography Elbogen, Ismar. Jewish Liturgy: A Comprehensive History. Translated by Raymond P. Scheindlin. Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society; New York: Jewish Theological Seminary, 1993. Epstein, Jacob N. Introduction to the Mishna Style [Hebrew]. Jerusalem: Magnes, 1948. Epstein, Jacob N. Introduction to Tannaitic Literature [Hebrew]. Tel Aviv: Dvir, 1957. Finkelstein, Louis. “The Development of Amidah.” JQR 16 (1925): 1–43. Heinemann, Joseph. Payer in the Talmud: Forms and Pattern. Berlin; New York: De Gruyter, 1977. Heinemann, Joseph. “The Order of the Ancient Blessings for Rosh Hashanah and Fasts” [Hebrew]. Tarbiz 42 (1974): 258–67. Heinemann, Joseph. Studies on Prayer [Hebrew]. Jerusalem: Magnes, 1981. Goldschmidt, Daniel Ernst. Mahzor for the High Holy Days According to Rite of the Ashkenazim, Volume 1: Rosh Hashana [Hebrew]. Jerusalem: Koren, 1970. Kugel, James L. “Jubilees.” Pages 272–465 in Outside the Bible. Edited by Louis H. Feldman, James L. Kugel and Lawrence H. Schiffman. Lincoln, Nebraska: University of Nebraska Press; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: Jewish Publication Society, 2013. Levine, David. Communal Fasts and Rabbinic Sermons – Theory and Practice in the Talmudic Period [Hebrew]. Tel Aviv: Hakibbutz Hameuchad, 2001. Levine, David. “A Temple Prayer for Fast-Days.” Pages 95–112 in Liturgical Perspectives: Prayer and Poetry in Light of the Dead Sea Scrolls. Edited by Ester G. Chazon, with the collaboration of Ruth Clements and Avital Pinnick. STDJ 48. Leiden: Brill, 2003. Lieberman, Saul. A Comprehensive Commentary of the Tosefta, Rosh Hashanah, Part V, Moed [Hebrew]. New York; Jerusalem: Jewish Theological Seminary, 1962. Mack, Hananel. Introduction to Jewish Liturgy [Hebrew]. Jerusalem: Misrad Habitahon, 2001. Petuchowski, Jakob. “Some Laws of Jewish Liturgical Development.” Pages 153–68 in Studies in Modern Theology and Prayer. Edited by Elizabeth R. Petuchowski and Aaron M. Petuchowski. Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1998. Tabory, Joseph. “As to the Place of Malkhuyot blessing in the prayer for Rosh Hashanah” [Hebrew]. Tarbiz 48 (1978): 30–34.

Dalia Marx

The Behavioral and the Mental in Jewish Worship: Is There A Hierarchy? Abstract: This essay discusses an aspect of liturgical phenomenology in rabbinic literature, namely, the tension between physical and spiritual dimensions of worship as expressed in the polysemic phrase kivvun halev (direction of the heart). Many scholars privilege the mental-cognitive aspects of prayer and relegate the corporeal to a lesser status. This primacy ascribed to kavvanah as a mental and spiritual human activity may be a later bias influenced by medieval sources. The present analysis of relevant texts challenges this hierarchy and suggests two separate but legitimate and perhaps equal paths in divine worship. The behavioral and the spiritual are distinct domains and valid manifestations in the believer’s standing before God. Keywords: kavvanah, prayer, mental and physical in prayer, worship, rabbinic liturgy Religious experiences cannot be quantified, measured, or (to be honest) articulated with words. However, if we are to understand Jewish (or any other) worship in its fulness we need to consider its non-verbal phenomenological and emotional aspects.1 Those aspects which pertain to the Erlebnis, the religious experience, are elusive and hard to encapsulate in words. Thus, any such discussion is bound to be tentative and inherently inadequate. Yet, these dimensions are extremely important if we wish to understand the complex phenomenon of prayer and worship. In honor of our teacher, Stefan (Shlomo Kalman) Reif, who taught us so much about Jewish prayer and its multi-faceted aspects, I will try to offer here a preliminary discussion of one aspect of the phenomenology of Jewish prayer. I will examine a facet of the complex concept of kavvanah—normally translated as innermost direction, intention, concentration or devotion in the performance of a religious commandment, especially prayer—in early rabbinic literature.2 I

|| 1 I thank Rabbi Sheldon Donnell, Prof. Michael Duggan, and Prof. Richard Sarason for their abundant and generous help, providing suggestions and corrections for this essay. 2 Regarding the term kavvanah in the rabbinic literature, see for example: Eilberg-Schwartz, The Human Will; Goldenberg, “Law and Spirit”; Enelow, “Kawwana”; Ratzersdorfer-Rosen, https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110630282-018

286 | Dalia Marx

propose to focus on the tension between the aspects of the physical and the spiritual in Jewish liturgy, primarily according to Tannaitic while also relying upon some Amoraic sources. I explore the view—prevalent in later rabbinic literature—that the mental and spiritual aspects of prayer take precedence over the physical aspects of prayer expressed through gestures and movement. The primacy of the mental and the cognitive over the physical and behavioral is often taken for granted. But is this the case regarding early rabbinic literature? I shall discuss four cases where there seems to be tension between the cognitive and the physical; from these I shall draw some preliminary conclusions.

1 Required kavvanah when hearing the shofar or the recitation of the Scroll of Esther The Torah requires the individual to hear the sound of the Shofar (ritual horn) on Rosh Hashanah, the New Year (Num 29:1). Regarding this obligation as well as the obligation to hear the recitation of the Scroll of Esther on Purim, the Mishnah states:

,‫ או שהיה ביתו סמוך לבית הכנסת‬,‫וכן מי שהיה עובר אחר בית כנסת‬ – ‫ושמע קול שופר או קול מגילה‬ .‫ לא יצא‬,‫ ואם לאו‬.‫ יצא‬,‫אם כיוון ליבו‬ .(‫ ז‬,‫ זה כיוון לבו וזה לא כיוון )מ' ראש השנה ג‬,‫אף על פי שזה שמע וזה שמע‬ Similarly, if a person was passing behind a synagogue, or if his house was near a synagogue, and he3 heard the sound of the shofar, or the reading of the Scroll [of Esther, in Purim] – If he directed his heart (kivven libbo) he has fulfilled his obligation, but if he did not, he has not fulfilled his obligation. Though one may have heard, and another may have heard [the same thing], one directed his heart (kivven libbo), while the other may not have directed his heart (m. Rosh Hash. 3:7).

We see that kivvun halev (literally: “directing the heart,” the complex meaning of which will be discussed shortly) is required for the fulfillment of the commandment. Interestingly, the Mishnah seems to require kivvun halev only from

|| “Between Thought and Action”; Rubenstein, “On Some Abstract Concepts”; Urbach, The Sages, 365–99; Zeitlin, “A note on the principle of intention.” 3 I am following the gendered language of the Mishnah although according to the Talmud, women also are required to hear the Scroll of Esther on Purim (b. Meg. 4a).

The Behavioral and the Mental in Jewish Worship: Is There A Hierarchy? | 287

those who may inadvertently overhear the shofar or the reading of the scroll coming from the synagogue. It appears that the rabbis assume that those who attend the synagogue are intending to fulfill the commandment, therefore their presence in the synagogue presupposes their kavvanah.4 We may understand the requirement of kivvun halev in at least three different ways: (a) the fulfillment of the commandment to hear the shofar or the reading of the scroll is predicated upon the intention to do so; (b) hearing the shofar or the reading of the scroll should reflect an awareness of the religious commandment, thus one performs it in order to fulfill it; and (c) hearing the shofar or the reading of the scroll should reflect a profound intention not only to observe the commandment but also to attain a spiritual experience that is beyond its formal halakhic (legal) requirement. The phrasing of the Mishnah does not reveal what it means by kivvun halev in this case; however, it seems that the text requires at least an awareness and an understanding that the hearing is a fulfillment of the commandment and is not an accidental hearing of the shofar or the reading of the scroll. A different and more explicit approach is revealed in the following passage, which concludes the third chapter of Tractate Rosh Hashanah:

.(‫ יא‬,‫ ַכּ ֲא ֶשׁר יָ ִרים מ ֶֹשׁה יָ דוֹ וְ גָ ַבר יִ ְשׂ ָר ֵאל וְ ַכ ֲא ֶשׁר יָ נִ י ַ יָ דוֹ וְ גָ ַבר ֲ ָמ ֵלק" )שמות יז‬,‫"וְ ָהיָ ה‬ ?‫וכי ידיו שלשמשה עושות מלחמה או ידיו שבורות מלחמה‬ ‫אלא כל זמן שהיו ישראל מיסתכלים כלפי למעלן ומכוונים את לבם לאביהם שבשמים‬ .(‫ ח‬,‫ היו נופלים )שם‬,‫ ואם לאו‬,‫היו מתגברים‬ “And so it was that when Moses held up his hand Israel prevailed, and when he let down his hand Amalek prevailed” (Exod 17:11). But could the hands of Moses make war or lose [literally: are broken by] the battle? It is, rather, to teach you that whenever the Israelites looked upward and directed their heart (mkhavvnim libbam) to their Father in heaven they prevailed, otherwise they suffered defeat (m. Rosh Hash. 3:8).

It is not uncommon to find an aggadic (i.e., non-halakhic, exegetical) text at the conclusion of chapters or tractates of the Mishnah. However, at first glance, this passage, seems unrelated to the previous discussion except for the use of the term “directing the heart’.”5 It is clear from this passage that the Mishnah is referring to a profound intentionality and not merely to a physical gesture of

|| 4 See: Eilberg-Schwartz, Human Will, 59–64. 5 The printed editions render passage 8 as “subjugating their heart,” probably because the phrase appears in the second part of the paragraph (see above).

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some sort. This appears to speak to the third and most demanding of the interpretations that we offered in the previous paragraph.6 At this point we may inquire how passages 7 and 8, which conclude the chapter, relate to each other. Moreover, we may examine the effect of employing a similar phrase to relate to two different matters, namely, the kinesthetic position of the body and the mental and spiritual intentionality that informs the action. Jonah Fraenkel maintains that passage 7 is directed “toward the specific legal matter of the commandment,” while passage 8 is dedicated to “those who ‘direct their heart to their Heavenly Father’ [and thereby] immerse their ‘hearts’ with the totality of religious emotion.”7 According to Fraenkel, the latter places the value of the mental-emotional intentionality above the mere performance of the commandment.8 The halakhah presents the minimum requirement, but this is not sufficient for the person who seeks a deeper religious experience.9 According to Fraenkel, the juxtaposition of an aggadic with a halakhic text here indicates that a Jew has religious duties, which cannot be formulated in a general, “once and for all” manner. It is meant to “cause a person to take an exclusive personal responsibility, so one may reach a proper self-awareness regarding the duty to live his life before his maker.”10 Understanding that the juxtaposition of the two passages is intentional and bears hermeneutic and religious meaning is insightful. However, I am not sure that it necessarily reflects a hierarchy (as Fraenkel argues) in which mental and cognitive concentration is superior to and more important than the physical performance of a commandment. On the contrary, one may consider them as complementary or alternative paths to worship. Each may be suitable for different individuals or be appropriate for the same individual in different states of mind. The first stresses the importance of the performative aspects of worship, while the second relates to spiritual devotion. The latter is not necessarily more significant or worthy than the former, at least in the eyes of the sages of the Mishnah. It is also difficult to distinguish between the two aspects. Indeed, even passage 8, which refers to the mental aspects of attitude and intention in the divine worship (not necessarily prayer), mentions a physical position: “whenever the Israelites looked upward.” There is no doubt that the Mishnah under|| 6 Regarding the structural aspects of this chapter, see: Walfish, The Literary Method, 105–7. 7 Fraenkel, The Ways of the Aggadah, 484–85 (my translation, DM). 8 Fraenkel, The Ways of the Aggadah, 487. 9 Tabory, “The conflict.” 10 Fraenkel, “The Aggadah,” 678 (my translation, DM). Walfish (The Literary Method, 105–30) compares these two paragraphs in the Mishnah to the Tosefta (t. Rosh Hash. 2:6–7), where the aggadic and the halakhic layers are intertwined.

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stands the word “look” as suggesting a profound mental expression of faith. Nevertheless, in order to demonstrate the faithfulness of the people of Israel it refers to a physical action.

2 The Direction of the heart in prayer Descriptions of Jews turning towards Jerusalem while praying are known from the Second Temple period.11 In fact, turning in worship towards the Temple is mentioned quite early in Solomon’s prayer at the dedication of the First Temple (1 Kgs 8:28–38; 2 Chr 6:21–29). The Mishnah assumes the orientation towards Jerusalem when praying as a given. The Mishnah gives special attention to the physical direction one assumes in prayer only in exceptional circumstances, such as when facing Jerusalem might be difficult or pose problems for the worshiper. Here are prescriptions for praying12 in a dangerous place:

,[‫היה רוכב על החמור ירד ]להתפלל‬ ,‫ יחזיר פניו‬,‫ואם אינו יכול לירד‬ .‫ יכוין את לבו כנגד בית קדש הקדשים‬,‫ואם אינו יכול להחזיר פניו‬ ‫היה יושב בספינה או בקרון או באסדא יכיון את לבו כנגד בית קדש הקדשים )מ‬ .(‫ ה–ו‬,‫ברכות ד‬ When riding a donkey, one should dismount [from it, in order to pray]. If one is unable to dismount, one should turn one’s face [towards Jerusalem]. And if one is unable to turn the face, one should direct one’s heart toward the Holy of Holies. When sitting in a boat, or in a wagon, or on a raft, [in order to pray] one should direct one’s heart toward the Holy of Holies (m. Ber. 4:5–6).

At the core of these passages is the basic premise that prayer requires special attentiveness. Although not explicitly stated here, it is nonetheless understood in rabbinic literature that one must stand facing Jerusalem while praying.13 If a

|| 11 Dan 6:11; 1 Esd 4:59. It is not certain whether this was the practice of individuals or a more general custom. See, Ehrlich, The Non-Verbal Language, 64–98; Henshke, “Directing Prayer.” 12 The Mishnah’s discussion deals with the Amidah (The Eighteen Benedictions), the central prayer in all Jewish services, normally referred to in the rabbinic literature as T’fillah (prayer). 13 David Henshke refers to the fact that nothing is said about the physical orientation of the worshipper. He maintains that the requirement to turn the face is meant first and foremost to differentiate between normal routine and the moment of prayer, and does not necessarily mean

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person is on a journey, and therefore cannot pray facing Jerusalem, he should direct his heart. In this case, concentrating on the holy of holies, the most sacred place in the Temple (and, indeed, in the entire world), is a substitute for the physical gesture. This statement equates “mental concentration” with physical orientation. However, mental focus is presented as a substitute for the default requirement, namely facing in a particular direction. The parallel text in the Tosefta has a somewhat different formulation: “A blind person or someone who does not know how to direct [oneself according to] the cardinal points, directs their heart toward their heavenly father, and prays” (t. Ber. 3:14).14 While the Mishnah deals with a person who has the ability to direct the body but cannot do so due to specific circumstances, and the Tosefta relates to one who is physically incapable of doing so because of poor spatial orientation, both the Mishnah and the Tosefta present the physical gesture as the default requirement of the commandment. Here are the following paragraphs in the Tosefta, where “directing the heart” is used to designate the proper bodily orientation (as, metaphorically, the heart is the center of the body):

‫ ויתפללו ' ֶדּ ֶר‬:‫ שנאמר‬,‫העומדים בחוצה לארץ מכוונין את לבם כנגד ארץ ישראל‬ ,(‫ לח‬,‫ַא ְר ָצם' )דבה"ב ו‬ ‫ שנ' 'וְ ִה ְת ַפּ ְללוּ ֵא ֶלי‬,‫ ומתפללין‬,‫העומדים בארץ ישראל מכוונין את לבם כנגד ירושלם‬ .(‫ לד‬,‫ֶדּ ֶר ָה ִ יר ַהזֹּאת' )שם‬ '‫ ַה ַבּיִ ת ַהזֶּ ה‬-‫ שנ' 'וְ ִה ְת ַפּ ְללוּ ֶאל‬,‫העומדים בירושלם מכוונין את לבם כנגד בית המקדש‬ .(‫ לב‬,‫)שם‬ ‫ שנ' ויתפללו‬,‫העומדים במקדש מכוונין את לבם כנגד בית קדשי הקדשים ומתפללין‬ .(‫ ל‬,‫ ַה ָמּקוֹם ַהזֶּ ה' )מל"א ח‬-‫' ֶאל‬ ‫ במערב‬,‫ במזרח פניהם למערב‬,‫ בדרום פניהם לצפון‬,‫נמצאו עומדין בצפון פניהם לדרום‬ .(‫טז‬-‫ טו‬,‫ נמצאו כל ישראל מתפללין למקום אחד )תוספתא ברכות ג‬.‫פניהם למזרח‬ Those standing outside of the Land of Israel [should] direct their hearts towards the Land of Israel [and pray], as it is said, And they shall pray through their land (2 Chr 6:38). Those standing in the Land of Israel [should] direct their hearts towards Jerusalem, and pray, as it is said, And they shall pray to You through this city (2 Chr 6:34). Those standing in Jerusalem [should] direct their hearts towards the Temple, as it is said, … and they shall pray towards this house. (2 Chr 6:32) Those standing in the Temple [should] direct their hearts towards the Holy of Holies and pray, as it is said … they shall pray towards this place. (1 Kgs 8:30)

|| turning toward Jerusalem (Henshke, “The Direction of Prayer”). However, as mentioned above, this has been the common understanding of the requirement. 14 Compare to y. Ber. 4:5, 8b.

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As a result those standing in the north shall be facing south, those standing in the south shall be facing north, those standing in the east shall be facing west, and those standing in the west shall be facing east. Thereby all Israel will be praying towards one [i.e., the same] place (t. Ber. 3:15–16 [Lieberman, 15–16]).

These passages are dated to the third century CE but they might have been composed before the destruction of the Temple in 70 CE.15 The Tosefta describes how one should stand in prayer using the identical phrase, “directing their heart” (m’khavvnim et libbam), to refer to both mental concentration (3:14) and physical orientation (3:15–16). Howard Eilberg-Schwartz indicates that the rabbis require mental direction only when the physical action may be misinterpreted. When a person prays while sitting and not standing (as is normally the case) it may be unclear to those observing (and maybe to the person himself) that he is actually praying. Therefore, the consciously intentional kavvanah is needed. And it replaces, as it were, the initial requirement to face Jerusalem.16 This situation is similar to the case, which we discussed above, wherein a person who passes behind a synagogue is required to have kavvanah in order to fulfill the commandment to “hear.” However, this is not the case for a person who is inside the synagogue, because the physical location of the person inside the synagogue conveys a presumed intentionality to those observing. At the conclusion of the parallel (and much more detailed) text in the Babylonian Talmud regarding the direction of prayer, the rabbis stress the importance of this communal practice as an act that keeps “all Israel” together, regardless of their whereabouts. Constructed on a typical word-play to make its point, the Talmud says:

.‫נמצאו כל ישראל מכוונין את לבם למקום אחד‬ '‫אר ָבּנוּי ְל ַת ְל ִפּיּוֹת‬ ֵ ָ‫ מאי קראה? ' ְכּ ִמגְ ַדּל ָדּוִ יד ַצוּ‬:‫ רבי אבינא‬,‫ ואיתימא‬,‫אמר רבי אבין‬ .(‫ ע"א‬,‫ תל שכל פיות פונים בו )ב ברכות ל‬,(‫ ד‬,‫)שיר השירים ד‬ Thereby all Israel are directing their heart towards one [i.e., the same] place. Rabbi Abin, or some say Rabbi Avina, said: What text confirms this? — Your neck is like the tower of David built with turrets [talppiyot], (Song 4:4). – the elevation [tel] towards which all mouths [piyyoth] turn (b. Ber. 30b).

|| 15 Although it is a relatively late text and its attributions are not reliable, the parallel text in Pesikta Rabbati 33 is attributed to Rabbi Eliezer ben Yaakov, who lived in the final years of the Second Temple. See: Ehrlich, The Non-Verbal Language, 66, n. 4. 16 Eilberg-Schwartz, The Human Will, 63.

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The midrashic interpretation of the word talppiyot (turrets) is understood to refer to the Temple (“the tower of David”) as the place toward which all mouths turn. And here too, the importance of the physical performance of the commandment is stressed even if the importance of all Jews turning toward Jerusalem in prayer is metaphorical (which may even enhance its notability).17 The interpretation is concerned with the communal aspect of worship of “all Israel,” that is, the practice of the entire people. It explains that all Jews should face Jerusalem, the heartbeat of the Jewish people, while praying. Facing this focal point unites the people, despite the destruction of Temple.18

3 “The words of my mouth” or “the meditations of my heart” So far, we have noted the lack of an indication of the superiority of the kavvanah of the heart over the performative aspects of worship in Tannaitic literature. The same might be said about Amoraic discussions of prayer. Such is the instruction of Rabbi Yohanan regarding the words that begin and conclude the Amidah, which appears both in the Jerusalem and Babylonian Talmud:

‫ ולבסוף הוא‬,(‫ יז‬,‫וּפי יַ גִּ יד ְתּ ִה ָלּ ֶת [‘ )תהלים נא‬ ִ ] ‫ ’ ֲאד ֹנָ י ְשׂ ָפ ַתי ִתּ ְפ ָתּח‬:‫בתחלה אומר‬ ‫ )ב ברכות‬.(‫ טו‬,‫ יט‬,‫צוּרי וְ ג ֲֹא ִלי[‘ )שם‬ ִ '‫ ִפי ]וְ ֶהגְ יוֹן ִל ִבּי ְל ָפנֶ י ה‬-‫ ’יִ ְהיוּ ְל ָרצוֹן ִא ְמ ֵרי‬:‫אומר‬ .([‫ ע"א‬,‫ ד ]ח‬,‫ ע"ב; י ברכות ד‬,‫ ע"ב; ט‬,‫ד‬ At the beginning [of the Amidah] one says: Eternal, open up my lips [so my mouth may declare Your glory] (Ps 51:17) and at the end one says: May the words of my mouth and the meditations of my heard be acceptable to You my God and my Redeemer (Ps 19:15) (y. Ber. 4:4, 8a; b. Ber. 4b, 9b).

It is understandable that the latter verse (Ps 19:15) was proposed to conclude the Amidah19 since it is a supplication for God’s acceptance of the prayers that were just recited; however, its content may be surprising. Although poetry cannot be || 17 One should note that this is not the sole opinion reflected in rabbinic literature; for example, a discussion in b. B. Bat 25a–b deals with the actual place of the Shekhinah (the Divine Presence). See: Ehrlich, The Non-Verbal Language, 233. 18 The fact that the proof text for this teaching is from Solomon’s prayer on the occasion of the dedication of the Temple may attest to its centrality as well as the preeminence of Jerusalem (Marx, “The Missing Temple”). 19 See: Ehrlich and Shmidman, “The Passage,” 12.

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examined according to the same syntactic criteria as legal writing, it seems that the phrase “words of my mouth” refers to behavioral , externalizing aspects of prayer, while “the meditations of my heart” may allude to the interior, mental aspects.20 Here too, we can detect an expression of the validity and importance of the two modes of worship: the physical and the mental. If we read Ps 19:15 as a combination of the behavioral and the mental meanings of kavvanah, then the other verse that Rabbi Yohanan instructs to be recited before the Amidah, clearly emphasizes the physical: Eternal open up my lips [so my mouth may declare Your glory] (Ps 51:17). This verse serves as an invocation to be able to pray. It does so by asking God to enable the physical means, namely opening the lips, to do so. The choice of these two psalm verses (19:15 and 51:17) to bookend the Amidah—both alluding to the physical and behavioral in the context of the central Jewish prayer—cannot be incidental or arbitrary. The importance (if not the primacy) ascribed to the performative aspect of prayer can be seen also in the B’tar Zlota (“The Personal Prayer,” recited after the Amidah) of Mar son of Ravina. This prayer later was chosen from a collection of other personal prayers that rabbis used to recite after the formal prayer,21 to serve as the private prayer to be recited after the Amidah. It appeared in some Babylonian prayer books toward the end of the first millennium and became a standard in the Middle Ages.22 It opens with a supplication: “My God, guard my tongue from evil and my lips from speaking deception.” Here too the locus of the request is the performative aspect, with the stress on the importance of honest speech in daily interpersonal interactions, and not on the intention or profound intellectual or emotional meaning. One may argue that the performative in these cases—the opening and guarding of the lips, the articulation and the acceptance of the words of the mouth—is only indicative of the mental and the spiritual, and maybe metonymic for it. However, it cannot be ignored that the rabbis, who designed Jewish worship, chose to stress the physical behavior when indicating the appropriate mode of prayer. In some cases, it is clear that the physical behavior not only indicates the proper inner kavvanah; it is the proper kavvanah. For example, the

|| 20 The actual meaning of the term ‫( הגיון‬translated here as “meditation”) is not clear in the rabbinic literature. In some cases, it is referred to as a negative matter, something that Rabbi Eliezer instructs a person to refrain from (b. Ber. 28b; and Rashi’s commentary there). 21 This prayer appears in a collection of personal prayers of rabbis in b. Ber. 16a–b, see also: y. Ber. 4:2, 33a. 22 See: Ehrlich and Shmidman, “The Passage,” 1.

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Mishnah’s description of the celebrations that took place during the Feast of Tabernacles (Sukkot), concludes with the following:

‫ אבותינו שהיו במקום הזה‬:‫ הפכו פניהן למערב ואמרו‬,‫הגיעו לשער היוצא ממזרח‬ ,(‫ טז‬,‫יתם ֵק ְד ָמה ַל ָשּׁ ֶמשׁ‘ )יחזקאל ח‬ ֶ ִ‫יהם ֵק ְד ָמה וְ ֵה ָמּה ִמ ְשׁ ַתּ ֲחו‬ ֶ ֵ‫וּפנ‬ ְ '‫יכל ה‬ ַ ‫יהם ֶאל ֵה‬ ֶ ‫’ ֲאח ֵֹר‬ ‫ אנו ליה וליה עינינו )משנה סוכה‬:‫ היו שונין ואומרין‬,‫ ר' יהודה אומר‬.‫ואנו ליה עינינו‬ .(‫ ד‬,‫ה‬ When they reached the gate that leads out to the east, they turned their faces to the west [=toward the Temple] and said: Our ancestors when they were in this place turned with their backs toward the Temple of the Eternal and their faces toward the east, and they worshipped [literally: bowing down toward] the sun in the east (Ezek 8:16), but we, our eyes are turned toward the Eternal. Rabbi Judah says: They used to repeat the words We are the Eternal’s, and to the Eternal our eyes are turned (m. Sukkah 5:4).

The physical position and the lifting of the eyes serve as a pledge of allegiance. The accompanying oath exhibits an auxiliary (or at best, equal) importance to the physical act.23 To some extent we have come full circle from the discussion of the conclusion of the third chapter of Mishnah Rosh Hashanah, wherein the cognitive and emotional are presented as complementary and perhaps even superior to the physical kavvanah (according to Fraenkel), to this passage, where the verbal is supplementary to the physical gesture.

4 “All my bones shall proclaim”: the kavvanah that is in the body In order to demonstrate the rabbis’ openness toward prayer that is focused on the performative rather than the mental or the emotional, let us consider the rather surprising statements of some sages of the Talmud, in which they provide testimonies about their prayer experiences:

‫ אנא מן יומי לא כוונית אלא חד זמן בעי מכוונה והרהרית בלבי‬:‫א"ר חייא רובא‬ .‫ואמרית מאן עליל קומי מלכא קדמי ארקבטה אי ריש גלותא‬ .‫ אנא מנית אפרוחיא‬:‫שמואל אמר‬ .‫ אנא מנית דימוסיא‬:‫רבי בון בר חייא אמר‬ ‫ אנא מחזק טיבו לראשי דכד הוה מטי 'מודים' הוא כרע מגרמיה )ירושלמי‬:‫א"ר מתניה‬ .([‫ ע"א‬,‫ ד ]ה‬,‫ברכות ב‬ || 23 See Lieberman, Tosefta Commentary, vol. 1, 44, #65. Regarding the turning of the face in prayer, see: Ehrlich, The Non-Verbal Language, 64–98.

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Said Rabbi Hiyya the Great: I never had kavvanah [in prayer] except for one time when I wanted to have kavvanah [=l’khavven] and I pondered in my heart: Who enters before whom in the presence of the king, Archveta [a high dignitary in the Persian hierarchy] or the exilarch? Shmuel said: [During prayer] I count chicks [or – clouds]. Rabbi Bun son of Hiyya said: [During prayer] I count tiles. Said Rabbi Matanyah: I am grateful to my head, for when we reach the blessing of thanksgiving [in the Amidah] it bows down instinctively (y. Ber. 2:4, 5a).

The feature common to these four statements is that they describe performances of prayer without mental or spiritual intentionality. In the first, Rabbi Hiyya the Great admits that he never achieved (or intended to have) kavvanah in his prayer (perhaps because he was preoccupied with the study of Torah), and when he finally tried to do so as a scholar, he was consumed by thoughts about courtly etiquette. (Another understanding of this reading would be that he did so by contemplating courtly etiquette.) The next two statements contain testimonies of rabbis who concentrated on matters that are neither liturgical nor spiritual while praying. In the fourth instance, Rabbi Matanya considers himself lucky that his head automatically bows at the appropriate moments during prayer, exempting him from paying attention to the service. These four statements are cited as peculiar, but they are presented plainly and without indication of editorial criticism. They may indicate that, at least according to some rabbis, prayer meant primarily a fulfillment of a behavioral performative protocol. The requirement that one should concentrate deeply while engaging in prayer—as Bahya ibn Paquda, for example, demanded half a millennium later24—is not the dominant approach in classical rabbinic literature.25 If we examine the Tannaitic and even Amoraic sources we see that there are two paths in divine worship, and both are deemed legitimate and worthy: one path stresses the physical-behavioral protocol; and the other has to do with complete mental concentration and submission. Uri Ehrlich argues convincingly that the increas-

|| 24 See, for example, the following statement by Bahya ibn Paquda: ,‫וכשיתפלל המתפלל בלשונו‬ ‫ תהיה תפלתו גוף בלו רוח וקליפה בלא לב‬,‫“( ולבו טרוד בזולת עניין התפילה‬And when one prays with his tongue, while his heart is preoccupied with other matters, his prayer is [like] a body without a soul and empty shell without a heart”),” Bahya, Duties of the Heart, 217. 25 It seems that the underlying matter here is the relation between the body and the mind. In the light of what we have seen, I suggest that this duality was not manifested in the classical rabbinical literature as it was in subsequent generations.

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ing importance and primacy ascribed to the mental kavvanah “somewhat undermined the status of physical gestures.”26

* Classical rabbinic sources portray the complexity of proper worship. The implicit variety in the phrase Kivvun halev can point to separate and legitimate modes of and paths to prayer. Even if the external appearance of these paths is similar, they comprehend the intention of the worshiper and the nature of the religious experience differently. One path stresses the importance of the innermost mental and emotional concentration, while the other addresses the performative and physical aspects. The latter (e.g., turning the body toward Jerusalem) need not be understood as an indication of anything other than the actual gesture. And, although mental concentration may be more demanding and less measurable, the rabbis present on occasion, the behavioral not only as legitimate but even as the default choice. The demand for mental concentration is reserved for those who, for some reason, cannot physically turn to Jerusalem; that is, when they cannot engage in kavvanah with their body. The utmost priority given to the mental and emotional over the performative and physical may reflect sensitivities later than those of the sages of the Mishnah and the Talmud.

Bibliography Bahya ibn Paquda. Duties of the Heart. Edited by Avraham Zifroni. Jerusalem: Jonovitz, 1928. Ehrlich, Uri. The Non-Verbal Language of Jewish Prayer. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2004. Ehrlich, Uri, and Avi Shmidman. “The Passage ‘Our King, Our Lord’ at the End of the Amida and the Grace after Meals: Its Origin, Text and Status” [Hebrew]. Ginzei Qedem 3 (2007): 9–28. Eilberg-Schwartz, Howard. The Human Will in Judaism; The Mishna’s Philosophy of Intention. Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1986. Enelow, Hyman G. “Kawwana: The Struggle for Inwardness in Judaism.” Pages 82–107 in Studies in Jewish Literature in honor of Kaufmann Kohler, Berlin: Reimer, 1913. Repr. Pages 98–104 in Zen and Hasidism: The Similarities Between Two Spiritual Disciplines. Edited by Harold Heifetz. Hoboken: Ktav, 1996. Fraenkel, Jonah. “The Aggadah in the Mishnah.” [Hebrew] Pages 655–83 in Talmudic Studies 3:2. Edited by Yaakob Sussmann and David Rosenthal. Jerusalem: Magness, 2005. Fraenkel, Jonah. The Ways of the Aggadah and the Midrash [Hebrew]. Hertzelia: Massadah, 1996.

|| 26 Ehrlich, The Non-Verbal Language, 253.

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Goldenberg, Robert. “Law and Spirit in Talmudic Religion.” Pages 232–52 in Jewish Spirituality: from the Bible through the Middle Ages. Edited by Arthur Green. New York: Crossroad, 1986. Henshke, David. “Directing Prayer toward the Holy Place: The Plain Meaning of the Mishnah and Its Echoes in Talmudic Literature” [Hebrew]. Tarbiz 80:1 (2012): 5–27. Henshke, David. “The Direction of Prayer: Towards the Temple or Towards Other Directions?” Jewish Studies Internet Journal [Hebrew].12 (2012): 1–21. Lieberman, Saul. A Comprehensive Commentary of the Tosefta [Hebrew]. New York and Jerusalem: The Jewish Theological Seminary, 2001–2002. Marx, Dalia. “The Missing Temple: The Status of the Temple in Jewish Culture Following its Destruction.” European Judaism 13/2 (2013): 61–78. Ratzersdorfer-Rosen, Gilla. “Between Thought and Action: The Role of Intention in the Performance of Mitzvot.” Pages 202–30, in Jewish Legal Writings by Women. Edited by Moshe D. Halperin and Chana Safrai. Jerusalem: Urim, 1998. Rubenstein, Jeffrey L., “On Some Abstract Concepts in Rabbinic Literature.” JSQ 4 (1997): 33– 73. Tabory, Joseph. “The Conflict of Halakha and Prayer.” Tradition 25/1 (1989): 17–30. Urbach, Efraim E. The Sages: Their Concepts and Beliefs. Translated by Israel Abrahams, Jerusalem: Magness, 1973. Walfish, Avraham. The Literary Method of Redaction in Mishnah based on Tractate Rosh Hashanah [Hebrew]. PhD diss., Hebrew University, 2001. Zeitlin, Solomon. “A Note on the Principle of Intention in Tannaitic Literature.” Pages 631–36 in Alexander Marx: Jubilee Volume on the Occasion of his Seventieth Birthday. New York: Jewish Theological Seminary, 1950.

Vered Raziel Kretzmer and Jonathan Ben-Dov

The Qumran Psalter and the Medieval Palestinian Tefillat ha-Shir Abstract: This article investigates the linkage between two Jewish Palestinian liturgical customs, a millennium apart: a collection of psalms attested among the Dead Sea Scrolls, best preserved in the scroll 11Q5 or 11QPsa; and the practice of Tefillat ha-Shir (“the Song”), added to Pesukei deZimrah in the Palestinian prayer books from the Cairo Genizah. Two main elements are examined: the use of the Songs of Ascent, and the emphasis on the Davidic authorship. We conclude that there is no genetic link between the two collections. Their typological resemblance, however, demonstrates the shared themes and motifs of Qumran and rabbinic prayer. Keywords: Qumran Psalms Scroll, Psalms, Cairo Genizah, Songs of Ascent, Jewish Prayer, Palestinian Rite, Tefillat Ha-Shir Early rabbinic prayer was built of two non-biblical components: the Shema liturgy surrounding the Qeri’at Shema and the so-called tefillah, i.e., the Amidah cycle.1 This classic liturgical curriculum has always maintained an ambivalent relationship with the biblical text and accumulated various parts of it along the ages. The Psalms, being liturgy oriented biblical compositions carrying a high canonical value, have taken a prominent part in this process. They are the most extensively used biblical source, both as full prayer units focused on the book of Psalms, and in the form of numerous solitary hymns or verses dispersed throughout the Jewish ritual. Stefan Reif has illuminated, among many other aspects of Jewish prayer, the complex role of Scripture, and specifically the Psalms, as a significant yet selective source of inspiration for Jewish liturgy. We would like to dedicate this article to elucidating a specific point in this relationship between prayer and Scripture, following the guidelines set by Reif and others. 2 In this article we plan to investigate two separate Jewish Palestinian liturgical customs, a millennium apart, one from the Hellenistic period and the other

|| 1 For an introduction to the early rabbinic prayer, specifically the Qeri'at Shema and the Amidah, see Ehrlich, “Prayer in the Land” [Hebrew], 359–78. 2 Reif, “Use of the Bible,” 71–92. See also Brody, “Liturgical Uses,” 61–81; Hofmann, “Hallels,” 33–57. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110630282-019

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from the Middle Ages. We shall endeavor to learn whether the two are similar or not, and if so, whether the dependency between them may be direct or oblique. The comparison and historical analysis will shed light on the use of psalms in Jewish liturgy and their interaction with other anchors of the Jewish prayer. The first phenomenon is a collection of psalms attested among the Dead Sea Scrolls, its best-preserved copy being the scroll 11Q5 or 11QPsalmsa. The liturgical use of this scroll has been heavily debated in the past, and we shall elucidate it below. The second phenomenon is the practice of Tefillat ha-Shir (“the Song”), a collection of psalms of varying content, which was added to the psalms of Pesukei deZimrah by Palestinian Jews in the Middle Ages and attracted a considerable amount of accompanying ritual. This liturgical complex is reflected in a substantial amount of texts from the Cairo Genizah. For the former liturgy, only the text is preserved with no data whatsoever about its performance; in contrast, much is known about the performance of the Palestinian Tefillat ha-Shir, which became a major point of contention in Medieval Egypt.3 These two corpora together provide an opportunity to re-examine a classical question about the significance of Qumran prayer for understanding late Jewish prayer.4 Two main elements called our attention to the similarity between these two liturgical cycles. The first one is the use of psalm-clusters from book five of the Psalter as building blocks of the liturgy, and particularly the Songs of Ascent (Psalms 120–134) and the Hallels (Psalms 113–118, 135–136).5 The second element is the strong emphasis on the Davidic authorship of the recited psalms, and on David as a prototype of divine praise in general. Both elements will be elaborated below.

|| 3 See Fleischer, Eretz-Israel Prayer [Hebrew], 215–57. 4 See the review with rich bibliography by Reif, “Qumran Research,” 33–49. 5 The fifteen Songs of Ascent vary in genre and role. Whereas some of them are songs of praise, others are painted in darker shades and written in a pleading tone. Nevertheless, both the early Qumranic corpus and the later Palestinian prayer corpus consider them a unified entity, as does the canonical Psalter.

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1 The collection of psalms from Qumran Over thirty scrolls from the Qumran corpus contain biblical psalms and sequences of psalms in various forms.6 The literary character of this corpus is highly variegated, with some scrolls representing individual psalms and other representing various sequences which may or may not correspond to the Masoretic Psalter. The common claim that there are over thirty copies of the canonical book of Psalms at Qumran is therefore exaggerated.7 Quite a few of these scrolls, however, do represent the book of Psalms or a collection very close to it, especially in the first three books of the Psalter. In addition to this evidence, a collection of psalms very close to the Masoretic Psalter has been translated into Greek probably in the mid-second century BCE but certainly before the Common Era.8 This is evidence for the existence of at least one authoritative collection of Psalms by that period of time, the one which is known to us from the canonical book of Psalms. A special collection of psalms stands out among Psalms scrolls from Qumran. It is relatively well-attested and, more importantly, it represents a lucid collection which differs consistently and deliberately from the Masoretic and Greek Psalters. The best example for this collection is the scroll 11QPsalmsa, a relatively well-preserved scroll over at least thirty columns, copied on a luxurious parchment during the first half of the first century CE.9 This is a rather late date relative to the Qumran corpus. The early first-century CE scroll 11Q6 Psalmsb is most probably a copy of 11Q5,10 and the scrolls 4Q87 Psalmse and

|| 6 See Flint, The Dead Sea Psalms; and more recently, with a detailed material reconstruction of each scroll and an advanced critical examination of canonical concepts, Jain, Psalmen oder Psalter. 7 The common claim was disputed by Pajunen, “Perspectives,” 139–63. For a more theoretically informed, yet less detailed representation of the same argument, see Mroczek, The Literary Imagination, 25–38. 8 Pajunen, “Perspectives,” 153, and literature cited there. In my opinion (JBD), the existence of the Greek Psalter and its dependence on the MT Psalter are not sufficiently stressed by either Pajunen or Mroczek. 9 For this scroll see Flint, The Dead Sea Psalms, 172–227; Dahmen, Psalmen- und PsalterRezeption; Jain, Psalmen oder Psalter, 159–77, 221–97. 10 Dahmen, Psalmen- und Psalter-Rezeption, 50–52 considers 11Q6 to be a copy of 11Q5 with only slight variations. However, the presence of psalms 77–78 in fragment 1 of 11Q6 makes the identification difficult, because the extant 11Q5 contains only psalms from Psalms 93 onwards. Jain, Psalmen oder Psalter, 177–86, after having weighed the various considerations, avoids a clear conclusion whether 11Q6 is indeed a copy of 11Q5.

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4Q88 Psalmsf show much similarity to it in terms of content.11 Although the copies are rather late, the actual composition of this collection, i.e., the assemblage of psalms and the redaction of their order, can be dated earlier, in the first or even the second century BCE.12 Understanding the exact order of the 11Q Psalter depends on the placement of fragments, which is not fully determined. Yet a more-or-less agreed order can be produced, as shown below. This order contains seven psalms or prose compositions which are not contained in the canonical book of Psalms, and which can shed much light on the aims of the redactor. Some of them are known from other canonical traditions (LXX and the Syriac tradition) and are commonly numbered 151–154. The order pf psalms in 11Q5 is described here, with an arrow (→ ) depicting a clearly attested sequence. Sequences with less certainty are marked with a question mark. These sequences may have contained many more psalms, as for example the psalms of Hallel (113–118) may have been contained after Psalm 109, in a direct sequence of psalms 109–118.13 [Beginning of the scroll unknown →] 101→ 102→ 103 ? 109 ? 118:25–29→ 104→ 147→ 105→ 146→ 148→ [120→] 121→ 122→ 123→ 124→ 125→ 126→ 127→ 128→ 129→ 130→ 131→ 132→ 119→ 135→ 136→ 11814→ 145→ unknown text → 154 → Plea for deliverance → 139→ 137→ 138→ A wisdom psalm (Ben Sirah 51) → Apostrophe to Zion → 93 → 141→ 133→ 144→ 155→ 142→ 143→ 149→ 150→ Hymn to the Creator → David’s last words (2 Sam 23: 1–7) → David’s compositions → 140→ 134→ 151A→ 151B

The scholarly discussion of 11QPsalmsa is vast and cannot even be summarized here. We only raise a handful of central points in order to clear the way for the discussion. The presence of building blocks in the form of psalm-clusters, and the difference between the clusters employed in 11QPsalmsa from those of MT, led scholars—after the pioneering work of Gerald Wilson—to reflect on the construc|| 11 For 4Q87, see Jain, Psalmen oder Psalter, 97–104. For the relation between 4Q88 and 11Q5 see ibid., 104–11, 292–96, with extensive earlier bibliography. 12 Flint, Dead Sea Psalms, 198–201 stresses the gap between the dating of scrolls and the dating of the composition. For a first century date of 11QPsa see the considerations quoted by Pajunen, “Perspectives,” 154. Based on the similarity of 11QPsa with the Book of Jubilees (for example, Jub. 2:1–3 with the “Hymn to the Creator”), an earlier date seems preferable. See Skehan, “‘Jubilees’,” 343–47. 13 The order presented here follows the reconstruction of Jain, Psalmen oder Psalter, 252. Other reconstructions (such as the one by Dahmen, Psalmen- und Psalter-Rezeption) differ in details which are less relevant for the present discussion. 14 Psalm 118 appears in a form of Catena (‫)לקט פסוקים‬, with selected verses in the following order: 1, 15, 16, 8, 9, X (=a non-biblical verse), 29.

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tion of psalm-clusters in the canonical book of Psalms.15 Does the 11Q Psalter attest to an alternative arrangement and clustering of psalms to that of MT and LXX? Does it predate the MT Psalter or, to the contrary, assume it as a departure point? In other words, is it the case that the shape of the book of Psalms remained fluid as late as the first century CE? An important fact is that the 11Q Psalter contains only psalms from the fourth and fifth books of the MT Psalter, i.e., from Psalm 90 onwards (of the fourth book, only Psalm 93 is preserved in 11Q5, placed at a different position than that of the MT). Being the latest authored part of the Psalter,16 this last part may have remained unstable until late, while the first three books had already crystalized. Biblical scholars remain divided over this question. The first editor of 11QPsalmsa, James Sanders, and his student Peter Flint, led the argument that the scroll is an alternative Psalter to that of MT.17 In contrast, prominent Israeli scholars of the earlier generation claimed that 11QPsalmsa is not a copy of the book of Psalms, and cannot serve as a direct textual witness to the composition of that book, which had already crystalized when the 11Q Psalter was composed. Rather, they claim, the scroll is a liturgical collection, which is based on the MT Psalter while operating with different principles.18 This claim is based on inherent signs for liturgical use in the 11Q Psalter, for example the added refrain after each of the verses of Psalm 145 and the formula ‫ וזאת לזכרון‬immediately following it, or the disintegration of Psalm 118 into modular liturgical units in catena style. More recent scholars support this claim by accepting the primacy of the MT Psalter to the 11Q collection,19 while on the other hand an even more recent trend adopts a third, radical stance. According to this recent claim, in the Second Temple period no authoritative collection of psalms existed, but rather widely variegated clusters of various sorts, collected together in short collections, of which the MT Psalter is one, not necessarily authoritative exemplar.20 It is difficult to make a clear-cut decision among the various positions, certainly not in the present article, whose interest in the history of the Bible is only

|| 15 Wilson, The Editing. This, in turn, merged into the larger scholarly trend to see the book of Psalms not as a mere haphazard collection of individual songs, but rather as a purposeful “Book.” See for example McCann, ed., The Shape and Shaping. 16 Hurvitz, The Transition Period [Hebrew], 70–107. 17 Flint, The Dead Sea Psalms, 202–27. 18 Goshen-Gottstein, “The Psalms Scroll,” 22–33. Goshen’s conclusion was supported by S. Talmon and M. Haran. See recently Dahmen, “Psalmentext,” 109–23. 19 Kratz, “‘Blessed Be the Lord’,” 217–32; Jain, Psalmen oder Psalter, 296–97. 20 For this position see Pajunen, “Perspectives,” and Mroczek, The Literary Imagination, quoted above.

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marginal. For the present purposes it is safe to say that, regardless of its ‘scriptural’ status, the 11Q Psalter reflects a certain kind of liturgical interest from Second Temple times, in the same way that the MT Psalter reflects a liturgical interest. It is this liturgical trajectory of the 11Q Psalter that we study here, hoping to trace its possible reception in later Jewish prayers. Let us now look at the clustering of psalms in the 11Q Psalter, trying to fathom their organizing principles. This task can be done with an eye towards both the clustering in MT and in later Jewish liturgical use. The clusters as defined here were recognized by previous scholars who sought to divide the 11Q Psalter into meaningful groups of psalms in order to decipher its objectives.21 The first insight that comes to mind is that the prominent block of praise concluding the MT Psalter (Psalms 145–150), which also serves as the core of the Jewish Pesukei deZimrah, is entirely annulled in the 11Q Psalter. The block of Hallel psalms (113–118), mentioned in the Mishnah (m. Pes. 10:6–7), is not extant in the scroll and may have been contained between Psalm 109 and the ending of Psalm 120, in the first part of the scroll. Instead, the structure of 11QPsalmsa creates a climax of praise based on a sequence of well-known clusters: The Songs of Ascent (120–132, while 133 and 134 appear later on) → 119 → Hallel ha-Gadol (“The Great Hallel,” 135–136) → Catena based on Psalm 118 → concluding with the psalm of praise par excellence, Psalm 145. This block stands out with respect to its surrounding as a stronghold of praise, using building blocks that have also been used in the same function in the MT Psalter.22 The praise of God, after all, is the most pronounced theme of liturgy in the Second Temple period.23 Another prominent characteristic of the 11Q Psalter is the strong Davidic orientation of its conclusion, with the sequence of David’s last words (2 Sam 23: 1–7) → David’s compositions → 140→ 134→ 151A→ 151B

|| 21 Wilson, “The Qumran Psalms Scroll,” 448–64, esp. 459–61, 463; Jain, Psalmen oder Psalter, 268–70. Dahmen, Psalmen- und Psalter-Rezeption, 293–97, debates the question to which cluster psalm 145 belongs. 22 For Psalm 145 see Kimelman, “Psalm 145,” 37–58; Kratz, “‘Blessed be the Lord’.” For the use of psalm 119 in Qumran see the neglected study by Blidstein, “Torah and Inspiration” [Hebrew], 378–82. Flint (The Dead Sea Psalms, 33–34) suggested that the scroll 1Q11 Psalmsb may have served as a liturgical document containing only the Songs of Ascent. This hypothesis was discussed in detail according to material methods by Jain, Psalmen oder Psalter, 43–56, who concluded that Flint’s idea is possible, but that it is also possible that the scroll contained more material. Jain seriously considers the attractive possibility that 1Q11 is related to the scroll 1Q30, in which case it is not a ‘purely biblical’ scroll. The content of 1Q30 frag. 1 is highly intriguing with regard to the composition of the Psalter, but alas, not enough has remained of it. 23 See Nitzan, Qumran Prayer, 173–200; Pajunen, “The Praise of God,” 475–88.

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Davidic focus can be discerned throughout the collection by the wide dispersion of Davidic titles and by the insertion of David into titles otherwise not known as Davidic.24 Thus the fixed cluster of the Songs of Ascent is interrupted after Psalm 132, a psalm which clearly involves David and his choice of Zion.25 For the composers of this collection it was important to conclude with a strong statement of the role of David as the author of the psalms and as the prime model of a person praising his God.26 The concluding cluster of 11Q5 opens with David’s last words from 2 Sam 23 and continues with a prose account, unknown from elsewhere, which depicts David as a sage and a prophet, who with divine providence authored thousands of praises and hymns in correlation with the days of the sacred calendar.27 After the Davidic Psalm 140 and the general summons for praise in Psalm 134, the scroll concludes with the autobiographical Psalm 151, depicting David as the first and prototypical singer of God’s praise. If the preceding “Hymn to the Creator” is taken together in consideration with this block, then one can point out a shared interest in connecting David with light and solar symbolism.28 To sum up this part, the 11Q Psalter attests to a strong liturgical orientation. Various ideological and literary lines dictate the choice of psalms and their placement in clusters. Among these compositional lines we have especially noted the prominent block of divine praise which begins with the Songs of Ascent, as well as the strong Davidic focus, which permeates the entire collection and comes to its peak at its conclusion.

|| 24 Flint, The Dead Sea Psalms, 193–94; Wilson, “the Qumran Psalms Scroll,” 455–56; Dahmen, Psalmen- und Psalter-Rezeption, 313–18. 25 Kratz, “‘Blessed be the Lord’,” 228. 26 For the formation of this Davidic figure, which is already apparent in the Septuagint Psalter, see Mroczek, The Literary Imagination, 51–85. 27 For this passage see VanderKam, “Studies on ‘David’s Compositions’,” 212–20. 28 Jain, Psalmen oder Psalter, 261. Light, especially the regular interchange of light and darkness, are a fundamental principle of fixed liturgy; see Weinfeld, “Traces” [Hebrew], 15–26, and more recently Penner, Patterns.

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2 Palestinian liturgy from the Cairo Genizah The Songs of Ascent in medieval Palestinian liturgy The Palestinian rite is an old Jewish prayer tradition, practiced in the land of Israel and in Jewish communities under the Palestinian center’s authority through late antiquity and the Middle Ages. This rite differs in many fundamental aspects from the Babylonian rite, the latter being the origin for all contemporary Jewish prayer. Therefore, the Palestinian rite sheds light on early forms of Jewish prayer and on its development. The Palestinian rite diminished in use following the decline of the Palestinian geonic center, until by the 13th century it was practiced only in a handful of local traditions. The Palestinian rite is known today chiefly from the fragments of prayer books found in the attic of the BenEzra synagogue in Fustat (old Cairo), which was home to the local Palestinian community. The Cairo Genizah has also preserved letters, petitions, responsa and other documents, revealing additional details about the Palestinian prayer rite, its practice in Egypt and the conflicts that accompanied its decline and extinction.29 Since the first scholarly publications of Palestinian prayer books from the Cairo Genizah, much attention was drawn to the distinctive unit of psalms preceding the Shaharit service.30 All Babylonian traditions assign the last six concluding chapters of the book of Psalms, (Psalms 145–150), to the Morning Prayer unit of Pesukei deZimrah (“Chapters of Praise”). However, fragments of Palestinian prayer books published by Jacob Mann in 1925 revealed other psalms units, among them a long custom of 31 psalms, from the beginning of the Songs of Ascent in Psalm 120 to the end of the book of Psalms in Psalm 150.31 Fifty years later Ezra Fleischer presented additional testimony for the liturgical use of the Songs of Ascent—called Tefillat ha-Shir (henceforth: the Song) in the Genizah

|| 29 For an introduction to the Palestinian rite from the Cairo Genizah and its research, see Fleischer, Eretz-Israel Prayer, 9–17. For a summary of the findings concerning the Palestinian synagogue in Fustat see Goitein, A Mediterranean Society, 115–70; Gil, Palestine [Hebrew], 408–17. 30 A selective bibliography: Elbogen, Der Jüdische Gottesdienst, 81–82; Aptowitzer, “Shibbolim” [Hebrew], 85–87; Liebreich, “The Compilation,” 255–67; idem, “The Pesuke De-Zimra Benedictions,” 195–206; Hoffman, The Canonization, 127–34; Heinemann, Prayer in the Period [Hebrew], 103–5; Wieder, “The Fifteen ‘Songs of Ascents’” [Hebrew], 352–57; Ta-Shma, “Pesukei DeZimrah,” 269–75. 31 Mann, “Genizah Fragments,” 272–85, 324–25.

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fragments—and discussed their stature in Palestinian liturgy.32 These fragments carried yet another version of the psalms unit of Shaharit, in which the Songs of Ascent were recited next to Psalms 145–150, known from the Babylonian tradition of Pesukei deZimrah. The two consecutive units are often called Al-Shirat wal-Mazamir (“songs and psalms”) in Judeo-Arabic. Many signs point to the significance of the Song for the local Palestinian community whose prayer books and documents were preserved in the Genizah: sets of piyyutim designated to accompany the Song were composed by Joseph ibn Abitur and by others since the 10th century,33 and a special prayer conveyed blessing to those who came to the synagogue to recite the Song.34 Sometime at the end of the 12th century or the beginning of the 13th century, a cantor called Yedutun created an elaborate siddur for the formal use of the synagogue.35 The Shabbat Morning service of this siddur included a very detailed description of the Song, which was performed in the presence of a Torah scroll carried outside the ark for that purpose; the ritual service was adorned by various verses, piyyutim and other prayers interspersed within the individual psalms. A public statement whose draft was found in the Genizah, written in Yedutun’s own hand, states the signers’ devotion to the old Palestinian prayer traditions, among them the festive Song described in his prayer books.36 This declaration was aimed against the efforts of the local Babylonian leaders who wished to eliminate the unusual Palestinian rite, by then a dying tradition. Their side of the story, in turn, was also preserved in the Genizah, in a responsum by Rav Yoseph Rosh ha-Seder, one of the local leaders, who weighs the halachic validity of some Palestinian traditions and rules against them.37 Tefillat ha-Shir’s importance is also reflected in its surprisingly long survival. While most Palestinian prayer traditions were no longer in use by the end of the 13th century, The Song remained one of the very few Palestinian customs still

|| 32 See Fleischer, Eretz-Israel Prayer, 215–54. 33 See Granat, Ḥamesh Esre Shirot. 34 See fragments CUL T-S 6H 6.6 (published by Fleischer, 246); Mosseri VIII.98.2 (published by Raziel Kretzmer, The Palestinian Morning Service, 218) 35 Fleischer, “Le-Sidrei ha-Tefillah,” 218–19, 244–55. For further information about Yedutun as a cantor, scholar and poet see Elizur, “The Poetry of Rabbi Yedutun Ha-Levi He-Haver,” 301– 28 [Hebrew]. 36 The statement was published and discussed by Mann, The Jews in Egypt, 221–223; Fleischer, Eretz-Israel Prayer, 218–23; Friedman, “‘A Controversy’,” 251–53 [Hebrew]; Russ-Fishbane, “The Maimonidean Legacy,” 208–9. 37 See Friedman, “Opposition to Palestinian Prayer,” 69–102 [Hebrew]. Although the Song is mentioned in the question, the extant parts of the answer do not deal directly with it.

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practiced in Cairo, and the Songs of Ascent were recited every Shabbat and holiday morning before the Babylonian Pesukei deZimrah, in what was otherwise a completely Babylonian service.38 The Jewish community of Aleppo kept a similar tradition, in which the Songs of Ascent are recited as an introduction to the Shabbat Morning Service, before the Morning benedictions.39 The uniqueness and significance of The Song lead several scholars to view it as a very early prayer tradition. According to Fleischer, the Songs of Ascent, rather than Psalms 145–150, constituted the original Palestinian unit of psalms.40 Cases where Palestinian prayer books present a sequence of the two units of psalms 120–136 → 144–150, were viewed by Fleischer as indicating Babylonian influence over the “pure” Palestinian rite. More radically, Moshe Weinfeld assumed that the psalms unit is one of the earliest prayer units of the Morning Service, already in use in the Second Temple period.41 While he found traces of Pesukei deZimrah in 11QPsalmsa from Qumran, he does not refer to the Songs of Ascent in this scroll but rather to a hypothetic primeval form of Pesukei deZimrah, a collection of verses rather than of psalms. Following the footsteps of both Fleischer and Weinfeld, Israel Ta-Shma claimed that: (a) the daily psalms liturgy is an ancient practice that can be traced back to Qumran and Tannaitic literature;42 and (b) the primary form of the psalms unit of Shaharit had been the long Song of 31 consecutive psalms (Psalms 120–150), whereas the Babylonian version is an abbreviation of the original Palestinian unit.43 Although he did not state explicitly that the Songs of Ascent transcribed in 11QPsalmsa are an early testimony for Pesukei deZimrah, his point of view implies that there has been a continuous tradition of reciting the psalms consisting the Songs of Ascent from Second Temple times until the last Palestinian community ceased to exist. However, a comprehensive survey of the various Palestinian customs of Shaharit psalms found in the Genizah shows that Tefillat ha-Shir is not the earliest component of the Psalms unit. Although it was highly valued by the local community, Tefillat ha-Shir was not a stable prayer unit and tended to change

|| 38 See Raziel Kretzmer, “How Late?” [Hebrew], 309–36. 39 See Prayer Book According to the Custom of the Aleppo Community (Aram Ṣoba), 1: 79–85. 40 See Fleischer, Eretz-Israel Prayer, 241–43. 41 See Weinfeld, “Traces of Kedushat Yoẕer,” 23–26. 42 Based on b. Shabbat 118b. Other scholars interpret this Talmudic source as a testimony of Pesukei deZimrah being part of the service in the late Amoraic, rather than the Tannaitic period. See Elbogen, Der Jüdische Gottesdienst, 81–82; Aptowitzer, “Shibbolim,” 85–87 [Hebrew]; Hoffman, “Hallel,” 35–38; Brody, “Liturgical Uses,” 69–71. 43 See Ta-Shma, “Pesukei DeZimrah,” 271–75.

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locations in the order of service. Since the praise psalms 145–150 are the most stable section of the Psalms unit, in both the Babylonian and Palestinian rite, there are no grounds for the claim that they are a late supplement added under the influence of the Babylonian custom. They appear in all Palestinian prayer books, which differ from the Babylonian prayer books only by the number of psalms: while the common Babylonian rite is based on six hymns and begins with Psalm 145 and the attached opening verse Ashre (Ps 84:5), the Palestinian liturgical fragments contain seven hymns, beginning with Psalm 144. The Songs of Ascent, in contrast, appear in the Genizah in various forms. In addition to the two forms mentioned earlier – either a long sequence of 31 psalms (Psalms 120– 150) or two separate units (Psalms 120–136 → 144–150), a third version placed the Songs of Ascent at the beginning of the Shaharit, preceding the Morning Benedictions. This version, which was more common on the weekdays, assigned the Song to a “peripheral” position outside the Psalms unit.44 In yet other fragments, it is not quite clear whether the Song was recited at all. These widely variegated manifestations of the Song seem to point it out as a later addition, which different communities chose to practice in various ways. Therefore, the Songs of Ascent may not have been the most ancient Palestinian liturgical tradition, but rather a secondary custom. It should be seen as part of the renaissance of scriptural prayers in Jewish liturgy,45 as well as of the growing interest in the Temple ritual, of which the Songs of Ascent were traditionally considered part.46

|| 44 As in the Aleppo custom, it might have been an introduction to the Shaharit. 45 The enriching of rabbinic liturgy with scripture had been an ongoing process since the Amoraic period. It took various forms, among them the more creative form of collection of verses. Ruth Langer delineates the peak of this form between late Amoraic period and the emergence of Karaism. See Langer, “Biblical Texts,” 70. For further discussion about the use of scripture in post rabbinic period see note 2. 46 See m. Sukkah 5:4, which describes the Songs of Ascent as part of the Levites’ poetry recited on the temple steps. As for the rising of Temple related liturgy, some scholars link this tendency to the growing dominance of priesthood as social elite in late antiquity. See Irshai, “The Priesthood” [Hebrew], 67–106; Fine, “A Liturgical Interpretation,” 402–19; Levine, The Ancient Synagogue, 521–28. For further discussion about Temple rituals in Jewish liturgy see Ehrlich, “‘Maʿaseh Bereshit’” [Hebrew], 97–98; idem, The Non-Verbal Language [Hebrew], 189–93; Münz-Manor, “From Seder HaMaʿaracha” [Hebrew], 293–310.

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The Davidic orientation King David appears in Jewish liturgy in two main contexts: as the role model of past kingship whose descendant would be the future savior, and as the poet who wrote the Psalms. The former role is mainly found in the benedictions for David and Jerusalem in the Amidah and among the Haftarah benedictions. The role of David as the author of the Psalms is present, naturally, around the major liturgical uses of psalms, namely Pesukei deZimrah and Hallel. The Babylonian rite begins Pesukei deZimrah with an opening prayer called Baruch She'amar, which introduces the ensuing unit of psalms by stating that God shall be praised by the Songs of David. In this context, the phrase is a synonym for “Psalms,” stressing their ascription to David. The Palestinian rite does not open the psalms unit with Baruch She'amar— or any other benediction— but the same phrase appears in another benediction surrounding the psalms in proximity. The concluding benedictions of psalm units are called “The Song Benediction” (Birkat ha-Shir), a term that appears already in the Mishnah (m. Pes. 10:7). The Palestinian rite concluded the morning psalms unit with one of the most common and early versions of the Song benedictions, beginning with ‫יהללוך‬, which includes a reference to the Songs of David: 47

...‫יהללוך יי אלהינו כל מעשיך וחסידיך יודו ויברכו את שמך על שירי דוד בן ישי עבדך‬

Your praise, God our Lord, will be proclaimed by all Your works. Your pious ones will thank and bless Your Name by the songs of David the son of Jesse Your Servant…

It seems therefore that the linkage between the Songs of Ascent and the Davidic orientation, as attested in Qumran, exists also in Palestinian prayer books, which conclude the Tefillat ha-Shir with a Davidic motif. Other versions of the Song Benedictions concluding the morning Psalms unit mention David’s songs too, such as Nishmat Kol Hai (“The Soul of Every Living”), the long prayer concluding the Psalms unit on Shabbat and holidays. This Davidic orientation, however, is not exclusive to the Songs of Ascent. Other liturgical units based on psalms are concluded by similar benedictions that include the same phrase. The Hallel, recited on holidays and Rosh Hodesh, is concluded by a slightly different version of Yahalelucha that mentions the

|| 47 According to MS Oxford heb. g.2. Other Genizah fragments augment the list of actions taken by God's followers in order to praise His name, see for example MS RNL, Antonin, Yevr. B.III.993. For further discussion of the textual variety of this benediction see Wieder, “The Old Palestinian Ritual,” 69–71; Hazani, Birkat ha-Shir [Hebrew], 64–66.

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Songs of David as well. In today’s prayer books, all following the Babylonian rite, Yahalelucha at the end of the Hallel does not mention the Songs of David, but other Babylonian versions found in the Genizah do, as do the Palestinian versions.48 The Genizah fragments reveal yet another prayer unit based on Psalms that originated in the Palestinian rite. The Psalm of the Day (Mizmor ha-Yom) is a special psalm dedicated for each holiday and recited at the beginning of the Evening Service and sometimes also at the Morning Service, between the psalms unit and Qeri’at Shema.49 The dedicated psalm was sometimes introduced by a unique benediction: ‫ברוך אתה יי אלהינו מלך העולם אשר בחר בדוד עבדו ורצה בתהלתו ובשירי קדשו להללו‬ ‫לשבחו לפארו על רוב גבורותיו כל הימים ברוך אתה יי מצמיח ישועה שלימה קרובה לעמו‬ 50‫ישראל מנחם ציון ובנה ירושלם‬ Blessed are You, God our Lord, who chose David His servant and desired his glorification and his holy songs, to bless and to praise and to extoll Him every day for His great might, blesses are You God, who causes salvation to sprout forth soon for His people Israel, consoler of Zion, builder of Jerusalem.

This benediction is one of the most famous Palestinian traditions. It won much attention due to the fact it was first known from a polemic note in Karaite writings before it was located in the Genizah.51 Not only does it mention David’s songs, but David is its main subject, as the chosen one whose psalms are desired by God, and therefore, the ritual which focuses on them shall be desirable

|| 48 For example, MS CUL T-S AS 107.84, T-S AS 102.119, T-S A32.143, T-S H2.138, T-S H2.115. For Palestinian prayer books, see CUL Add. 3356, Or. 1080.10.20. 49 For a description of this rite and the list of psalms designated for each holiday, see Fleischer, Eretz-Israel Prayer, 161–175. 50 According to MS CUL T-S NS 155.1. Other textual witnesses present slight differences. 51 The 10th century Karaite scholar Ya'qub Al-Qirqisani claimed in his book Kitab Al-Anwar Wal-Marakib, 15–16 that this benediction proves the Karaite belief as to the central role the book of Psalms should play in the liturgy. The first evidence for the actual existence of this benediction was found by Scheiber, “A Rabbanite Prayerbook” [Hebrew], 27–40; idem, “The Rabbanite Prayer-Book,” 307–20; idem, “Prières Rabbanites,” 213–19. For further discussion of this benediction see Wieder, “A Benediction,” 39–48. For more information about the polemical aspects of the book of Psalms see Simon, Four Approaches [Hebrew], 19–24; Brody, “Liturgical Uses,” 72–74.

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to Him. All major Psalm units in the Palestinian rite were thus surrounded by benedictions extolling the Davidic agency.52 Let us now conclude the discussion of the Genizah material. The Songs of Ascent constituted a significant part of the morning liturgy in the Palestinian tradition as reflected in the Cairo Genizah, as well as in the Aleppo prayer custom. Palestinian prayer books also present a proximity between the Songs of Ascent and a benediction with Davidic motifs, but this is not an exclusive phenomenon, since all prominent sequences of psalms are commonly accompanied by benedictions carrying such orientation.

3 Conclusion Our study has focused on two liturgical collections, both originating in the Land of Israel albeit a millennium apart. These two collections show interesting similarities. In addition to the general trait of using psalms in liturgy, we can specifically point out two factors: the use of Songs of Ascent as a coherent liturgical unit alongside other psalm collections from latter part of the book of Psalms (Psalms 135–136, 144–150); and the pronounced agency of David as an author of liturgical psalms. While Davidic agency is a pillar of traditional Jewish prayer, the scrolls from Qumran supply one of its earliest attestations, probably from the stage when this concept was in formation. We have not been able to demonstrate the existence of a genetic link between the two collections. In other words, the Palestinian rite attested in the Genizah is not a direct descendant of the Qumran Psalter. An examination of the Palestinian Tefillat ha-Shir reveals that it was probably a later, secondary development, created some time in the Middle Ages. This innovation is probably based on Tannaitic traditions about the role of the Songs of Ascent in the liturgy of the Second Temple, but it should not be seen as continuing an uninterrupted line of tradition. The fact that the two liturgies discussed here —from the late First Millennium BCE and the late First Millennium CE—are not genetically related, only strengthens the significance of the typological resemblance. The Songs of Ascent and other psalmodic collections recurrently appeared in Palestinian litur-

|| 52 The phrase “songs of David,” as a synonym for “Psalms,” is occasionally mentioned in other liturgies, such as in the Musaf Amidah for Rosh Hodesh occurring on weekdays, when describing the joy at the expected rebuilding of the Temple and establishment of its rituals.

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gical use, not only as ornaments for central parts of the prayer but rather as a self-contained element carrying its own ritual substance. We are content to join the general sentiment expressed by Stefan Reif about the continuity between Qumran and rabbinic prayer: multiple shared themes and motifs, but little direct linkage in terms of recitation, participation, and context.53

Bibliography Al-Qirqisani. Ya'qub. Kitab Al-Anwar Wal-Marakib. Edited by Leon Nemoy. Vol. 1. New York: Alexander Kohut Memorial Foundation, 1939. Aptowitzer, Victor. “Shibbolim 3: Pesukei deZimrah” [Hebrew]. Ha-Tzofe Me-Eretz Ha-Ger 1 (1910): 84–87. Blidstein, Gerald J. “Torah and Inspiration in the Dead Sea Scrolls and in Psalm 119” [Hebrew]. Beit Mikra 20 (1975): 378–82. Brody, Robert. “Liturgical Uses of the Book of Psalms in the Geonic Period.” Pages 61–81 in Prayers That Cite Scripture. Edited by James L. Kugel. Cambridge, MA.: Harvard University Press, 2006. Dahmen, Ulrich. Psalmen- und Psalter-Rezeption im Frühjudentum. Rekonstruktion, Textbestand, Struktur und Pragmatik der Psalmenrolle 11QPsa aus Qumran. STDJ 49. Leiden: Brill, 2003. Dahmen, Ulrich. “Psalmentext und Psalmensammlung. Eine Auseinandersetzung mit P.W. Flint.” Pages 109–23 in Die Textfunde vom Toten Meer und der Hebräischen Bibel. Edited by Ulrich Dahmen et al. Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag, 2002. Ehrlich, Uri. “‘Maʿaseh Bereshit’ and ‘Shir Shel Yom’ in the Early Siddur: New Finds from the Cairo Geniza” [Hebrew]. Tarbiz 78 (2009): 189–202. Ehrlich, Uri. “Prayer in the Land of Israel in the Time of the Mishnah and Talmud” [Hebrew]. Pages 351–78 in vol. 1 of The Classic Rabbinic Literature of Eretz Israel – Introductions and Studies. Edited by Menahem Kahana et al. Jerusalem: Ben-Zvi, 2018. Ehrlich, Uri. The Non-Verbal Language of Jewish Prayer [Hebrew]. Jerusalem: Magnes, 1999. Elbogen, Ismar. Der Jüdische Gottesdienst in seiner Geschichtlichen Entwicklung, Leipzig: Fock, 1913. Hebrew translation by Yehoshua Amir and Joseph Heinemann. Tel-Aviv: Dvir, 1972. Elizur, Shulamit. “The Poetry of Rabbi Yedutun Ha-Levi He-Haver” [Hebrew]. Dine Israel 26–27 (2009–2010): 301–62. Fine, Steven. “A Liturgical Interpretation of Ancient Synagogue Remains in Late Antique Palestine” [Hebrew]. Pages 402–19 in Continuity and Renewal: Jews and Judaism in ByzantineChristian Palestine. Edited by Lee I. Levine. Jerusalem: Ben-Zvi, 2004. Fleischer, Ezra. Eretz-Israel Prayer and Prayer Rituals as Portrayed in the Genizah Documents [Hebrew]. Jerusalem: Magnes, 1988. Fleischer, Ezra. “Le-Sidrei ha-Tefillah be-Veit ha-Knesset Shel Bennei Eretz Israel be-Fustat beReshit ha-Meah ha-Shlosh Esre” [Hebrew]. Asufot 7 (1993): 217–60. Repr., Pages 799–842

|| 53 Reif, “Qumran Research”, 37.

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in vol. 1 of Statutory Jewish Prayers: Their Emergence and Development. Edited by Shulamit Elizur and Tova Beeri. Jerusalem: Magnes, 2012. Flint, Peter W. The Dead Sea Psalms Scrolls and the Book of Psalms. STDJ 17. Leiden: Brill, 1997. Friedman, Mordechai A. “‘A Controversy for the Sake of Heaven’: Studies in the Liturgical Polemics of Abraham Maimonides and his Contemporaries” [Hebrew]. Te'uda 10 (1996): 245–98. Friedman, Mordechai A. “Opposition to Palestinian Prayer and Prayer Rituals as Portrayed in Responsa Found in the Geniza (from the Responsa of R. Joseph Rosh Ha-Seder)” [Hebrew]. Pages 69–102 in Knesset Ezra: Literature and Life in the Synagogue. Studies Presented to Ezra Fleischer. Edited by Sulamit Elizur et al. Jerusalem: Ben-Zvi, 1994. Gil, Moshe. Palestine during the first Muslim period (634–1099) [Hebrew]. 3 vols. Tel-Aviv: TelAviv University and the Ministry of Defense Publishing House, 1983. Goitein, Shelomo D. A Mediterranean Society: The Jewish Communities of the Arab World as Portrayed in the Documents of the Cairo Geniza. Vol. 2. Berkeley; London: University of California Press, 1971. Goshen-Gottstein, Moshe H. “The Psalms Scroll (11QPsa): A Problem of Canon and Text.” Textus 5 (1966): 22–33. Granat, Yehoshua. “Ḥamesh Esre Shirot: Sidrat Piyyutei Shir ha-Maalot le-Yoseph Ebn Avitur” [Hebrew]. PhD diss., Hebrew University, Jerusalem, 2001. Hazani, Israel. Birkat Ha-Shir [Hebrew]. Jerusalem: Private, 1998. Heinemann, Joseph. Prayer in the Period of the Tanna'im and Amora'im – Its Nature and its Patterns [Hebrew]. Jerusalem: Magnes, 1984. Hofmann, Lawrence A. “Hallels, Midrash, Cannon, and Loss: The Psalms in Jewish Liturgy.” Pages 33–57 in Psalms in Community: Jewish and Christian Textual, Liturgical and Artistic Traditions. Edited by Harold W. Attridge and Margot E. Fassler. Atlanta: SBL Press, 2003. Hofmann, Lawrence A. The Canonization of the Synagogue Service. London: University of Notre Dame Press, 1979. Hurvitz, Avi. The Transition Period in Biblical Hebrew: A Study in Post-Exilic Hebrew and its Implications for the Dating of Psalms. [Hebrew] Jerusalem: Bialik Institute, 1972. Irshai, Oded. “The Priesthood in Jewish Society of Late Antiquity” [Hebrew]. Pages 67–106 in Continuity and Renewal: Jews and Judaism in Byzantine-Christian Palestine. Edited by Lee I. Levine. Jerusalem: Ben-Zvi, 2004. Jain, Eva. Psalmen oder Psalter. Materielle Rekonstruktion und inhaltliche Untersuchung der Psalmenhandschriften aus der Wüste Juda. STDJ 109. Leiden: Brill, 2014. Kimelman, Reuven. “Psalm 145: Theme, Structure, and Impact.” JBL 113 (1994): 37–58. Kratz, Reinhard. “‘Blessed Be the Lord and Blessed Be His Name Forever’: Psalm 145 in the Hebrew Bible and in the Psalms Scroll 11Q5.” Pages 217–32 in Prayer and Poetry in the Dead Sea Scrolls and Related Literature: Essays in Honor of Eileen Schuller on the Occasion of her 65th Birthday. Edited by Jeremy Penner et al. STDJ 98. Leiden: Brill, 2011. Langer, Ruth. “Biblical Texts in Jewish Prayers: Their History and Function.” Pages 63–90 in Jewish and Christian Liturgy and Worship: New Insights into its History and Interaction. Edited by Albert Gerhards and Clemens Leonhard. Jewish and Christian Perspectives 15. Leiden: Brill 2007. Levine, Lee I. The Ancient Synagogue: The First Thousand Years. New Haven; London: Yale University Press, 2005. Liebreich, Leon J. “The Compilation of the Pesuke De-Zimra.” PAAJR 18 (1949): 255–67.

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Liebreich, Leon J. “The Pesuke De-Zimra Benedictions.” JQR 41 (1950): 195–206. Mann, Jacob. “Genizah Fragments of the Palestinian Order of Service.” HUCA 2 (1925): 269– 338. Mann, Jacob. The Jews in Egypt and in Palestine under the Fāṭimid Caliphs. 2 vols. Oxford; London: Oxford University Press, 1920–1922. McCann, J. Clinton, ed. The Shape and Shaping of the Psalter. Sheffield: Academic, 1993. Mroczek, Eva. The Literary Imagination in Jewish Antiquity. Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press, 2016. Münz-Manor, Ophir. “From Seder HaMaʿaracha to Seder HaMaʿamadot: The Emergence and Transformation of a Liturgical Rite in the Middle Ages” [Hebrew]. Tarbiz 73 (2004): 293– 310. Nitzan, Bilhah. Qumran Prayer and Religious Poetry. STDJ 12. Leiden: Brill, 1994. Pajunen, Mika. “Perspectives on the Existence of a Particular Authoritative Book of Psalms in the Late Second Temple Period.” JSOT 39 (2014): 139–63. Pajunen, Mika. “The Praise of God and His Name as the Core of Second Temple Liturgy.” ZAW 127 (2015): 475–88. Penner, Jeremy. Patterns of Daily Prayer in Second Temple Period Judaism. STDJ 104. Leiden: Brill, 2012. Prayer Book According to the Custom of the Aleppo Community (Aram Ṣoba). Vol. 1. Jerusalem 2007 (Venice 1527). Raziel Kretzmer, Vered. “How Late was the Palestinian Rite Practiced in Egypt? New Evidence from the Cairo Genizah” [Hebrew]. Tarbiz 85 (2018): 309–36. Raziel Kretzmer, Vered. The Palestinian Morning Service According to Prayerbook Fragments from the Cairo Genizah. PhD. diss., Ben-Gurion University, Beer Sheva, 2018. Reif, Stefan C. “Use of the Bible.” Pages 71–92 in Stefan C. Reif, Problems with Prayers: Studies in the Textual History of Early Rabbinic Liturgy. SJ 37. Berlin: de Gruyter, 2006. Reif, Stefan C. “Qumran Research and Rabbinic Liturgy.” Pages 33–49 in Stefan C. Reif, Problems with Prayers: Studies in the Textual History of Early Rabbinic Liturgy. SJ 37. Berlin: de Gruyter, 2006. Russ-Fishbane, Elisha. “The Maimonidean Legacy in the East: Study of Father and Son.” JQR 102 (2012): 190–223. Simon, Uriel. Four Approaches to the Book of Psalms – from Saadya Gaon to Abraham Ibn-Ezra [Hebrew]. Ramat-Gan: Bar-Ilan University Press, 1982. Skehan, Patrick W. “Jubilees and the Qumran Psalter.” CBQ 37 (1975): 343–47. Scheiber, Alexander. “A Rabbanite Prayerbook Quoted by Qirqisani” [Hebrew]. Pages 27–40 in vol. 1 of Ignace Goldziher Memorial Volume. Edited by Samuel Löwinger and Joseph Somogyi, Budapest: Typ. Globus, 1948. Scheiber, Alexander. “The Rabbanite Prayer-Book Quoted by Qirqisani.” HUCA 22 (1949): 307– 20. Repr., Pages 1–14 in Genizah Studies. Hildesheim: Olms, 1981. Scheiber, Alexander. “Prières Rabbanites chez les auteurs Karaïtes.” REJ 125 (1966): 213–19. Ta-Shma, Israel. “Pesukei DeZimrah u-Ma'amadam be-Seder ha-Tefilla.” Pages 269–75 in Studies in Memory of Professor Ze'ev Falk. Edited by Michael Corinaldi et al. Jerusalem: Meisharim, 2005. VanderKam, James C. “Studies on ‘David’s Compositions’ (11QPsa 27:2–11).” Eretz-Israel 27 (1999): 212–20. Wieder, Naphtali. “The Fifteen ‘Songs of Ascents’ and Psalm 119 – Their Division into Readings for the Seven Days of the Week (in Karaite and Rabbanite Customs)” [Hebrew]. Pages 352–

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57 in vol. 1 of The Formation of Jewish Liturgy in the East and the West. Jerusalem: Ben-Zvi, 1998. Wieder, Naphtali. “The Old Palestinian Ritual—New Sources.” JJS 4 (1953): 30–37, 65–73. Repr. [Hebrew], Pages 108–25 in vol. 1 of The Formation of Jewish Liturgy in the East and the West. Jerusalem: Ben-Zvi, 1998. Wieder, Naphtali. “A Benediction Quoted by the Karaite Scholar Yaqub al-Qirqisani” [Hebrew]. Sinai 98 (1986): 39–48. Repr., Pages 242–52 in vol. 1 of The Formation of Jewish Liturgy in the East and the West. Jerusalem: Ben-Zvi, 1998. Weinfeld, Moshe. “Traces of Kedushat Yoẕer and Pesukey De-Zimra in the Qumran Literature and in Ben-Sira” [Hebrew]. Tarbiz 45 (1976): 15–26. Repr., Pages 167–78 in Early Jewish Liturgy: From Psalms to the Prayers in Qumran and Rabbinic Literature. Jerusalem: Magnes, 2004. Wilson, Gerald H. The Editing of the Hebrew Psalter. SBLDS 76. Missoula, MT: Scholars Press, 1985. Wilson, Gerald H. “The Qumran Psalms Scroll (11QPsa) and the Canonical Psalter: Comparison of Editorial Shaping.” CBQ 59 (1997): 448–64.

Avi Shmidman and Uri Ehrlich

“We shall glorify You, our King”: A Poetic Passage in the Second Benediction of the Grace after Meals Abstract: The second benediction of the Jewish grace after meals is dedicated to thanksgiving. In a small portion of Cairo Genizah transcriptions of this benediction, we find a poetic interpolation containing a series of synonymous phrases expressing intent to praise and exalt God. In this paper, we consider the unique nature of this poetic passage, the theological motivation which may be reflected by it, and the parallel liturgical passages which may have influenced its formulation. In an appendix to the paper, we present a full synoptic edition of all Cairo Genizah transcriptions of the passage. Keywords: Grace after meals, Jewish liturgy, Hekhalot, Divine praise, mealtime prayer

1 Introduction The first major scholarly study regarding the statutory text of the Grace after Meals prayer was published nearly ninety years ago by Louis Finkelstein.1 However, although his research included a large and far-ranging set of textual witnesses, he was severely limited at the time in his ability to incorporate data from the Cairo Genizah fragments. In recent years, the esteemed honoree of the present volume, Prof. Stefan C. Reif, has taken up the mantle and continued researching the statutory text of the Grace, in light of the hundreds of Cairo Genizah transcriptions of the prayer now known to us. Among his other studies on this topic, Reif published and annotated two full transcriptions of the statutory text of the Grace from Cairo Genizah manuscripts, comparing and contrasting the texts with a host of other Genizah fragments as well as with all other known prayer rites.2 Reif’s studies also reflect his sensitivity to the interplay between the statutory text of the Grace and the poetic versions thereof.3 Against this || This research was supported by the Israel Science Foundation (Grant No. 305/16). || 1 Finkelstein, “The Birkat Ha-Mazon.” 2 Reif, Problems, 333–48; Reif, Prayer Texts, 288–300. 3 See, for instance, Reif, Prayer Texts, 299–300. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110630282-020

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backdrop, we wish to honor Prof. Reif with an inquiry regarding a little-studied poetic insertion which occasionally crops up inside the second benediction of the Grace. The second benediction of the Grace is variously dubbed “the benediction of the land” or “thanksgiving” in talmudic sources,4 and, in fact, this benediction contains expressions of thanksgiving for the inheritance of the land of Israel, as well as for a number of other items, such as the Torah and the covenant.5 The benediction is formulated according to a well-defined structure, encapsulated by the talmudic dictum “thanksgiving, both beginning and end.”6 The thanksgiving at the beginning is found in the opening words of the benediction: ‫“( נודה לך יי אלהינו‬we shall thank You, Lord our God”), sometimes preceded by the words ‫“( על ארצינו ועל נחלתינו‬for our land and our portion”).7 The second thanksgiving is expressed in the words ‫ועל כולם אנו מודים לך ומברכים את שמך‬ (“and for them all we thank You and bless your name”). In between these two expressions of thanksgiving, the benediction includes a list of items which, in its most minimal form, runs as follows: ‫על שהנחלת לנו ארץ חמדה טובה ורחבה‬ ‫“( ברית ותורה חיים ומזון‬for You have endowed us with a land of delight, good and wide, and for the covenant, and the Torah, and life, and food”). Other versions of the text expand upon this list to various degrees,8 but the core structure always remains: an initial expression of thanksgiving; a list of items for which thanksgiving is given; and, finally, a second all-encompassing expression of thanksgiving. Interestingly, in some versions of the Grace, a poetic passage is inserted immediately after the initial expression of the thanksgiving, after the words “we shall thank you, Lord our God.” Although the textual witnesses for this passage contain a wide range of variation, we can approximate its essential form as follows: ‫ יחיד חי העולמים‬/ ‫ נמליכך קדושינו‬/ ‫ נהדרך מושיענו‬/ ‫נפארך מלכינו‬ (“we shall glorify You, our King; we shall adorn You, our Savior; we shall coronate You, our Holy One. One, the life of the worlds”).

|| 4 For the first, see t. Ber. 6:1 (ed. Lieberman, 62); y. Ber. 1:5, 3d; b. Ber. 48b–49a. For the second, see b. Ber. 34b; b. Shabb. 24b. 5 b. Ber. 48b. The requirement to include the covenant in this benediction is mentioned in the Tosefta as well (t. Ber. 3:9; ed. Lieberman, 14) and in the Palestinian Talmud (y. Ber. 1:5, 3d). The latter source also mentions the requirement to include thanksgiving for the Torah. 6 b. Ber. 49a. 7 Reif, Problems, 338. For an example of this opening, see Reif, Prayer Texts, 294, and see his note there (n. 33). 8 Regarding textual expansions at this point, see Reif, Problems, 339, 345–46.

“We shall glorify You, our King” | 319

In this paper, we will explore the origin and liturgical role of this poetic addition to the Grace (henceforth referred to as the “we shall glorify” passage). We begin with an analysis of the textual witnesses of the passage. We then proceed to survey the use of poetry in the Grace in general, contextualizing the role of this specific passage vis-à-vis other poetic interpolations. Against that backdrop, we consider the “we shall glorify” passage as an accumulative expansion of the opening words of the benediction. Finally, we consider parallel liturgical passages which appear to have impacted upon the development of the “we shall glorify” passage.

2 Textual witnesses The “we shall glorify” passage is generally absent from early attestations of the Grace. The early prayer books—that of Saadia Gaon and that of Solomon ben Nathan— omit it completely. The Cairo Genizah manuscripts generally omit it as well. Indeed, in the two Cairo Genizah transcriptions of the Grace, which Prof. Reif published, the “we shall glorify” passage is nowhere to be found.9 Nevertheless, of the 142 Genizah fragments which contain substantial transcriptions of the second benediction of the Grace, 26 fragments (over 18%) do feature the “we shall glorify” passage. These fragments indicate that although the passage was not part of the mainstream Grace in the East, and although it was not said in the academies of the Geonim, a sizeable portion of the Eastern communities did in fact include the “we shall glorify” passage in the text of their Grace. These 26 textual witnesses from the Cairo Genizah include a wide range of textual variants; they are presented in full, in a synoptic edition, in the appendix to this paper. Our observations regarding the text and its textual variants follow here: — The main part of the passage consists of a series of phrases of the form ‫“( נפארך מלכינו‬we shall glorify You, our God”), wherein the first term is a praise-verb10 with a second-person accusative suffix, and the second term is a vocative epithet for God with a first-person-plural possessive suffix. In

|| 9 Reif, Problems, 335–36; Reif, Prayer Texts, 292–95. 10 For convenience, we use the term “praise-verbs” to refer to verbs related to the semantic field of giving praise, such as ‫ נהדרך‬,‫ נגדלך‬,‫נפארך‬, etc.

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most of the manuscripts, the passage includes three or four such phrases. However, some have as few as two, and some have as many as five. — The particular praise-verbs and epithets used within the passage are essentially interchangeable. Although the majority of the manuscripts use them in a fairly consistent manner, many other permutations are attested. Thus, the first verb tends to be ‫“( נפארך‬we shall glorify You”), the second ‫נהדרך‬ (we shall adorn You”), and the third ‫“( נמליכך‬we shall coronate You”). However, there are a number of manuscripts in which the first is ‫“( נשבחך‬we shall praise You”) or ‫“( נהדרך‬we shall adorn You”) rather than ‫“( נפארך‬we shall glorify You”), and in which the last is ‫“( נפארך‬we shall glorify You”) or ‫“( ונייחדך‬we shall unify You”), rather than ‫“( נמליכך‬we shall coronate You”). The divine epithets are similarly flexible. For instance, although the initial epithet is generally ‫“( מלכינו‬our King”), the textual witnesses also include cases in which the epithets ‫“( יוצרינו‬our Maker”), ‫“( בוראינו‬our Creator”) or ‫“( מושעינו‬our Savior”) appear instead. — The passage generally ends with the divine epithet ‫“( חי העולמים‬life of the worlds”).11 This epithet forms a stark contrast with the other divine epithets in the passage. The other epithets all include a first-person-plural possessive suffix, which effectively also forms a rhyme scheme for the passage, wherein each epithet ends with the syllable “-nu”. When the passage is recited as a whole, the “life of the worlds” epithet harshly breaks the pattern, veering from the other epithets in both grammar and in sound. Aharon Mirsky has noted that classical Hebrew texts often employ such a device in order to mark the end of a logical section. Mirksy collects numerous examples from biblical and rabbinic texts in which a rhetorical pattern is established and then deliberately broken in order to punctuate the text at that point. Here too, it appears that the jarring appearance of the phrase “life of the worlds” is deliberate, serving to halt the flow of the text and mark the close of the interpolated poetic passage.12 – Finally, from a syntactic point of view, it should be noted that the “life of the worlds” epithet may function in two very different ways, depending on the particular textual witness. In some of the manuscripts, it is tacked on at

|| 11 Regarding this divine epithet, see Marmorstein, The Old Rabbinic Doctrine, 85; regarding the differing customs in its pronunciation, see: Hallamish, Moshe, “ḥai-ḥei.” This epithet is often expanded with one or two initial words, for instance: ‫“( יחיד חי העולמים‬the single one who is the life of the worlds”) or ‫“( מלך חי העולמים‬the king who is the life of the worlds”). 12 Mirsky, Punctuation, 11–50.

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the end, after a series of verb+epithet pairs; an example of such is found in manuscript 1: ‫ מלך יחיד חי העולמים‬/ ‫ נמליכך קדושינו‬/ ‫ נהדרך מושיענו‬/ ‫נפארך מלכינו‬ “we shall glorify You, our King; we shall adorn You, our Savior; we shall coronate You, our Holy One; King, One, life of the worlds”

In other manuscripts, however, the “life of the worlds” epithet occupies a different syntactic position, functioning as the vocative epithet paired with the final praise-verb. An example of such is manuscript 9: ‫ ונמליכך יחיד חי העולמים‬/ ‫ ונהדרך מושיענו‬/ ‫ ונשבחך יוצרינו‬/ ‫ונפארך מלכינו‬ (“and we shall glorify You, our King; we shall praise You, our Maker; and we shall adorn You, our Savior; and we shall coronate You, One, life of the worlds”).

This latter version of the passage contains four verb+epithet pairs. As in the previous text, the final pair starts with the verb ‫“( ונמליכך‬and we will coronate You”); however, here, the vocative divine epithet with which the verb is paired is the “life of the worlds” phrase itself. That is, instead of functioning as a separate concluding phrase at the end of the passage, here the “life of the worlds” phrase occupies the same syntactical position as the rest of the divine epithets in the passage. In addition to these 26 manuscripts from the Cairo Genizah, the “we shall glorify” passage also forms a standard part of the Grace in the Romanian13 and Italian rites.14

3 Poetry and the Grace after Meals The use of poetry in the Grace is well attested. No fewer than two hundred distinct poetic versions of the Grace are attested in the Cairo Genizah fragments.15 || 13 See for instance: MS London, British Library, Or. 9150; MS Moscow, Russian National Library, Guenzbuerg 746; MS New York, JTSA 4079; MS Parma 1791. 14 First and foremost, the passage appears in the early Italian siddur Seder Hibbur Berakhot, also known as Mahzor Turin (based upon Solomon Schechter’s transcription, MS New York JTSA 8402). The passage also appears in liturgical manuscripts of the Roman rite; see for instance: MS Vatican 594; MS Paris heb. 599; MS Parma 1782; MS Parma 1910. 15 See: Shmidman, “Poetic Versions.”

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Among these two hundred poems is a magnificently succinct version authored by the fifth century poet Yose ben Yose, which opens with the words ‫בורא עולם‬ (“creator of the world”).16 The full text of this latter poem was recently published by the honoree of the present volume.17 As an example, we cite here the second stanza of the poem, corresponding to the second benediction of the Grace: ‫ חלקינו נתתה‬/ ‫ תורה וברית‬/ ‫ שולחן ערכתה‬/ ‫ארץ עשיתה‬ (“The land You formed, the table You set, You have given our portion in Torah and covenant”).

However, there is a world of difference between this latter poetic stanza and the “we shall glorify” passage. The stanza cited here is intended not as a poetic addition to the Grace, but rather as a poetic substitute for the statutory text. Its content replicates that of the statutory text, rendering the statutory text redundant. Correspondingly, the textual witnesses present this stanza as the sole text of the benediction, followed immediately by the prooftext (Deut 6:11) and the doxology.18 Indeed, virtually all two hundred of the aforementioned poems are of this nature: these poetic compositions were clearly intended to supplant the statutory text of the Grace.19 In contrast, the “we shall glorify” passage is not a replacement, but rather an addition. The passage does not replicate the content of the benediction. It does not include mention of the land, the Torah, the covenant. Rather, its content revolves around the glorification and coronation of the Lord. And, indeed, the textual witnesses never present the passage alone; rather, it is always interwoven within the complete statutory text of the second benediction. From this perspective, the “we shall glorify” passage is unrelated to the well-attested phenomenon of versified versions of the Grace. Rather, it represents a separate phenomenon: the introduction of poetic passages for recitation within the existing statutory text. The latter phenomenon is not common regarding the Grace;

|| 16 Ibid., 278. 17 Reif, Prayer Texts, 292–93. 18 On rare occasion, the manuscripts also include a few words from the statutory text alongside the poetic texts. For instance, in the manuscript examined by Reif, ibid., 292, the words ‫ועל‬ ‫ כן נודך ונברך לשמך‬appear after the poetic stanza (as highlighted by Reif, ibid., n. 11). Nevertheless, these words comprise only a small portion of the statutory text, and it is clear that the statutory text has been essentially displaced by the poetic text. 19 Shmidman, “Liturgical function.”

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however, one other prominent case does exist: the poetic passage “with desire crown us.”20 The text of the passage is as follows: ‫ כי אתה יוצרינו‬/ ‫ ורזון תעביר ממנו‬/ ‫ ומזון תשבעינו‬/ ‫רצון תעטרינו‬ (“with desire crown us / and with food sustain us / and starvation remove from us / for You are our Creator”).

This poetic passage (henceforth called: the “with desire” passage) is found in some Cairo Genizah manuscripts at the end of the first benediction of the Grace. Just like the “we shall glorify” passage, it does not replicate the primary content of the benediction. It comprises a supplication for future sustenance, whereas the core benediction praises God for feeding and sustaining all His creatures. Similarly, in the textual witnesses of the first benediction, this passage never appears alone; rather, it is always transcribed together with the full statutory text of the benediction. Finally, the “with desire” passage is not a standard component of the statutory text, but rather an addition which we find in a minority of the Genizah transcriptions of the Grace.21 In all these senses, the case of the “with desire” passage is exactly parallel to that of the “we shall glorify” passage. Nevertheless, one significant difference remains between the two cases. The “with desire” passage is inserted at the end of the first benediction, after the prooftext from Ps 145:16. It thus allows the statutory text to reach its natural conclusion, and then gracefully bridges the gap between the prose and the poetry via anadiplosis, that is, via the use of a repeated word (‫רצון‬, “desire”), which both concludes the prooftext and also opens the poetic passage. In contrast, the “we shall glorify” passage appears right in the middle of the prose text of the second benediction. In fact, it is inserted in the middle of a predicate,

|| 20 For a full analysis of this passage, as well as a list of the Cairo Genizah manuscripts in which it is attested, and the textual variants therein, see Shmidman and Ehrlich, “The Early Text.” 21 In total, the passage appears in 16 Genizah manuscripts. We might expect that the two poetic additions would correlate with one another. That is, we might posit the existence of communities with an affinity for poetry, who would embrace both poetic additions at once: the “with desire” passage in the first benediction, and the “we shall glorify” passage in the second benediction. And, in fact, five Genizah manuscripts contain both of the poetic additions: (manuscripts 1, 15, 17, 18, 23, as per the list in the appendix at the end of this article). Nevertheless, for the most part, the two passages do not correlate with one another. In the majority of the manuscripts listed in the appendix, the first benediction is transcribed without the “with desire” passage, and, conversely, in most the manuscripts which do contain the “with desire” passage, the second benediction does not contain the “we shall glorify you” passage.

324 | Avi Shmidman and Uri Ehrlich

intervening between the verb and the subsequent subordinate clause, after the words ‫“( נודה לך יי אלהינו‬we shall thank You, Lord our God”) and before ‫על‬ ‫“( שהנחלת לנו ארץ‬for You have bestowed the land upon us”). The full sequence reads as follows, with the added “we shall glorify” passage demarcated with square brackets: ‫נודה לך יי אלהינו ]נפארך מלכינו נהדרך מושיענו נמליכך קדושינו יחיד חי העולמים[ על‬ ‫שהנחלת לנו ארץ‬ “We shall thank You, Lord our God, [we shall glorify You, our King; we shall adorn You, our Savior; we shall coronate You, our Holy One. One, the life of the worlds,] for You have bestowed the land upon us.”

Thus, although at first glance the cases of the “with desire” phrase and the “we shall glorify” passage might seem analogous, in practice, the case of the “we shall glorify” passage is far more puzzling.

4 Accumulative expansions in Jewish liturgy As noted in the previous section, the “we shall glorify” passage is anomalous in its placement. A priori, we expect supplementary poetic passages to occupy their own space, either before or after the regular prose text, as was demonstrated regarding the “with desire” phrase. In contrast, the “we shall glorify” passage is inserted directly into the middle of a prose paragraph. In order to understand this anomalous placement, we consider the relationship of the passage to the liturgical phenomenon of “accumulative expansions,” a phenomenon quite common in Jewish liturgy. Accumulative expansions are cases where a given liturgical phrase is expanded via the interpolation of a series of additional phrases taken from the same semantic field, in order to amplify the expression.22 Generally, the expansion develops in stages, wherein a series of textual witnesses each add one or two additional words from the same semantic field to the existing phrase (hence the term “accumulative expansions”). Examples of accumulative expansions in the Grace include the following:

|| 22 Regarding this liturgical phenomenon in general, see Ehrlich, The Weekday Amidah, 15.

“We shall glorify You, our King” | 325

–

–

The core text of the first benediction opens with the following statement: ‫הזן‬ ‫“( את העולם כולו בטוב בחסד וברחמים‬He who sustains the entire world with goodness, with kindness, and with mercy”), containing three prepositional phrases. This formulation is attested in many Genizah fragments, including the two grace-after-meals fragments published by Prof. Reif,23 and it is this formulation that Finkelstein posits as the original text of the benediction.24 In other Genizah fragments, however, we find additional prepositional phrases accumulating next to these, all expanding upon the same general idea: some manuscripts add ‫“( בחן‬with grace”); some add ‫“( בצדקה‬with justice”); and some add ‫“( ברוח‬with expanse”). Many manuscripts include various permutations of these expansions, and some include all of them together. An example of the latter is MS Cambridge T-S NS 157.9: ‫הזן אותנו ואת‬ ‫“( כל העולם כולו בטוב בחן בחסד ברוח וברחמים רבים ובצדקה‬He who sustains us and the entire world with goodness, with grace, with kindness, with expanse, and with much mercy, and with justice”). This version contains six prepositional phrases: the three core ones, plus the additional three expansions.25 A second example regards a passage from the middle of the second benediction of the Grace. The base form of the passage, as per MS Cambridge Add 3162, published by Prof. Reif, runs as follows: ‫ שאתה חונן ומלוה‬...‫ועל חיים‬ ‫“( אתנו בכל עת ובכל זמן‬and for life… which You grace us with and lend us, at every juncture, at every time”).26 The concluding words (“at every juncture, at every time”) are expanded in various manuscripts with one or more of four additional phrases, all expressing the very same idea: ‫“( בכל רגע‬at every instant”); ‫“( בכל יום‬on every day”); ‫“( בכל עונה‬during every season”); ‫בכל‬ ‫“( שעה‬at every hour”). Many manuscripts demonstrate accumulations of a bunch of these phrases together. An example of such is MS Cambridge T-S AS 107.181, which contains the following sequence of five accumulated expansions: ‫“( בכל יום ובכל עת ובכל רגע ובכל שעה ובכל זמן‬on every day and at every juncture and at every moment and at every hour and at every time”).

Returning to the case of the “we shall glorify” passage, we can view this interpolation as well as an accumulative expansion. First of all, at its core, it contains a

|| 23 Reif, Prayer Texts, 293; Reif, Problems, 335. 24 Finkelstein, “Birkat,” 224. 25 For the full data regarding the textual witnesses of the first benediction and the number of prepositional modifiers in each one, see Shmidman and Ehrlich, “The Early Text.” 26 Reif, Problems, 335.

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series of phrases all expressing the same idea: ‫“( נפארך מלכינו‬we shall glorify You, our King”); ‫“( נהדרך מושיענו‬we shall adorn You, our Savior”); and ‫נמליכך‬ ‫“( קדושינו‬we shall coronate You, our Holy One”). All three are statements of intent to praise God, and they are all phrased in an identical manner: a firstperson-plural verb with a second-person suffix, followed by a vocative epithet for God affixed with a first-person-plural suffix. Additionally, as can be seen in the text synopsis in the appendix to this paper, the phrases do accumulate somewhat from manuscript to manuscript. In the more minimal versions, the passage contains only two parts; for instance, MS 4 reads: ‫נפארך מלכינו נמליכך‬ ‫“( קדושינו‬we shall glorify You, our King; we shall coronate You, our Holy One”). In the more usual case, the passage contains three phrases; an example is MS 1, which reads: ‫“( נפארך מלכינו נשבחך יוצרינו נמליכך קדושינו‬we shall glorify You, our King; we shall praise You, our Maker; we shall coronate You, our Holy One”). Finally, in other versions, we find an accumulation of additional phrases: ‫נהללך‬ ‫“( בוראינו‬we shall laud you, our Creator”), or ‫“( נקלסך בוראינו‬we shall exalt You, our Creator”), or ‫“( נברכך פודינו ונדרשך דורשינו‬we shall bless You, our Redeemer, and we shall seek You, our Seeker”). Finally, most significantly, the placement of the “we shall glorify” passage after the words ‫“( נודה לך יי אלהינו‬we shall thank You, Lord our God”) highlights the fact that the entire passage, as a whole, comprises an expansion of that first phrase. Just as that first phrase contains a statement of intent to thank God, so too the “we shall glorify” passage contains a series of statements of intent to praise God. And the grammatical pattern matches as well: the original “we shall thank You” phrase consists of a first-person-plural verb followed by God’s name, affixed with a first-person-plural suffix, analogous to the grammatical structure of the phrases in the “we shall glorify” passage. When we thus view the “we shall glorify” passage as an accumulative expansion of the "we shall thank You" phrase, it becomes clear why its placement differs from the “with desire” passage in the first benediction. Whereas the latter passage functions as an independent poetic prayer, ancillary to the main text of the benediction, the “we shall glorify” passage is a poetic expansion of one specific phrase within the benediction, and hence it is placed in the middle of the benediction, right after the relevant phrase. Interestingly, a similar type of expansion occurs in the corresponding thanksgiving benediction in the Amidah prayer. In its essential (Babylonian) form, this benediction generally ends with the words: ‫“( כל החיים יודוך סלה‬all the

“We shall glorify You, our King” | 327

living shall thank You, selah”), at which point the doxology is recited.27 However, in many manuscripts, this statement of intent of thanksgiving is followed by an additional phrase regarding divine praise. Examples of the additional phrases are as follows:28 – – – – – –

‫“( ויהללו את שמך באמת‬and they shall praise Your name, truly”) ‫“( ויהללו לשמך כי טוב‬and they shall give praise to Your name, for it is good”) ‫“( ויהללו לשמך באמת כי טוב‬and they shall give praise to Your name, truly, for it is good”) ‫“( ויהללו לשמך הטוב באמת‬and they shall give praise to Your name, truly”) ‫“( ויהללו ויברכו את שמך הגדול באמת‬and they shall praise and bless Your great name, truly”) ‫“( ויהללו ויפארו ויודו לשמך הטוב באמת‬and they shall praise and glorify and give thanks to Your name, truly”).

Thus, the two primary Jewish liturgical benedictions of thanksgiving— that of the Grace and that of the Amidah— both sport expansions in which verbs of divine praise are interpolated after verbs of divine thanksgiving. The dual recurrence of this phenomenon may indicate that it is not a typical accumulative expansion, simply serving to amplify the existing content, but rather it may be theologically motivated, deliberately positing a contrast with the initial phrase. In both cases, the praise-related phrases within the expansion are drawn from the same semantic field as the original thanksgiving-related phrases; yet an important nuance differentiates between thanksgiving-related phrases and the praise-related phrases. The original texts posit that we must give thanks to God for the things that He has given, while the expansion takes it in a different direction: it is not enough to say, “Thank you,” but rather we must praise, glorify and coronate God. Perhaps this is because saying “thank you” is simply not strong enough; thanksgiving is an everyday human expression, which contains neither the power nor the loftiness of glorification and coronation. Alternatively, the distinction between the two may be rooted in the fact that thanksgiving is inherently contingent, predicated upon the reception of some service or gift, whereas glorification is unconditional. Either way, or perhaps because of both of these aspects together, the “we shall glorify” passage underscores that our

|| 27 For an apparatus criticus of all Cairo Genizah manuscript versions of this benediction, see: Ehrlich, The Weekday Amidah, 251–58. Regarding these interpolations, see ibid., 248. 28 All of these variants are attested in the apparatus criticus cited in the previous footnote.

328 | Avi Shmidman and Uri Ehrlich

approach to the Divine cannot be one of thanksgiving alone but must necessarily include a commitment to praise and glorify God, unconditionally. To summarize, although the “we shall glorify” passage effectively functions as an accumulative expansion, and although it is positioned as such within the text, it diverges from the usual accumulative expansions in two significant ways. First of all, whereas most accumulative expansions are simple prosaic lists of words from a given semantic field, this passage is phrased and structured in a distinctively poetic manner. And, secondly, whereas most accumulative expansions simply add words which express the same essential point in an amplified fashion, the “we shall glorify” passage may impose a theological perspective, ensuring that one not suffice with thanksgiving alone.

5 Parallel passages in statutory Jewish liturgy and in hekhalot literature The liturgical use of a series of verbs pertaining to the praise of the deity is not unusual. Examples of such abound within Jewish liturgy. For instance, the nishmat kol hai ("soul of all living") prayer, recited in the Sabbath morning liturgy, includes the following sequence:29 ‫שכן חובת כל היצורים לפניך יי אלהינו ואלוהי אבותינו להודות להלל לשבח לפאר לרומם להדר‬ ...‫לברך לעלה ולקלס‬ (“for this is the obligation of all creatures before You, God, and God of our fathers, to thank, to praise, to laud, to glorify, to elevate, to adorn, to bless, to raise, and to exalt”).

Similarly, in the text of the Passover haggadah:30 ‫לפיכך אנחנו חיבים להודות להלל לשבח לפאר לרומם להדר לברך לעלה ולקלס למי שעשה‬ ‫לאבותינו ולנו את כל הנסים האלה‬ (“therefore, we must thank, praise, laud, glorify, elevate, adorn, bless, raise, and exalt He who has made all of these miracles for us and for our fathers”).

However, there are two texts whose formulations bear particular resemblance to the “we shall glorify” passage, beyond the simple common denominator of a

|| 29 Seligman, Seder Avodat Yisrael, 206–9. 30 Safrai, Haggadah, 228.

“We shall glorify You, our King” | 329

series of praise-verbs. The first of these texts is the barukh she’amar (“blessed is He who spoke”) benediction from the daily liturgy, and the second is the ‫מי‬ ‫“( כאדונינו‬who is like our God”) prayer from the hekhalot literature. We will examine each of them here, in turn. The barukh she’amar is a preparatory benediction preceding the recitation of the Psalms of the Babylonian morning service. These psalms brim with praise of the divine deity, and the barukh she’amar benediction sets the stage for their recitation, declaring intent to praise God to the utmost extent. The benediction mirrors the “we shall glorify” passage in terms of its overall message, and, indeed, the textual similarity is quite striking, as demonstrated in the following table. The “we shall glorify” passage

The barukh she’amar benediction31

‫נפארך מלכינו‬

‫נגדלך‬

(we shall glorify You, our King)

(we shall amplify You)

‫נהדרך מושיענו‬

‫ונשבחך‬

(we shall adorn You, our Savior)

(and we shall praise You)

‫ונפארך‬ (and we shall glorify You)

‫ונזכיר שמך‬ (and we shall mention Your name)

‫נמליכך קדושנו‬

‫ונמליכך מלכינו אלהינו‬

(we shall coronate You, our Holy One)

(and we shall coronate You, our King, our God)

‫יחיד חי העולמים‬

‫יחד חי העולמים‬

(One, the life of the worlds)

(One, the life of the worlds)

In both cases, we find a series of praise-verbs, followed by the divine epithet ‫“( יח)י(ד חי העולמים‬One, life of the worlds”). The “we shall glorify” passage diverges from the barukh she’amar formulation when it comes to the pattern of supplying a divine epithet after each and every verb; in the barukh she’amar benediction, for the most part, the verbs are listed in sequence, and only at the end of the sequence do we find epithets for the divine. However, as we saw earlier, this particular grammatical pattern of the “we shall glorify” passage may simply be a reflection of the place in which it was inserted, immediately after the phrase ‫“( נודה לך יי אלהינו‬we shall thank You, Lord our God”). Thus, it is possible that the “we shall glorify” passage derives originally from the barukh she’amar benediction and was adapted for use in the Grace through the addition

|| 31 Seligman, Seder Avodat Yisrael, 59.

330 | Avi Shmidman and Uri Ehrlich

of vocative divine epithets after each verb, allowing it to serve more naturally as an accumulative expansion of the words “we shall thank You, our God.” On the other hand, we do find a precedent for a serialized list of firstperson-plural verbs paired with divine epithets in the hekhalot literature. The parallel passage is found in the “who is like our God” prayer, a prayer which is entirely focused upon the praise and glorification of God.32 The textual parallels are presented in the following table: The “we shall glorify” passage

The “who is like our God” prayer

[‫]נודה לך יי אלהינו‬

‫נודה לאדונינו‬

(we shall thank You, Lord our God)

‫נפארך מלכינו‬ (we shall glorify You, our King)

(we shall offer thanks to our Master)

‫נרומם לאלהינו‬ (we shall raise praises to our God)

‫נהדרך מושיענו‬

‫נשבח למלכינו‬

(we shall adorn You, our Savior)

(we shall offer praise to our King)

‫נמליכך קדושנו‬

‫נפאר למושיענו‬

(we shall coronate You, our Holy One)

(we shall offer glorification to our Savior)

‫יחיד חי העולמים‬ (One, the life of the worlds)

The similarities between the texts are quite apparent. Both texts contain a series of first-person-plural verbs, each one followed by a divine epithet. Furthermore, the passage in the “who is like our God” prayer begins with the phrase ‫נודה‬ ‫“( לאדונינו‬we shall thank our Lord”), which directly parallels the words ‫נודה לך יי‬ ‫“( אלהינו‬we shall thank You, Lord our God”) which precede the “we shall glorify” passage in the Grace. Perhaps, then, it was on the basis of this hekhalot prayer that the “we shall glorify” passage developed. Indeed, ample precedent exists demonstrating the impact of hekhalot literature on Jewish statutory prayer.33 Nevertheless, the differences between the two texts in this table must be pointed out as well. First of all, the verbs in the “we shall glorify” passage are all affixed with second-person-singular accusative suffixes (e.g. ‫נפארך‬, “we shall glorify You”); in contrast, in this hekhalot prayer, the verbs have no suffix at all. Furthermore, the “we shall glorify” passage concludes with the final line ‫יחיד חי‬ ‫“( העולמים‬One, life of the worlds”); in contrast, the hekhalot text cited above does not use this latter epithet at all (although the epithet does occur elsewhere in hekhalot literature, as we shall demonstrate below).

|| 32 For this prayer, see Schäfer, Synopse, 162. 33 Ehrlich, “Prayer.”

“We shall glorify You, our King” | 331

At the end of the day, both the barukh she’amar benediction and the “who is like our God” prayer are related to the “we shall glorify” passage, but neither is a perfect fit. It may well be, therefore, that the “we shall glorify” passage developed independently, as a direct expansion of the text of the Grace, and not as an outgrowth of either of the two other passages. Even so, it would not be unreasonable to posit some measure of influence, whether conscious or subconscious, from one of these two passages, or from both of them simultaneously. Before we conclude this section, it is worth adding one more angle regarding the concluding epithet, “life of the worlds.” As we have seen, the inclusion of this phrase may well have been influenced by the barukh she’amar benediction, where the same epithet occurs after a sequence of praise-verbs. Nevertheless, additional factors may have served to reinforce the inclusion of this phrase within the “we shall glorify” passage. First of all, the “life of the worlds” phrase is used in many other texts in the context of praising and glorifying the divine deity. Examples of such texts are the yishtabaḥ prayer (the prayer concluding the recitation of the daily psalms, parallel to the barukh she’amar benediction);34 the description of the praise given to God by the angelic host in the Sepher ha-Razim (“The Book of the Secrets”);35 the ha-adderet veha-emunah (“the glory and the truth”) poem, included in the hekhalot literature;36 and more. Although these texts do not comprise direct textual parallels to the “we shall glorify” passage, the very fact that the epithet “life of the worlds” recurs again and again in descriptions of praising God reinforces its inclusion in the “we shall glorify” passage.37 A second factor derives from the manuscript variants of the thanksgiving benediction of the Amidah prayer. Earlier we noted that the usual conclusion of the benediction, ‫“( כל החיים יודוך סלה‬all the living shall thank you, selah”), is sometimes expanded with praise-verbs. However, in many other cases, we find that the concluding formula is alternatively expanded with the phrase “life of the worlds”, as follows:

|| 34 Seligman, Seder Avodat Yisrael, 75. 35 Margalioth, Sepher Ha-Razim, 96. 36 For this poem in its hekhalot context, see Schäfer, Synopse, 120–23. 37 For a survey of the liturgical use of the “life of the worlds” epithet, see Bar-Ilan, Mysteries, 104–5.

332 | Avi Shmidman and Uri Ehrlich 38‫העולמים‬

‫כל החיים יודוך סלה חי‬

(“all the living shall thank You, selah, life of the worlds”).

In these cases, the phrase “life of the worlds” fits naturally into the text of the benediction, forming a rhetorical analogy with the “all the living” phrase just a few words earlier, as if to say: just as He is the life of all worlds (‫)חי העולמים‬, so may all of the living (‫ )כל החיים‬praise Him.39 In contrast, in the Grace, the specific use of “life of the worlds” does not appear to be rhetorically motivated. Nevertheless, the very fact that the “life of the worlds” phrase was accepted as part of the thanksgiving benediction of the Amidah may well have paved the way for the absorption of the phrase in the parallel thanksgiving benediction in the Grace.

Appendix I Textual variants of the “we shall glorify” passage from the Cairo Genizah: a synoptic edition ‫מלך יחיד חי‬ ‫העולמים‬

‫נמליכך‬ ‫קדושינו‬

‫ונייחדך יחיד חי‬ ‫העולמים‬ ‫וליחדך מלך יחיד‬ ‫חי העולמים‬

‫ונמליכך‬ [‫קדושינ]ו‬

‫נפארך מלכינו נשבחך‬ ‫יוצרינו‬

1

‫ונמליכך‬ ‫מלכנו‬

‫נפארך מלכנו נהדרך‬ ‫מושיענו‬

2

‫נקלסך‬ ‫בוראינו‬

‫נפארך מלכינו נהדרך‬ ‫מושיענו‬

3

‫נפארך מלכינו‬

4

‫נפארך מלכינו ונהדרך‬ ‫מושיעינו‬

5

‫נמליכך‬ ‫קדושינו‬ ‫מלך ]י[חיד חי‬ ‫העולמים‬

‫ונמליכך‬ ‫מלכינו‬

‫וניחד יוצרינו‬

‫ונקלסך‬ ‫בוראנו‬

|| 38 Often, the adverb ‫“( באמת‬in truth”) is added before or after the “life of the worlds” epithet. For the many manuscripts which include the “life of the worlds” interpolation, see the apparatus criticus of this benediction in: Ehrlich, Weekday Amidah, 252–55. For further discussion regarding this formulation, see ibid., 248. Note that some manuscripts do combine both types of expansion: on the one hand, adding praise-verbs, and on the other hand, adding a “life of the worlds” epithet. Interestingly, though, in these cases, the “life of the worlds” epithet generally appears before the praise-verbs, in contrast with the structure of the “we shall glorify” passage discussed here. 39 On rhetorical analogies of this sort in rabbinic literature and in Jewish liturgy, see Shulamit Elizur, “Analogical homiletics.”

‫‪“We shall glorify You, our King” | 333‬‬

‫נרוממך‬ ‫אלהינו‬

‫נשבחך ]‪[...‬‬

‫‪6‬‬

‫נפארך מלכנו נשבחך‬ ‫בוראנו‬

‫‪7‬‬

‫נפארך מלכינו ניחדך יוצרנו‬

‫‪8‬‬

‫נפארך מלכנו נהדרך‬ ‫מושיענו‬

‫‪9‬‬

‫ונפארך‬ ‫מלכינו‬

‫ונשבחך‬ ‫יוצרינו‬

‫‪10‬‬

‫נפארך יוצרינו‬

‫נמליכך חי יחיד‬

‫‪11‬‬

‫נפארך יוצרינו‬

‫נמליכך יחיד חי‬ ‫קדוש‬

‫נקלסך‬ ‫בוראנו‬

‫]‪[...‬‬

‫ונמליכך‬ ‫קדושנו‬

‫]‪[...‬‬

‫מלך יחיד חי‬ ‫העולמים‬ ‫ונמליכך יחיד חי‬ ‫העולמים‬

‫ונהדרך‬ ‫מושיענו‬

‫‪12‬‬

‫ונשבחך‬ ‫מלכינו‬

‫ונפארך‬ ‫מושעינו‬

‫ונהללך‬ ‫בוראינו‬

‫ונייחדך‬ ‫קדושינו‬

‫‪13‬‬

‫ונשבחך‬ ‫מלכינו‬

‫ונפארך‬

‫]ונה[דרך‬ ‫מושיענו‬

‫ונקלסך‬ ‫בוראנו‬

‫‪14‬‬

‫ונשבחך‬ ‫יוצרינו‬

‫ונקלסך‬ ‫בוראינו‬

‫ונהדרך‬ ‫מושיענו‬

‫‪15‬‬

‫נשבחך יוצרנו נפארך‬ ‫מלכנו‬

‫נמליכך מלך יחיד‬ ‫חי העולמים‬

‫‪16‬‬

‫נשבחך‬ ‫יוצרינו‬

‫נפארך יחיד חי‬ ‫עולמים לנצח‬

‫ונמליכך ]‪[...‬‬ ‫]עולמ[ים‬ ‫ונמליכך יחיד חיי‬ ‫העולמים‬

‫‪17‬‬

‫נהדרך מלכינו‬

‫נמליכך‬ ‫קדושינו‬

‫נשבחך אלהינו‬

‫‪18‬‬

‫נהדרך מלכינו‬

‫נמליכך‬ ‫קדושינו‬

‫נשבחך אלהינו‬

‫‪19‬‬

‫נהדרך‬ ‫מלכ]נו[‬

‫נמליכך‬ ‫קדושינו‬

‫נשב]חך[‬ ‫אלהינו‬

‫‪20‬‬

‫וניחדך מלכינו ונברכך‬ ‫פודינו‬

‫‪21‬‬

‫]‪ [...‬בוראנו‬

‫‪22‬‬

‫ונהדרך‬ ‫מוש]י[ענו‬

‫ונדרשך‬ ‫דורשינו‬

‫ונמליכך‬ ‫מלכינו‬

‫מלך יחיד חי‬ ‫העולמים‬

‫נמליכך קדושנו‬

‫ונמליכך חי‬ ‫עולמ]ים[‬

‫‪23‬‬

‫נהללך ]‪[...‬‬

‫]‪[...‬‬

‫]‪[...‬‬

‫]‪[...‬‬

‫‪24‬‬

‫]‪ ...‬מ[לכינו‬

‫נפא]רך‬ ‫יו[צ]רי[נו‬

‫נמליכך ]‪[...‬‬

‫]‪[...‬‬

‫ונמליכך‬ ‫מלכינו‬

‫מלך יחיד חיי‬ ‫העולמים‬

‫‪25‬‬ ‫‪26‬‬

‫נשב]ח[ך‬ ‫בוראנ]ו[‬

‫נמליכך ]י[חד חי‬ ‫העולמים לנצח‬

334 | Avi Shmidman and Uri Ehrlich

Appendix II Manuscript shelfmarks (for the manuscripts referenced in Appendix I) Manuscript designation

Manuscript shelfmark

1

Cambridge University Library, T-S NS 122.39

2

Cambridge University Library, T-S NS 230.15

3

Cambridge University Library, T-S 8H 11.4

4

Cambridge University Library, T-S NS 155.120

5

Cambridge University Library, T-S AS 107.181

6

Cambridge University Library, T-S NS 160.49

7

Cambridge University Library, T-S AS 102.134

8

New York, JTSA ENA 2712.44

9

Oxford, Bodleian Library, heb. d. 41.5-6

10

Cambridge University Library, T-S 8H10.11 + T-S K 27.17

11

Cambridge University Library, T-S NS 163.13

12

Cambridge University Library, T-S NS 134.2A

13

Manchester, Rylands B 2998

14

Cambridge University Library, T-S NS 120.98

15

Oxford, Bodleian Library, heb. f. 106.40-41

16

Cambridge University Library, T-S NS 271.14

17

Budapest, Kaufman Collection M89. The original manuscript is missing; we have included it based upon the transcription in: Scheiber, “Fragments”, 148-150.

18

Cambridge University Library, T-S NS 148.100

19

Cambridge University Library, T-S NS 159.176

20

Cambridge University Library, T-S NS 156.10

21

Cambridge University Library, T-S NS 155.67

22

New York, JTSA ENA 2854.11

23

Cambridge University Library, T-S NS 271.101

24

Cambridge University Library, T-S AS 104.54

25

Russian National Library, Evr. III B 1052

26

Cambridge University Library, T-S AS 109.134 + T-S AS 107.171

“We shall glorify You, our King” | 335

Bibliography Bar-Ilan, Meir. The Mysteries of Jewish Prayer and Hekhalot [Hebrew]. Ramat-Gan: Bar-Ilan University Press, 1987. Ehrlich, Uri. “Prayer as an Arena for Constructing Cultural Power: On the influence of mystic groups on the Siddur” [Hebrew]. Pages 35–45 in Spiritual Authority: Struggles Over Cultural Power in Jewish Thought. Edited by Boaz Huss, Howard Kreisel and Uri Ehrlich. Beer Sheva: Ben Gurion University Press, 2009. Ehrlich, Uri. The Weekday Amidah in Cairo Genizah Prayerbooks: Roots and Transmission [Hebrew]. Jerusalem: Yad Ben-Zvi Press, 2013. Elizur, Shulamit. “Towards the methods of analogical homiletics in Hebrew hymnography.” Pages 499–528 in Higayon L’Yona: New Aspects in the Study of Midrash, Aggadah and Piyut in Honor of Professor Yona Fraenkel. Edited by Joshua Levison, Jacob Elbaum and Galid Hasan-Rokem. Jerusalem: Magnes, 2006. Finkelstein, Louis. “The Birkat Ha-Mazon.” JQR n.s. 19 (1929): 211–62. Hallamish, Moshe. “ḥai-ḥei ha'olamim” [Hebrew]. Pages 409–21in: Zekhor Davar le-'avdekha: Essays and Studies in Memory of Dov Rappel. Edited by Shmuel Glick, Jerusalem: The Pinchas Churgin School of Education, Bar-Ilan University; The Dov Rappel Center for Jewish Educational Thought, Lifshitz College, 2007. Margalioth, Mordecai. Sepher Ha-Razim [Hebrew]. Jerusalem: Yediot Achronot, 1966. Marmorstein, Arthur. The Old Rabbinic Doctrine of God. Volume I. London: Oxford University Press and London Humphrey Milford, 1927. Mirsky, Aharon. Punctuation of Hebrew Style [Hebrew]. Jerusalem: Mossad Harav Kook, 1978. Reif, Stefan C. Jewish Prayer Texts from the Cairo Genizah. A Selection of Manuscripts at Cambridge University Library Introduced, Transcribed, Translated, and Annotated, with Images. Cambridge Genizah Studies 7. Leiden; Boston: Brill, 2016. Reif, Stefan C. Problems with Prayers. Studies in the Textual History of Early Rabbinic Liturgy. SJ 37. Berlin; New York: de Gruyter, 2006. Safrai, Shmuel, and Zeev Safrai. Haggadah of the Sages: The Passover Haggadah. Jerusalem: Karta, 1998. Schäfer, Peter. Synopse zur Hekhalot-Literatur. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1981. Scheiber, Alexander. “Fragments of Blessings after Meals (from the Kaufmann Collection).” Studies of the Research Institute for Hebrew Poetry in Jerusalem 7 (1958): 145–53. Seligman, Baer. Seder Avodat Yisrael [Hebrew]. 2nd edition. Rödelheim: n. p., 1901. Shmidman, Avi. “The Liturgical Function of the Poetic Versions of the Grace after Meals” [Hebrew], Ginzei Qedem 2 (2006): 45–102. Shmidman, Avi. “The Poetic Versions of the Grace after Meals from the Cairo Genizah: A Critical Edition” [Hebrew]. PhD diss., Bar-Ilan University, Ramat-Gan, 2009. Shmidman, Avi, and Uri Ehrlich. “The Early Text of the First Benediction of the Grace after Meals, in light of Evidence from the Cairo Genizah Manuscripts” [Hebrew]. Ginzei Qedem 12 (forthcoming).

Joseph Tabory

The Rabbinic Traditions about the Establishment of the Amidah: Some Observations Abstract: The traditions of the rabbis do not provide us with sufficient information to construct a history of the Amidah. The Talmud of Eretz Israel reports only that the members of the Great Assembly established “prayers and blessings” without giving any detailed information. The Talmud of Babylon reports that the Amidah was known before the time of R. Gamliel of Yavne and that the blessing referring to the heretics was added to the Amidah when the Sanhedrin was in Yavne. Keywords: Simeon the Pakuli, the Great Assembly, Amidah, Heretics (blessing of), Rabbi Gamliel

1 Introduction The central prayer of rabbinic Judaism is a liturgical unit comprised of a series of blessings, which is recited three times each day. This prayer is referred to as the Amidah, meaning “standing,” as it is the only prayer which ancient Jewish practice requires one to recite in a standing position. This posture cultivates in the devotee a consciousness of standing before God.1 On ordinary weekdays the Amidah consists of nineteen blessings, according to the Babylonian tradition, but of eighteen blessings in the Land of Israel tradition (as preserved in Genizah manuscripts). The numerical difference is due to fact that the Babylonian version has one blessing for the rebuilding of Jerusalem and another for the reestablishment of the Davidic kingdom whereas the Land of Israel tradition includes these two motifs in a single blessing. The earliest mention of the requirement to recite this prayer daily is a quotation in the name of R. Gamliel of Yavne: “Every day one must pray eighteen blessings” (m. Ber. 4:3) R. Gamliel, who worked extensively in the two or three || My thanks to the editors, Professor Michael Duggan and Professor Dalia Marx, for their helpful criticism which enabled me to improve this article. || 1 For a fuller discussion of the significance of standing during prayer see Erlich, Nonverbal Language, 9–28. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110630282-021

338 | Joseph Tabory

decades following the destruction of the Second Temple, is assumed to be the one who instituted this prayer. The establishment of this ritual introduced two new features: (1) the obligation to pray every day;2 and (2) the creation of a text or outlines of a text, consisting of eighteen blessings, which would serve to fulfill this obligation The nature of the first feature is clear, but scholars have proposed two theories about the nature of the second feature. One theory was that R. Gamliel only promulgated guidelines about the motif of each blessing and its place in the overall sequence, thereby allowing each individual the opportunity to express these motifs in his or her own words. Joseph Heinemann (1915–1978) is the most recent advocate to present a detailed version of this theory. He suggested that the Amidah developed in stages: the motifs of each blessing were established prior to the precise formulation of the final text which provided the conclusion of each blessing.3 The other theory, which Ezra Fleischer revived in recent years, suggests that R. Gamliel either created or supervised the creation of a complete text of eighteen blessings.4 As Ruth Langer has remarked: “It is the task of scholarship to constantly review the facts in order to test the theories.”5 This paper addresses that task. The modern, scholarly discussion of these two theories focuses, inter alia, on three rabbinic texts which report on the definitive formulation of the Amidah. The first text connects the Amidah to the activity of R. Gamliel and Simeon the Pakuli in Yavne, within the first two decades after the destruction of the second Temple (70–90 CE). The second text ascribes the creation of “blessings and prayers, sanctifications and separations” to the members of the Great Assembly that Ezra convoked at the beginning of the Second Temple era (5th–4th century BCE).6 The third text ascribes the “eighteen blessings” to an unidenti|| 2 Although the Mishnah quotes R. Gamliel as requiring a “daily prayer,”—implying only one prayer a day—Talmudic sources report that he required one to pray an evening prayer, thereby disagreeing with those who thought that the evening prayer was not obligatory (b. Ber. 27b; y. Ber. 4:1). It would be unnecessary to state that he also required one to pray both in the morning and also in the afternoon as there was a consensus about these prayers. 3 Heinemann, Prayer in the Talmud. For a precise presentation of Heinemann’s views see Sarason, “Recent Developments”; idem, “On the Use of Method,” 160–62; Langer, “Revisiting,” 180–81. In an article published in 1964, Zeitlin mentioned that the order of the blessings and the closing formulas were well established but “the wording… was still in a fluid state, and remained so for a long time” (Zeitlin, “Tefillah,” 241). 4 Fleischer, “Beginnings,” 427 [31]. 5 Langer, “Considerations,” 386–87. 6 Rabbinic sages thought that this gathering took place in the fourth century BCE. Scholarly opinion is that this gathering took place about 150 years earlier. For a full discussion of the

The Rabbinic Traditions about the Establishment of the Amidah | 339

fied group of 120 elders. This paper presents an analysis of these texts, in an attempt to understand exactly what they tell us about the history of the eighteen blessings. After analyzing each text, I point out how they have been used in the history of Jewish prayer. Finally, I offer my own conclusions related to that history, which may be derived from these texts. It is a pleasure to offer this study in honor of Professor Stefan Reif who has contributed so much to the study of early liturgy.7

2 Simeon the Pakuli In this section I discuss the tradition which connects the Amidah to the activity of R. Gamliel and Simeon the Pakuli. This tradition appears twice in the Babylonian Talmud (b. Ber. 28b; b. Meg. 17b), both times quoted as a baraita,8 but it does not appear either in sources from the Land of Israel or anywhere else in the literature of the sages. This tradition states, “Simeon the Pakuli arranged (hisdir)9 eighteen blessings [as he sat] before R. Gamliel in Yavne” (b. Ber. 28b; Meg. 17b). First, I discuss the identity of Simeon the Pakuli and then try to analyze exactly what he did and how his activity was understood. Simeon the Pakuli is not mentioned elsewhere in rabbinic literature. His designation as “pakuli” appears nowhere else and its meaning is unclear. The consensus is that he was either a textile worker or a merchant. The fact that Simeon the Pakuli lacks the title “rabbi” is significant as he lived in an era in which all scholars bore this honorific.10 It is somewhat remarkable that R. Gamliel could find no one except an otherwise unknown individual to organize the eighteen blessings. Fleischer adds the honorific to the name, calling him R.

|| rabbinic chronology see: Tabory, “Persian Period”; Milikowsky, Seder Olam, 2:462–86. See also below, n. 27. 7 See Reif, “Jewish Liturgical Research”; idem, “The Early History”; idem, “Early Liturgy.” Reif’s position is spelled out very clearly in Reif, “Earliest Development,” 677. 8 In Berakhot it is introduced by tanu rabanan (in all MSS) and in Megillah it is introduced by detanya (in all MSS). 9 The Hebrew verb is hisdir and this term appears in all the MSS available in the Henkind data base (both in Berakhot and in Megillah), except for MS Munich 95 in Berakhot. There the verb is sdr but it is difficult to find any difference in meaning. Lieberman suggests that the reading sdr is the correct reading (Lieberman, Tosefta, Berakhot, 53). 10 For this reason, some have argued that the story should be dated to the era when the Temple still existed since the title “rabbi” was still uncommon at that time (Hyman, 3:1217).

340 | Joseph Tabory

Simeon.11 Nevertheless, Fleischer submits that the search for the original text of Simeon the Pakuli may prove unsatisfactory because he had not been in the “center of wisdom” (bemerkaz hachochma) and therefore it would not be fair to search for “pure reason and deep meaning” in his creation.12 On the other hand, Fleischer suggests that Simeon the Pakuli worked with the support of many collaborators. In later references, Fleischer speaks of “Simeon and his group” or even “Simeon’s committee.”13 The attempt to associate Simeon with a committee shows Fleischer’s own dissatisfaction with the attempt to ascribe the formulation of the Amidah to an unknown individual who did not belong to scholarly circles. Let us now examine the activity of Simeon the Pakuli. The term used for his activity is hisdir. Among its many occurrences in rabbinic literature this term never refers to creating or compiling. It usually conveys the meaning of “ordered, arranged.” Within our context, the meaning of hisdir becomes more apparent in contrast to the tradition about the blessing against the minim (people who believed in an unidentified heresy) that follows the story about Simeon the Pakuli in the Babylonian Talmud (b. Ber. 28b). We are told that R. Gamliel asked, “Isn’t there anyone who knows how to fix14 (letaken, from the root tkn) the blessing against the apostates?” Samuel the Lesser fixed this blessing (tiknah) and a year later, while serving as a precentor for the congregation, forgot the blessing. He thought about it extensively, but the congregants were patient and did not replace him. They gave him time to work it out (b. Ber. 28b– 29a). It seems reasonable that the Talmud here presumes that Samuel the Lesser actually played a part in either formulating this blessing or revising its text.15 R.

|| 11 Fleischer, “Beginnings,” 435 [39] et al. 12 Fleischer, “Beginnings,” 440 [44]. In his response to Reif, Fleischer asked for the forgiveness of Simeon the Pakuli because he had come to the realization that the blessings of the Amidah were arranged in exemplary order (Fleischer, “Rejoinder,” 688 [6]). It is of note that here he refers only to the order of the blessings and not to the text, since he admits that the exact text is unrecoverable. 13 Fleischer, “Beginnings,” p. 427 [31]. The “committee” apparently reflects the conflating of this tradition with the one that attributes the Amidah to the 120 sages (see below, the third tradition). 14 The context suggests this translation of letaken. See Boyarin (“Once Again,” 92). However, elsewhere Boyarin refers to R. Gamliel as asking Samuel the Lesser “to formulate” this blessing (Boyarin, “What Kind of a Jew,” 112). For a fuller discussion of the difference between letaken and lehatkin see Cohen, “What Innovation.” 15 The context in which the story appears implies that the story was quoted in order to show how the eighteen blessings became nineteen. Although the story about Samuel the Lesser

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Gamliel needed a precise articulation of this blessing. Throughout the generations the exact formulation of it was problematic. One had to include in the blessing those whom they wished to curse or exclude from the community, but they had to be careful not to offend those whom they wished to encourage or those who had the power to make life difficult for them.16 This explains the significance of Samuel the Lesser forgetting the blessing on another occasion.17 It was not that he skipped the blessing; he could not formulate it properly. One had to distinguish clearly between those who were considered heretics and those who might have had various beliefs but could not be considered as heretics who deserved to be cursed. That is why the congregants gave him time to do so. Here the use of the root tkn, with the meaning of formulating or revising a blessing, emphasizes that this is not what Simeon the Pakuli had done for the other eighteen blessings. The appearance of the root sdr elsewhere may shed additional light on the precise nature of what Simeon the Pakuli did as he sat before R. Gamliel. The Mishnah (m. Rosh Hash. 4:9) reports a disagreement between R. Gamliel and his colleagues about the status of individual prayer vis-à-vis the public prayer of the precentor. According to R. Gamliel, the precentor’s prayer fulfills the obligation of prayer and the individuals present are not required to pray themselves. However, his colleagues maintained that every individual is required to pray for himself and the precentor prays publicly only for the benefit of those who could not pray on their own. This was a theoretical argument as, in practice, everyone agreed that individuals prayed silently and then the precentor repeated the prayer.18 The Babylonian Talmud (b. Rosh Hash. 34b) records a dialogue about

|| appears immediately after the story about Simeon the Pakuli, there is no reason to assume that there was not some significant time gap between the two stories. 16 See Cohen, “What Innovation,” 63–68; Ehrlich, “The Earliest Texts.” 17 There is another version of Samuel the Lesser forgetting this blessing. The Jerusalem Talmud relates that once he skipped the closing formula of the blessing, either completely or partially, without anyone’s comment (y. Ber. 5: 3, 9c). Neither here nor elsewhere does this Talmud mention that Samuel the Lesser composed this blessing. Cf. Fuks, “Responses,” 168– 70. 18 Henshke (“Between Blessings and Prayer”) argues that the original implementation of obligatory prayer required only public prayer. Only at some later time did individuals assume the obligation to pray regularly. The disagreement between R. Gamliel and the sages does reflect a fundamental difference in the significance of the eighteen blessings. According to R. Gamliel, individual hopes and aspirations have no place in the prayer. The precentor worships G-d by praying and the others fulfill their duty by listening. An individual who desires a personal form of self-expression before G-d must find another occasion. This is probably the reason that a private prayer was added after the obligatory prayer although, eventually, this pri-

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this issue. The colleagues of R. Gamliel asked why individuals prayed silently, before the precentor’s prayer, since—according to R. Gamliel—their obligation would be fulfilled by the precentor. R. Gamliel responded that the purpose of the silent prayer is to enable the precentor to organize or review the prayer (lehasdir).19 This same verb describes the activity of Simeon the Pakuli. This root appears again in the statement of R. Elazar, a third generation Amora, that every individual should organize or review the prayer (yasdir)20 before actually praying (b. Rosh Hash. 35b). Thus, the use of the term hisdir, as a description of Simeon the Pakuli’s activity, certainly does not preclude the possibility that the eighteen-blessing prayer existed before him. Indeed, it is reasonable to maintain that this use of the verb actually implies that he merely organized or reviewed a previously existing text. It has been suggested that the thrust of the story about Simeon the Pakuli is to show that even an ordinary individual could review the eighteen blessings and possibly serve as precentor. 21 In considering whether Simeon the Pakuli created a text or simply organized or reviewed a known one, we should note that the story does not indicate that R. Gamliel commissioned Simeon the Pakuli to do whatever it was that he did. Indeed, when R. Gamliel decided that it was necessary to formulate a blessing for the minim or to revise an existing one, he did not ask Simeon the Pakuli to do this; instead, he turned to the wise men to ask whether there wasn’t someone who could do this. We do not know why he did not appeal to Simeon the Pakuli. It may well be that the two events were not contemporaneous. It may have been some time after Simeon the Pakuli had “organized/reviewed” the eighteen blessings that R. Gamliel decided that it was time to deal with the blessing about the minim—when Simeon the Pakuli was no longer available.22

|| vate prayer also became a prescribed text. Fleischer (“Shemone Esre,” 189–91 [11–13]) discusses the variations among the rabbis. 19 In the Tosefta’s version of this dialogue (t. Rosh Hash. 2:18), R. Gamliel responds that the silent prayer before the repetition of the precentor served only to enable the precentor to “prepare himself” (matkin et atzmo) before his public performance. It is unclear whether this should be understood in the same way that the Babylonian Talmud phrased it, viz., to review the text, or that it should be understood as a form of required psychological preparation before representing the community. 20 This is the term used in all MSS except for London BL Hart 5508 (400) which uses ysdr. However, the letter yod was added so that it would read yasdir like all the other MSS. See note 9 above. See Cohen (“Nature,” 547–51) who presents a full discussion of the use of the verb sdr. 21 Cohen, “Nature,” 555. 22 Zeitlin (“Tefillah,” 240) argued that Samuel’s work actually preceded that of Simeon the Pakuli. This might be supported by the claim that Samuel died before the destruction of the Temple. But Albeck, in his notes to Zunz (Introduction, 480–81), refuted this claim and main-

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However, the two stories are presented in a continuum, implying that the second took place immediately after the first. So why did R. Gamliel feel that he had to find someone else for the blessing of the minim? One might assume that he deemed Simeon the Pakuli unworthy of composing a blessing about the minim; however, if this were the case, R. Gamliel would have objected to whatever Simeon the Pakuli did. It is more likely that he deemed Simeon the Pakuli competent to organize or to review a preexisting text but not to create one from scratch or even to revise an existing text. Let us now turn to the greater context of the Simeon the Pakuli tradition. As we noted above, the tradition appears twice in the Babylonian Talmud and nowhere else in the literature of the sages. One appearance in the Babylonian Talmud is in the tractate of Megillah (17b) where it is cited as an explanation for another baraita. According to that baraita, just as the Mishnah requires one to read the Megillah in its proper order (m. Meg. 2:1), so is one required to say the hallel, prayer and keriat shema in their proper order (b. Meg. 17a).23 In explaining the requirement to pray in proper order, the Talmud quotes the story of Simeon the Pakuli. This implies that the story was included here to show that, indeed, there was a proper order. It might be thought that the story implies that the order was arranged with the approval of R. Gamliel and therefore one is required to pray according to this order. However, it is noteworthy that R. Asi, an Amora, asserted that the order of the intermediate blessings was not critical. Someone who forgot a blessing could insert it in any point in the Amidah (b. Ber. 34a).24 The other appearance of the Simeon the Pakuli tradition is in connection with the Mishnah that discusses whether the obligation to pray eighteen blessings every day requires one to recite the full text or only an abstract (m. Ber. 4:3). The Talmud quotes the Simeon the Pakuli tradition in this connection

|| tained that Samuel was active after the destruction. Fleischer (“Beginnings,” 434 [38]) thought that Samuel’s composition was actually much later than Simeon the Pakuli’s activity. 23 We may note here that just as the Jerusalem Talmud does not mention the tradition about Simeon the Pakuli, it does not mention prayer as a liturgy which must be recited in order. In the Jerusalem Talmud’s version, the baraita adds only hallel and keriat shema to the Mishna which requires one to read the megilla in its proper order (y. Meg. 2:1 [73a]). It is perhaps of significance that the passages which must be recited in order according to the Jerusalem Talmud are all biblical. 24 Rav Hai accepted this opinion and ruled that someone who forgot one of these blessings could insert it at any place in the middle section. See Lewin, Otzar, Berakhot 34a, commentary section, 46–47; Lieberman, Tosefta, p. 15; Moed, 2, 1141–1142 For fuller bibliographical information see Bruner, 199–201.

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without any explicit reason for citing it (b. Ber. 28b). This tradition is immediately followed by the tradition about the establishment of the blessing of the mimin by Samuel the Lesser. Here, both traditions were quoted as a single text closely following R. Levi’s statement that the blessing about the minim25 was instituted in Yavne. R. Levi’s statement itself is presented as a reply to the question: “These are eighteen? They are nineteen.” We may understand that the story of Simeon the Pakuli and Samuel the Lesser is quoted to show that the earlier form of the Amidah consisted of eighteen blessings and that the nineteenth was added later. Indeed, R. Levi’s statement about the nineteenth blessing being added in Yavne implies that the list of eighteen existed long before the activity of R. Gamliel in Yavne.

3 The Great Assembly tradition The next tradition, which we discuss, ascribes the foundation of prayer to a much earlier period: the time of the Great Assembly.26 In rabbinic literature the Great Assembly refers to the time of Ezra at the beginning of the Second Temple era.27 This tradition also appears only in the Babylonian Talmud (b. Ber. 33a)

|| 25 The Florence MS of the Talmud (II-I-7) has “informers” (both times) rather than minim but this is written on an erasure. The original text probably had minim. 26 A similar report appears in a Tannaitic midrash: The “first prophets” began [the Amidah] with praise of G-d before they petitioned for their needs (Finkelstein, Siphre, 343, 395). The “first prophets” may not be identical with the people of the Great Assembly but this source definitely ascribes the organization of the Amidah, at the latest, to the early years of the Second Temple. Nahum the Scribe reported a tradition that was transmitted by the “pairs” who received it from the prophets (m. Pe’ah 2: 6). These prophets are clearly parallel to the people of the Great Assembly who are reported as the link in the chain of tradition immediately before the “pairs” (m. Avot. 1:1). Even if we assume that Siphre Devarim and Nahum the Scribe omit the people of the Great Assembly as transmitters of tradition, it is clear that they think that the traditions they present predate the “pairs.” 27 For the dating of the Great Assembly see above, note 6. For the identification of the Great Assembly with Ezra, see Schepansky, Takkanot, 228. One of the most important texts for the identification of the Great Assembly with Ezra is the tradition that its members re-established the use of the attributes “mighty and awesome” (b. Ber. 33b// Meg. 25b // b. Yoma 69b). The terms allude to the attributes in the prayer at the gathering assembled by Ezra (Neh 9:32). Since these attributes appear in the beginning of the Amidah, it might be reasonable to go one step further and assume that the members of the Great Assembly also established the Amidah. However, the sources do no more than state that the Great Assembly legitimized the use of these adjectives, as opposed to some prophets who refrained from using them. The sources do

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although this one is transmitted by Amoraim from the Land of Israel. This tradition appears in connection with a Mishnah which discusses where the havdala—the declaration of the outgoing of Shabbat— should be mentioned in the Amidah (m. Ber. 5:2). The Babylonian Talmud reports that R. Shimen bar Abba asked R. Yochanan that since the members of the Great Assembly established “blessings and prayers, sanctifications and separations,” why do we not just see what they established. This statement, that “the members of the Great Assembly established blessings and prayers, sanctifications and separations,” is subsequently transmitted as a formal statement (memra) by R. Hiyya bar Abba in the name of R. Yochanan (b. Ber. 33a). R. Shimen bar Abba obviously thought that the members of the Great Assembly had formulated exact rules for the insertion of the havdala into the Amidah.28 We should note that the Talmud presents this tradition not as a single formally transmitted tradition but rather as something which seems to be common knowledge. It is only as a result of R. Yohanan’s reply to R. Shimen bar Abba that it was transmitted as a formal statement.29 However, a critical examination of the formal statement indicates that it offers little information. Many questions are left open, such as: Were the prayers established as public or private invocations? Were they obligatory or optional? Thus, even if we assume that the statement contains some historical kernel, its contribution to the rabbinic history of the Amidah is minimal. Nevertheless, it is important because it provides a background for understanding the third tradition.

|| not imply that the Great Assembly actually inserted these words into the blessings. Indeed, the text of Nehemiah follows with another attribute of G-d: “Who stays faithful to His covenant” (Neh 9:32). Had they prescribed the wording of the blessings, there is no clear reason to explain why they did not include this attribute. This explanation follows Rashi who comments that the Talmudic statement that the people of the Great Assembly used these attributes in prayer refers only to the prayer in Ezra and not to the Amidah (b. Ber. 33b, incipit vetikninhu bitefilah). Cf. Bin-Nun, “Beginning,” 5–11. 28 Note that Ginzberg translates this passage as: “The men of the Great Synagogue formulated the benedictions and the prayers, as well as the benedictions for Kiddush and Habdalah” (Ginzberg, Legends, 1128, n. 58). For a discussion of the authenticity of this statement see Mantel, Men, 98–100; Schepansky, Takkanot 1, 232–34. Hoffman (Hoffman, Beyond, 28–31) suggests that the main importance of R. Yochanan’s tradition is the categorization of liturgy into four separate categories. Incidentally we may note that R. Shimen bar Abba did not question why we do not see what Simeon the Pakuli had established. This may be evidence that the Amoraim of the Land of Israel were not familiar with the Simeon the Pakuli tradition. 29 On the use of itmar nami in the Babylonian Talmud see A. Weiss, The Talmud, 86–87.

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4 The 120 Elders tradition The third tradition reports that 120 elders, among them a number of prophets, established the eighteen blessings in order. This is the only tradition about the establishment of prayer which appears in the Jerusalem Talmud (y. Ber. 2:4, 4d) and it also appears in the Babylonian Talmud (b. Meg. 17b). Its appearance in both Talmuds might give some credence to this tradition but more likely it just certifies that it was a well-known tradition.30 In the Jerusalem Talmud it is transmitted by R. Yirmiyah and it appears in the context of the Mishnah which states that the Shema must be read in the proper order. It follows a statement by R. Aha in the name of R. Yehoshua b. Levi that “this prayer” [i.e., the eighteen blessings] was composed in a specific order. This tradition appears also in the Babylonian Talmud, transmitted either in the name of R. Yirmiyah,31 R. Hiyya bar Abba32 or as a baraita, immediately following the Simeon the Pakuli tradition. In both the Jerusalem Talmud and in the Babylonian Talmud it is cited as an introduction to a midrash that explains how the order of the eighteen blessings is based on biblical passages. There are some slight differences between the two versions of this tradition, and we present here a comparison of these two versions along with the Simeon the Pakuli tradition.

|| 30 In a Tannaitic midrash, a group of prophets and elders is reported to have established an obligation to pray three times a day for the restoration of Temple service. For the sources and references to scholarly discussion of these sources see Landes, Studies, 74–76. Cf. Fuks, “Responses,” 164–65. 31 The printed edition quotes this source in the name of R. Yochanan but all the MSS (Munich 95, Munich 140, Ox. Opp. Add. Fol 23, Columbia X 893 T 141) have R. Yirmiyah and R. Hiyya bar Abba. The Pesaro edition of 1516 has R. Hiyya bar Abba transmitting in the name of R. Yochanan(!) and the Venice edition of 1521 has just R. Yochanan. The attribution to R. Yochanan may have been influenced by the fact that the Great Assembly tradition was transmitted by R. Hiyya bar Abba in the name of R. Yochanan. 32 R. Hiyya bar Abba was a senior contemporary of R. Yirmiyah and their names were occasionally switched (Albeck, Introduction, 341).

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Jerusalem Talmud Ber. 2: 4 4d

Babylonian Talmud Meg. 17b

Simeon the Pakuli (b. Ber. 28b; b. Meg.17b)

One hundred and twenty elders, among them eighty some prophets, established (hitkinu) this prayer

One hundred and twenty elders, among them33 some prophets, formulated/edited (tiknu) eighteen blessings

Simeon the Pakuli

in order

arranged eighteen blessings [as he sat] before R. Gamliel in order

There are a number of differences among the sources. Some of them are insignificant, such as the exact number of prophets who participated in this event. A slightly more significant variation is that the Jerusalem Talmud referred to “this prayer” while the Babylonian Talmud referred to “eighteen blessings.” It is likely that each source used the term by which the Amidah was referred to in the text immediately before it, but we cannot determine which, if either, is the original text. It seems likely that the words “in order,” which appear only in the Babylonian Talmud Megilla, were probably influenced by the Simeon the Pakuli tradition which was quoted immediately before it. A more significant difference between the two Talmuds is found in the verb which describes the activity of the elders. All the MSS of the Babylonian Talmud have here tiknu, while the parallel passage in the Jerusalem Talmud has hitkinu. The difference seems to reflect a disagreement between the two Talmuds as to what these elders actually did. The Jerusalem Talmud credits them with establishing the eighteen blessings, although it does not indicate whether they formulated a complete text or only developed general principles. The Babylonian Talmud credits them either with actually creating a new text or with editing a preexistent text. Neither of these sources asserts that the elders also instituted an order for these blessings. The words “in order” do not appear in the Jerusalem Talmud version of the tradition, and we have already surmised that the appearance of these words in the Babylonian Talmud was due to the influence of the Simeon the Pakuli tradition which appeared in the text immediately before it. || 33 One MS (New York – Columbia X 893 T 141) has “with them” instead of “among them,” which would mean that the total number was more than 120. But this is probably a scribal error.

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The respective contexts of the 120 elders tradition within the Jerusalem Talmud and the Babylonian Talmud show that it was cited to prove the antiquity of the order of the eighteen blessings. However, neither of these sources gives any indication of when the 120 elders met.

5 Assembling the traditions How are we to relate to these various traditions? The 120 elders tradition is the only one that appears in both Talmuds. Does this factor enhance the credibility of the 120 elders tradition? Alternatively, should we try to reconcile some or all of these traditions by considering them as complementary, with each one making its own contribution to the history of the Amidah? Another option is to accept one or two of the traditions as reflecting a historic reality while considering the remainder as haggadic attempts to provide authorization for the order of the Amidah. Most scholars have assumed that the Great Assembly tradition and the 120 elders tradition refer to the same event, i.e., the founding of regulations for prayer at the beginning of the Second Temple period. Indeed, based on a conflation of these two passages, many scholars have assumed that the Great Assembly consisted of 120 members (even though a gathering of 120 people is not mentioned elsewhere in the literature of the sages).34 In the discussion that follows, we consider both traditions as one and refer to them as the Great Assembly tradition. Maimonides (1138–1204) accepted the Great Assembly tradition and ignored the Simeon the Pakuli tradition. He articulated very clearly the idea that Ezra and his court (whom Maimonides considered as the members of the Great Assembly) formulated almost all the liturgy, including exact texts.35 || 34 One hundred and twenty is the number of people needed for a town to be worthy of having a Sanhedrin but the Sanhedrin of such a town had no more than 23 members (m. Sanh. 1:6). A gathering of 85 elders—among whom were thirty-some prophets—is claimed to have sanctioned the feast of Purim (y. Meg. 1:5 [70d]). Scholars have generally understood this as the act of the Great Assembly (see Finkelstein, Pharisees, 45). If we would amend the text to read “with them” instead of “among them,” we would have a gathering of almost 120 members. For a list of scholarly gatherings where the number of those present is mentioned. (See Tamar, Aley Tamar, to y. Meg. l.c.). 35 Maimonides, Mishneh Torah, Prayer, 1, 4–8. For Maimonides’ identification of the members of the Great Assembly with Ezra and his court see his introduction to Mishneh Torah). For an analysis of Maimonides’s position on this see Blidstein, Prayer, 34–52.

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Two proposals in particular have assumed the historical values of both the Simeon the Pakuli tradition and also the Great Assembly tradition. They generally tried to explain the uniqueness of each tradition. A medieval gloss found in the printed editions of the Talmud ponders what was left for Simeon the Pakuli to do after the Great Assembly (here referred to as 120 elders) had already arranged the order of prayer. This gloss solves the problem by stating that the arrangement of the 120 elders had been forgotten and Simeon the Pakuli reestablished this arrangement.36 Elbogen rejected this approach because, by his estimation, it “runs completely counter to both history and common sense.”37 Modern commentators have used a more sophisticated approach to reconcile these traditions. Ginzberg suggests that early Amoraim thought there were two separate actions: (a) establishing the obligation to pray, and (b) establishing the order of the blessings. The Great Assembly accomplished the first while R. Gamliel did the second.38 Zunz adopts a similar position, as he finds additional support for the view that the members of the Great Assembly instituted the prayers, but he portrays the prayer text itself as evolving throughout successive generations until it approximated its finished form.39 This theory became dominant. Elbogen followed suit by stating that the tradition of the Great Assembly establishing “benedictions and prayers” “…rests on a firm foundation.”40 R. Gamliel instigated an “edition” or “redaction” (German: Redaktion) of the existent texts which was undertaken by Simeon the Pakuli. However, Elbogen had difficulty in pinpointing Simeon the Pakuli’s contribution. He stated that “the editing had to do primarily with the benedictions and their order” but added that “the main point was that the number of benedictions be fixed.” However, he recognized the fact that this editing was not considered to be final as both the number and the order were subject to change.41 Halevi basically adopted Maimonides’s perspective but nevertheless gave Simeon the Pakuli a role in developing the Amidah. He stated that it was neces-

|| 36 y. Ber. 5:5; Rabinovitch (Dikdukey Sofrim, Megila, 99) pointed out that this reconciliation is presented as a novel idea in Shita Mekubezet on Berakhot. 37 Elbogen, Liturgy, 25. 38 Ginzburg, Commentary, vol. 1, 322. A similar position was adopted by Bin-Nun (“Beginning,” 25–28). 39 Zunz, Gottesdienstlichen 178–80 and notes thereto. 40 Elbogen, Liturgy,192. 41 Elbogen, ibid., 202. Elsewhere (25), Elbogen states that Simeon the Pakuli “formulated” (vorgetragen, which may be translated also as “recited”) the text.

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sary to make changes in the text after the destruction of the Temple and this was the work of Simeon the Pakuli.42 I. H. Weiss suggested a major refinement to these theories. Like Zunz, he partially accepted the tradition which ascribed the foundation of prayer to the members of the Great Assembly. Like Zunz, he rejected the historicity of the tradition that the Great Assembly formulated eighteen blessings. He considered their contribution as being limited to hallel and the opening and closing blessings of the Amidah.43 Weiss’s major contribution consisted apparently his being the first one to go beyond the questions of textual history and the contribution of Simeon the Pakuli. He emphasized R. Gamliel’s contribution as the one who changed the nature of prayer by enacting a daily obligation to pray according to a fixed text as a substitute for sacrifice.44 Apparently, Zeitlin was the first to absolutely reject the idea that there was any institutionalized prayer before the destruction of the Temple. Prayer was spontaneous and voluntary. Like Weiss, he emphasized the novelty of institutionalized prayer after the destruction. He thought that institutionalized prayer required a fixed text and that Simeon of Phichol (!) prepared such a text. Heineman also rejected the thesis of institutionalized prayer as predating the destruction of the Temple but he thought that a variety of prayers “grew and took shape in many different circles of worship.”45 Simeon’s “formulation” gave the rite “official, binding status.” Ezra Fleischer gave a clever twist to these theories. He rejected the idea that the Great Assembly had created obligatory prayers, but he did not reject the tradition that 120 elders had composed the Amidah. He suggested that these 120 elders were contemporaries of Simeon the Pakuli and that they aided him in the composition of the eighteen blessings. This explained how an unknown like Simeon the Pakuli could be entrusted with such a task. He was really the head of a committee of scholars—even though he was not known as a scholar!46

|| 42 Halevi, Dorot, Ie, 146–47. this was followed by Schepansky, Takkanot 1: 232–42. 43 Weiss, Dor, 1: 61 44 Weiss, Dor, 2: 67. 45 Heinemann, Prayer, 35. 46 A major problem in this description is the inclusion of prophets among the 120 sages. It is unlikely that a gathering, which took place after the destruction of the Temple, would be described as including prophets (Wallfish, “The Study Hall,” 487, n. 58).

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6 Conclusion In summing up what rabbinic texts tell us about the establishment of the Amidah, we must first note that all these texts stem from the third century and later. They claim to tell us what happened several centuries earlier. It is difficult to assume that they give us a true historical picture. This is even more difficult with those Babylonian texts which claim to tell us what happened several centuries earlier in the Land of Israel. It would be more accurate to say that these texts tell us what the Amoraim thought about the foundation of the Amidah rather than what actually transpired.47 The texts from the Land of Israel tell us only that at some point in time, 120 elders established both the eighteen blessings of the Amidah and also their order. If we add to this the statements of the Amoraim of the Land of Israel which appear only in the Babylonian Talmud, we may assume that the 120 elders were the members of the Great Assembly which functioned at the beginning of the Second Temple era, some eight hundred years before the time of these Amoraim. The Babylonian Talmud accepts the picture painted by the texts from the Land of Israel, but it adds two details to the history of prayer. One is that it adds that the members of the Great Assembly established “blessings and prayers” which is presumably an addition to the tradition about the 120 elders who established the eighteen blessings. The second detail is the story of the events in Yavne at the time of R. Gamliel, which is about three hundred years before the time of the Babylonian Amoraim.48 It is reasonably clear that these Amoraim thought that the eighteen blessings existed some time before the time of R. Gamliel and that an ordinary person could review them. They also thought that the blessing of the minim was inserted into the eighteen in Yavne and it was revised by Samuel the Lesser. The rabbinic historical traditions, which we have analyzed, tell us more about the rabbis than about the history of the Amidah. For the history of the Amidah in particular and Jewish prayer in general we must use other means. The essay in this volume by Ruth Langer and Richard S. Sarason shows what we may learn about this history by analyzing the Talmudic sources, which regulate prayer.

|| 47 Boyarin (“Anecdotal Evidence,” 28; “The Prehistory,” 220) has noted that “The aroma of legend hovers over this entire account.” 48 Cf. Erlich, Nonverbal, 278.

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Bibliography Albeck, Chanoch. Introduction to the Talmud Babli and Yerushalmi. [Hebrew]. Tel Aviv: Dvir, 1949. Bin-Nun, Yoel. “The Beginning of Obligatory Prayer” [Hebrew]. Mishlav 37 (5762): 5–30. Blidstein, Gerald J. Prayer in Maimonidean Halakha [Hebrew]. Jerusalem: Mosad Bialik, 1994. Boyarin, Daniel. “Anecdotal Evidence: The Yavneh Conundrum, Birkat Hamminim and the Problem of Talmudic Historiography.” Pages 1–35 in vol. 2 of The Mishnah in Contemporary Perspective. Edited by Alan J. Avery-Peck and Jacob Neusner. Leiden; Boston: Brill, 2006. Boyarin, Daniel. “Once Again Birkat Hamminim Revisited.” Pages 91–105 in La Croisée des Chemins Revisitée. Edited by Simon C. Mimouni and Bernard Pouderon. Paris: Les Éditions du Cerf, 2012. Boyarin, Daniel. “What Kind of a Jew is an Evangelist?” Pages 109–33 in Those Outside: Noncanonical Readings of Canonical Gospels. Edited by George Aichele and Richard Walsh. New York; London: T&T Clark, 2006. Boyarin, Daniel. “The Ioudaioi in John and the Prehistory of ‘Judaism’.” Pages 216–39 in Pauline Conversations in Context: Essays in Honor of Calvin J. Roetzel. Edited by Janice Capel Anderson et al. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic, 2002. Bruner, Yair. Chidushey harashba, Berachot [The Novella of the Rashba on Tractate Berakhot] [Hebrew]. Jerusalem: Mosad Harav Kuk, 2007. Büchler, Adolf. Das Synedrion in Jerusalem [Hebrew]. Jerusalem: Mosad Harav Kook, 1974. Cohen, Naomi G. “The Nature of Shim'on Hapekuli's Act” [Hebrew]. Tarbiz 52 (1983): 547–55. Cohen, Naomi G. “What Innovation did Shemuel Haqatan Introduce in Birkat Haminim?” [Hebrew]. Sinai 94 (5744): 57–70. Elbogen, Ismar. Jewish Liturgy: A Comprehensive History. Translated by Raymond P. Scheinlin. Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1993. Ehrlich, Uri. The Weekday Amidah in Cairo Genizah Prayerbooks: Roots and Transmission [Hebrew]. Jerusalem, Yad Ben Zvi Press, 2013. Ehrlich, Uri, and Ruth Langer. “The Earliest Texts of the Birkat Haminim.” HUCA 76 (2007): 63– 112. Ehrlich, Uri. The Nonverbal Language of Prayer. TSAJ 105. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2004. Falk, Daniel K. Daily, Sabbath and Festival Prayers in the Dead Sea Scrolls. STDJ 27. Leiden: Brill, 1998. Finkelstein, Louis, ed. Siphre ad Deuteronomium. New York: The Jewish Theological Seminary, 1993. Finkelstein, Louis. The Pharisees and the Men of the Great Synagogue. New York: Jewish Theological Seminary, 1950. Fleischer, Ezra. “On the Beginnings of Obligatory Jewish Prayer” [Hebrew]. Tarbiz 59 (1990): 397–441. Fleischer, Ezra. “The Shemone Esre – Its Character, Internal Order, Content and Goals” [Hebrew]. Tarbiz 62 (1993): 179–223. Fleischer, Ezra. “On the Origins of the Amidah: Response to Ruth Langer.” Prooftexts 20 (2000): 380–84. Fleischer, Ezra. “Rejoinder to Dr. Reif's Remarks” [Hebrew]. Tarbiz 60 (1991): 683–88. Fuks, Menachem. “Responses to Two Revolutionaries.” [Hebrew] Sinai 114 (5754): 164–70.

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Ginzberg, Louis. A Commentary on the Palestinian Talmud. [Hebrew] New York: The Jewish Theological Seminary, 1941. Ginzberg, Louis, Legends of the Jews. Skokie: Varda Books, 2003. Halevi, Isaak. Dorot harischonim: Die Geshichte und Literatur Israels [Hebrew]. Vol. Ie, Frankurt a.M.: Louis Golde, 1918. Heinemann, Joseph. Prayer in the Talmud, Forms and Patterns. Translated by Richard S. Sarason. SJ 9. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1977. Henshke, David. “Between Blessings and Prayer: On the History of the Amidah Prayer” [Hebrew]. Tarbiz 84 (2017): 345–95. Hoffman, Lawrence A. Beyond the Text: A Holistic Approach to Liturgy. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1989. Hyman, Aaron, Toldoth Tannaim Ve’amoraim [Hebrew]. Jerusalem: Boys Town, 1964. Landes, Yitz. Studies in the Development of Birkat Ha-Avodah [Hebrew]. Jerusalem: Magnes, 2018. Langer, Ruth. “Considerations of Method: A Response to Ezra Fleischer.” Prooftexts 20 (2000): 384–87. Langer, Ruth. “Revisiting Early Rabbinic Literature: The Recent Contributions of Ezra Fleischer.” Prooftexts 19 (1999): 179–204. Lewin, Benjamin. Otzar ha-Gaonim [Hebrew]. Vol. 1, Tractate Berakhot. Haifa: n. p., 1928. Lieberman, Saul. The Tosefta. 5 vols. New York: Jewish Theological Seminary of America, 1955– 92. Lieberman, Saul. A Comprehensive Commentary of the Tosefta [Hebrew]. New York; Jerusalem: The Jewish Theological Seminary, 2001–2002. Maimonides, Moses. Mishnah Torah, Bney Brak: Shabtai Sofer, 1975. Mantel, Hugo. The Men of the Great Synagogue [Hebrew]. Israel: Dvir, 1983. Milikowsky, Chaim. Seder Olam: Critical Edition, Commentary and Introduction [Hebrew]. Jerusalem: Yad Ben-Zvi Press, 2013. Rabinovitch, Refael Nathan. Dikdukey Sofrim [Hebrew]. Jerusalem: Otzar Ha-chochma, 2002. Reif, Stefan C. “Jewish Liturgical Research; Past, Present and Future.” Pages 1–22, 332–37 in idem, Judaism and Hebrew Prayer – New Perspectives on Jewish Liturgical History, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993. Reif, Stefan C. “The Early History of Jewish Worship.” Pages 122–53, 361–69 in idem, Judaism and Hebrew Prayer – New Perspectives on Jewish Liturgical History, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993. Reif, Stefan C. “The Early Liturgy of the Synagogue.” Pages 53–87, 343–53 in idem, Judaism and Hebrew Prayer – New Perspectives on Jewish Liturgical History, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993. Reif, Stefan C. “On the Earliest Development of Jewish Prayer” [Hebrew]. Tarbiz 60 (1991): 677– 81. Sarason, Richard S. “Recent Developments in the Study of Jewish Liturgy.” Pages 80–187 in vol. 1 of The Study of Ancient Judaism. Edited by Jacob Neusner. New York: Ktav, 1981. Sarason, Richard S. “On the Use of Method in the Modern Study of Jewish Liturgy.” Pages 97– 172 in vol. 1 of Approaches to Ancient Judaism: Theory and Practice. Edited by William S. Green. Missoula MT: Scholars Press, 1978. Schepansky, Israel. The Takkanot of Israel [Hebrew]. Jerusalem: Mosad Harav Kook, 2004. Tabory, Joseph. “The Persian Period in the Eyes of the Sages” [Hebrew]. Milet 2 (1984): 65–77. Tamar, Isachar. Aley Tamar [Hebrew]. Givatayim: Atir, 1979.

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Wallfish, Avi. “The Study Hall and the World of Research” [Hebrew]. Shana beshanah (1999): 467–502. Weiss, Isaac Hirsh. Each Generation and its Interpreters [Hebrew]. 5 volumes. Vienna: n.p. 1871–1891. Weiss, Avraham. The Talmud in its Development [Hebrew]. New York: Feldheim, 1954. Zeitlin, Solomon. “An Historical Study of the First Canonization of the Hebrew Liturgy.” JQR 36 (1946): 211–29; 289–316. Zeitlin, Solomon. “The Tefillah, the Shemoneh Esreh: An Historical Study of the First Canonization of the Hebrew Liturgy.” JQR 54 (1964): 208–49. Zunz, Leopold. Die Gottesdienstlichen Vorträge der Juden historisch entwickelt. Translated from German by M. A. Zak. Jerusalem: Mosad Bialik, 1954.

List of Publications of Professor Stefan C. Reif A. Books and booklets written and edited 1. A Guide to the Taylor-Schechter Genizah Collection (Cambridge University Library, 1973, reprinted 1979) pp. vi + 17 + 9 plates. 2. Cambridge University Library Genizah Series, Cambridge University Press for Cambridge University Library, 1978–2006, involving initiation, commissioning, direction of research, planning of structure and content, and overseeing the process of publication. The following volumes have appeared: a. A Miscellany of Literary Pieces from the Cambridge Genizah Collections by S. Hopkins, 1978, pp. x + 110 + 110 plates. b. Hebrew Bible Manuscripts in the Cambridge Genizah Collections i. Taylor-Schechter Old Series and other Genizah Collections in Cambridge University Library, by M. C. Davis and H. Knopf, 1978, pp. xiv + 384 + 19 plates. ii. Taylor-Schechter New Series and Westminster College Cambridge Collection, by M. C. Davis, 1980, pp. x + 478 + 19 plates. iii. Taylor-Schechter Additional Series, by M. C. Davis and Ben Outhwaite, xiii + 500 + 16 plates. iv. Taylor-Schechter Additional Series by M. C. Davis and Ben Outhwaite, xi + 553 + 16 plates. c. Vocalised Talmudic Manuscripts in the Cambridge Genizah Collections. i. Taylor-Schechter Old Series, by S. Morag, 1988, pp. xii + 56 + 10 plates. d. Published Material from the Cambridge Genizah Collections: a Bibliography 1896–1980, by S. C. Reif, 1989, pp. xv + 608. e. Karaite Bible Manuscripts from the Cairo Genizah, by G. Khan, 1990, pp. xv + 186 + 17 plates. f. Targumic Manuscripts in the Cambridge Genizah Collections, by M. L. Klein, 1992, pp. xii + 120 + 24 plates. g. Arabic Legal and Administrative Documents in the Cambridge Genizah Collections, by G. Khan, 1993, pp. xviii + 567 + 24 plates. h. Medical and Para-Medical Manuscripts in the Cambridge Genizah Collections, by H. D. Isaacs and C. F. Baker, 1994, pp. xx + 144 + 20 plates. i. Palestinian Vocalised Piyyut Manuscripts in the Cambridge Genizah Collections, by J. Yahalom, 1997, pp. 90 + 16 plates. j. A Hand-list of Rabbinic Manuscripts in the Cambridge Genizah Collections, by R. Brody, 1998, pp. xi + 352 + 24 plates. k. Arabic and Judaeo-Arabic Manuscripts in the Cambridge Genizah Collections, Old Series, by C. F. Baker and M. Polliack, 2001, pp. xxii + 616 + 24 plates. l. The Cambridge Genizah Collections: Their Contents and Significance, Cambridge University Press, 2002, pp. xiv + 239 + 22 plates. m. Published Material from the Cambridge Genizah Collections: a Bibliography 1981–1997, by R. J. W. Jefferson and E. C. D. Hunter, 2004.

https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110630282-022

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n. Arabic and Judaeo-Arabic Manuscripts in the Cambridge Genizah Collections, New Series, by A. Shivtiel and F. Niessen, 2006. 3. Shabbethai Sofer and his Prayer-book (Cambridge University Press, 1979) pp. xiv + 379 + 5 plates. 4. Interpreting the Hebrew Bible: Essays in Honour of E. I. J. Rosenthal, edited by J. A. Emerton and S. C. Reif (Cambridge University Press, 1982) pp. xv + 319 + 7 plates. 5. Genizah Research after Ninety Years, edited by J. Blau and S. C. Reif (Cambridge University Press, 1992) pp. xi + 176 + 1 plate. 6. Judaism and Hebrew Prayer: New Perspectives on Jewish Liturgical History, Cambridge University Press, 1993 (paperback edition, 1995) pp. xiii + 437. 7. Ten Centuries of Hispano-Jewish Culture: An Exhibition, edited by E. Gutwirth and S. C. Reif (Cambridge University Library, 1992) pp. ii + 29 + 5 plates. 8. Hebrew Manuscripts at Cambridge University Library: A Description and Introduction (Cambridge University Press, 2001) pp. xx + 626 + 32 plates. 9. A Jewish Archive from Old Cairo: The History of Cambridge University’s Genizah Collection (Curzon Press, 2000) pp. xx + 277 + 60 plates. 10. Why Medieval Hebrew Studies: An Inaugural Lecture (Cambridge University Press, 2001) pp. 53 + 4 plates. 11. The Cambridge Genizah Collections: Their Contents and Significance (Cambridge University Press, 2002) pp. xiv + 239 + 22 plates. 12. Genizah Fragments of Hebrew Prayer as a Reflection of Jewish Religious Ideology: The Twenty-Seventh Annual Feinberg Memorial Lecture (University of Cincinnati, 2004) pp. 31. 13. Problems with Prayers: Studies in the Textual History of Early Rabbinic Liturgy (Berlin and New York, de Gruyter, 2006) pp. xi + 375 + 4 plates. 14. Charles Taylor and the Genizah Collection: A Centenary Seminar and Exhibition (Cambridge, St John’s College, 2009) pp. 82 + 28 plates. 15. Ha-Tefillah Ha-Yehudit: Mabaṭ Ḥadash ‘al Toledot Ha-Liṭurgiyah Ha-Yehudit (Or Yehuda, Israel, Kinneret-Zmora-Bitan-Dvir, 2010) pp. 492. 16. Death in Jewish Life: Burial and Mourning Customs in Medieval Ashkenaz and later communities, edited by S. C. Reif, A. Lehnardt and A. Bar-Levav (Berlin and New York, de Gruyter, 2014) pp. xix + 379. 17. Religious Identity Markers A Workshop on Early Judaism, edited by R. Egger-Wenzel and S. C. Reif, Biblische Notizen 164 (Freiburg, Herder, 2015) pp. 130. 18. Ancient Jewish Prayers and Emotions, edited by S. C. Reif and R. Egger-Wenzel (Berlin and New York, de Gruyter, 2015) pp. VI + 409. 19. Jewish Prayer Texts from the Cairo Genizah (Leiden and Boston, Brill, 2016) pp. VIII + 330. 20. Jews, Bible and Prayer: Essays on Jewish Biblical Exegesis and Liturgical Notions (Berlin and Boston, de Gruyter, 2017) pp. VIII + 377. 21. Deuterocanonical and Cognate Literature Yearbook 2018: Discovering, Deciphering and Dissenting: Ben Sira’s Manuscripts after 120 years, edited by J. K. Aitken, R. Egger-Wenzel and S. C. Reif (Berlin, de Gruyter, 2018) pp. xi + 401. 22. Deuterocanonical and Cognate Literature Yearbook 2019: Cosmos and Creation, edited by S. C. Reif and R. Egger-Wenzel (Berlin, de Gruyter, 2019) (forthcoming).

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B. Articles and reviews published and accepted for publication in major scientific periodicals and collections 1. “A Disputed Liturgical Vocalisation”, Journal of Jewish Studies 20 (1969) 5–24. 2. “A Note on a Neglected Connotation of NTN”, Vetus Testamentum 20 (1970) 114–16. 3. “What enraged Phinehas? – A Study of Num. 25:8”, Journal of Biblical Literature 90 (1971) 200–6. 4. “The Vocalization of a Piyyut in Ms. Günzburg 1041”, Jewish Quarterly Review 62 (1971) 12– 19. 5. “A Note on G‘R”, Vetus Testamentum 21 (1971) 241–44. 6. “Again the Musical Title Page”, Studies in Bibliography and Booklore 10 (1971/72) 57–61. 7. “Dedicated to HNKH”, Vetus Testamentum 22 (1972) 495–501. 8. Review of A. Altmann’s Studies in Religious Philosophy and Mysticism, in 17 (1972) 274–76. 9. Review of P. Schäfer’s Die Vorstellung vom heiligen Geist, in Journal of Semitic Studies 17 (1973) 156–62. 10. Review of E. Güting’s Terumot, in Journal of Semitic Studies 18 (1973) 162–65. 11. “Deuteronomy and the Deuteronomic School” (review essay), Jewish Quarterly Review 63 (1973) 272–76. 12. “Poets, Prophets and Sages” (review essay), Jewish Quarterly Review 64 (1973) 180–3. 13. “A Defence of David Qimhi”, Hebrew Union College Annual 44 (1973) 211–26. 14. “World History of the Jewish People” (review essay), Jewish Quarterly Review 64 (1974) 261–63. 15. Review of C. Albeck’s Einführung in die Mischna, in Journal of Semitic Studies 19 (1974) 112– 18. 16. “A Mission to the Holy Land”, Transactions of the Glasgow University Oriental Society 24 (1974) 1–13. 17. “Facsimile Editions: Problems and a Proposal”, Newsletter of the Association for Jewish Studies 11 (1974) 18–19. 18. Review of J. Bowker’s Jesus and the Pharisees, in Journal of Semitic Studies 19 (1974) 301–5. 19. Review of Vermes-Millar edition of E. Schürer’s History of the Jewish People in the Age of Jesus Christ, in Journal of Semitic Studies 19 (1974) 296–300. 20. Review of W. S. Towner’s The Rabbinic Enumeration of Scriptural Examples, in Journal of Semitic Studies 20 (1975) 260–64. 21. “On the text of the ‘Aleinu Prayer” (Hebrew), Tarbiz 44 (1975) 202–3. 22. Various short notices in the SOTS Booklist, 1976, 84, 89, 97–98, 101. 23. “Botterweck and Ringgren’s New Dictionary” (review essay), Jewish Quarterly Review 67 (1977) 154–59. 24. Various short notices in the SOTS Booklist, 1977, 7, 13, 109, 113–15. 25. Brief note (Hebrew), in Sinai 80/5–6 (1977) 288. 26. Review of D. R. G. Beattie’s Jewish Exegesis of the Book of Ruth, in Vetus Testamentum 28 (1978) 369–71. 27. Various short notices in the SOTS Booklist, 1978, 19, 117–19, 121, 130. 28. Review of T. Kronholm’s edition of Seder Rav Amram, in Journal of Semitic Studies 23 (1978) 119–22. 29. Various short notices in the SOTS Booklist, 1979, 13, 46, 48, 95, 99, 104, 124, 138.

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30. “Genizah Collections at Cambridge University Library” (Hebrew), in Te‘uda 1: Cairo Genizah Studies (Tel Aviv, 1980) 201–6. 31. Review of the Traditions of Eleazar ben Azariah by Tzvee Zahavy, in Journal of the American Oriental Society 100 (1980) 359–60. 32. Various short notices in the SOTS Booklist, 1980, 43–45, 119–20, 127, 129, 134. 33. “Response to Professor Allony”, Yad Lakore (1980) 19/4 239–46. 34. “Liturgical Difficulties and Genizah Manuscripts”, Studies in Judaism and Islam (Jerusalem, 1981) 99–122. 35. Review of Maimonides’ Book of Agriculture, ed. I. Klein, in Journal of Semitic Studies 26 (1981) 134–46. 36. Review of Kohelet by C. P. Whitley, in Vetus Testamentum 31 (1981) 120–26. 37. Review of A Mediterranean Society III by S. D. Goitein, in Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society (1981/1) 72–73. 38. Various short notices in the SOTS Booklist, 1981, 21, 43, 45, 57, 112–13, 117, 119. 39. “Response to Dr. Whitley”, Vetus Testamentum 32 (1982) 346–48. 40. “Some Issues in Jewish Liturgical Research” (Hebrew), in Proceedings of the Eighth World Congress of Jewish Studies 1981 (Jerusalem, 1982), Division C, 175–82. 41. Various short notices in the SOTS Booklist, 1982, 12, 33, 100, 103, 120. 42. “Erwin I. J. Rosenthal: A Biographical Appreciation”, in Interpreting the Hebrew Bible: Essays in Honour of E. I. J. Rosenthal, edited by J. A. Emerton and S. C. Reif (Cambridge, 1982) 1–15. 43. “A Midrashic Anthology from the Genizah”, in Interpreting the Hebrew Bible: Essays in Honour of E. I. J. Rosenthal, edited by J. A. Emerton and S. C. Reif (Cambridge, 1982) 179– 225. 44. Review of Introduction to the Code of Maimonides by I. Twersky, in Journal of Semitic Studies 28 (1983) 172–73. 45. Review of Rabbi Tarfon: The Tradition, the Man, and Early Rabbinic Judaism by J. Gereboff, in Journal of Theological Studies 33 (1982) 537–38. 46. “Some Observations on Solomon Luria’s Prayer-Book”, in Tradition and Transition: Essays Presented to Chief Rabbi Sir Immanuel Jakobovits to celebrate twenty years in office, ed. J. Sacks (London, 1986) 245–57. 47. Review of The Fragment-Targums of the Pentateuch by M. L. Klein, in Journal of Semitic Studies 30 (1985) 117–18. 48. Review of Piety and Society by I. G. Marcus, in Journal of Theological Studies 34 (1983) 327–28. 49. “Ibn Ezra on Ps. I 1–2”, Vetus Testamentum 34 (1984) 232–36. 50. Review of five volumes of The Tosefta translated from the Hebrew by J. Neusner, in Journal of Biblical Literature 102 (1983) 660–63. 51. Various short notices in the SOTS Booklist, 1983, 40, 117, 118, 119, and 122. 52. “Jewish Liturgical Research: Past, Present and Future”, Journal of Jewish Studies 34 (1983) 161–70. 53. “Some Liturgical Issues in the Talmudic Sources”, Studia Liturgica 15 (1982–83) 188–206. 54. “A Root to look up? A Study of the Hebrew ns’ ’yn”, in Congress Volume (of the International Organization for the Study of the Old Testament) Salamanca 1983 (Leiden, 1985) 230–44. 55. Various short notices in the SOTS Booklist, 1984, 7–9, 13, 35–36, 121–22, 128. 56. “Genizah Material at Cambridge University Library”, in Encyclopaedia Judaica Year Book (1983–85) 170–71.

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57. Various short notices in Vetus Testamentum 34 (1984) 124, 382, 384. 58. “Festive Titles in Liturgical Terminology” (Hebrew), in Proceedings of the Ninth World Congress of Jewish Studies 1985 (Jerusalem, 1986), Division C, 63–70. 59. Various short notices in SOTS Booklist, 1985, 8, 61, 65, 123–25, 147. 60. Review of Jewish Thought in the Sixteenth Century, ed. B. D. Cooperman, in Journal of Semitic Studies 31 (1986) 111–12. 61. Review of Rabbinische Legende und frühpharisäische Geschichte. Schimon b. Schetach und die achzig Hexen von Askalon, in Journal of Theological Studies 37 (1986) 506–8. 62. Various short notices in the SOTS Booklist, 1986, 16–17, 60, 119–20, 122, 133–34. 63. “The Early Liturgy of the Synagogue”, in The Cambridge History of Judaism III (Cambridge, 1999) 326–57. 64. Various short notices in Vetus Testamentum 35 (1985) 117–25; Vetus Testamentum 36 (1986) 511; Vetus Testamentum 38 (1988) 125–26, 380, 507; Vetus Testamentum 39 (1989) 248–49, 255. 65. Review of M.-H. Prévost Memorial Volume, in Journal of Semitic Studies 32 (1987) 369–70. 66. Review of Genizah Manuscripts of Palestinian Targum to the Pentateuch by M. L. Klein, in Journal of Theological Studies 39 (1988) 187–90. 67. “Aspects of Mediaeval Jewish Literacy” in The Uses of Literacy in Early Mediaeval Europe, ed. R. McKitterick (Cambridge, 1990) 134–55. 68. Various short notices in the SOTS Booklist, 1987, 8, 17–18, 101, 103–4, 116–17. 69. Review of The Human Will in Judaism by H. Eilberg-Schwartz, in Journal of Theological Studies 39 (1988) 192–94. 70. Review of Understanding Seeking Faith by J. Neusner, in Journal of Theological Studies 39 (1988) 358–59. 71. “Semitic Scholarship at Cambridge”, in Genizah Research after Ninety Years, eds. J. Blau and S. C. Reif (Cambridge, 1992) 1–4. 72. “David Goldstein”, in Transactions of the Jewish Historical Society of England 30 (1989) xv– xvii. 73 Review of Essays in Jewish Theology by S. S. Cohon, in Journal of Theological Studies 39 (1988) 552–54. 74. “Genizah”, in A Dictionary of Biblical Interpretation, ed. R. Coggins and L. Holden (London, 1990) 255–56. 75. “The Emergence of Judaic Liturgy”, in The Making of Jewish and Christian Worship, eds. P. F. Bradshaw and L. A. Hoffman (Notre Dame, London, 1991) 109–36. 76. Various short notices in the SOTS Booklist, 1988, 7–8, 13, 130, 144. 77. “Cairo Genizah Material at Cambridge University Library”, Bulletin of the Israel Academic Center in Cairo 12 (1989) 29–34. 78. “Ibn Ezra on Canticles”, in Abraham Ibn Ezra and his Age: Proceedings of the International Symposium, ed. F. Díaz Esteban (Madrid, 1990) 241–49. 79. Various short notices in the SOTS Booklist, 1989, 8, 28, 75, 129–30, 136, 148–49. 80. “Hebrew collections in CUL”, in Hebrew Studies: Colloquium on Hebraica in Europe, eds. D. R. Smith and P. S. Salinger (British Library, 1991) 26–34. 81. Review of Hasidism: Continuity or Innovation?, ed. B. Safran, in Journal of Theological Studies 41 (1990) 812. 82. Various short notices in the SOTS Booklist, 1990, 19, 128, 142–43. 83. “We-’ilu Finu. A Poetic Aramaic Version” (Hebrew), in Knesset ’Ezra… Studies Presented to Ezra Fleischer (Jerusalem, 1994) 269–83.

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84. “Rashi and Proto-Ashkenazi Liturgy”, in Rashi 1040–1990: Papers of the Fourth EAJS Congress (Paris, 1993) 445–54. 85. Review of Occident and Orient, ed. R. Dan (Budapest and Leiden, 1988), in Bibliotheca Orientalis 48 (1991) 960–61. 86. Various short notices in the SOTS Booklist, 1991, 21–22, 79, 142, 147. 87. “On the Earliest Development of Jewish Prayer” (Hebrew), Tarbiz 60 (1991) 677–81. 88. Various short notices in Vetus Testamentum 40 (1990) 122–23, 244, 246, 250, 252, 376–77, 510. 89. Review of Structure and Form in the Babylonian Talmud by Louis Jacobs, in Journal of Theological Studies 43 (1992) 817. 90. “Jenkinson and Schechter at Cambridge: An Expanded and Updated Assessment”, Transactions of the Jewish Historical Society of England 32 (1992) 279–316. 91. Various short notices in the SOTS Booklist, 1992, 10–11, 53–54, 74, 126, 128. 92. “Codicological Aspects of Jewish Liturgical History”, Bulletin of the John Rylands University Library of Manchester 75/3 (1993) 117–31. 93. Review of Sobre la vida y obra de Maimónides, ed. Jesús Peláez del Rosal, in Journal of Semitic Studies 39 (1994) 123–25. 94. “The Cairo Genizah and its Treasures, with special reference to biblical studies”, in The Aramaic Bible, eds. D. R. G. Beattie and M. J. McNamara (Sheffield, 1994) 30–50. 95. Various short notices in the SOTS Booklist, 1993, 23, 130–31, 139–40, 143. 96. Review of Baraita de-Melekhet ha-Mishkan by R. Kirschner, in Journal of Theological Studies 44 (1993) 816–17. 97. “The Classical Jewish Commentators on Exodus 2”, in Studies in Hebrew and Jewish Languages presented to Shelomo Morag (Jerusalem, 1996) *73–*12. 98. Various short notices in Vetus Testamentum 41 (1991) 510; Vetus Testamentum 42 (1992) 278, 432, 568; Vetus Testamentum 43 (1003) 130, 144, 281–82, 431; Vetus Testamentum 44 (1994) 422–23, 425, 574; Vetus Testamentum 45 (1995) 420–21; Vetus Testamentum 46 (1996) 563; Vetus Testamentum 49 (1999) 268. 99. “Jewish Liturgy in the Second Temple Period: Some Methodological Considerations”, in Proceedings of the Eleventh World Congress of Jewish Studies 1993 (Jerusalem, 1994) 1–8. 100. Review of Textual Criticism of the Hebrew Bible by E. Tov, in Journal of Theological Studies 45 (1994) 194–98. 101. Review of Studies in Muslim-Jewish Relations I, ed. R. L. Nettler, in Journal of Semitic Studies 40 (1995) 181–83. 102. Various short notices in SOTS Booklist 1994, 8–10, 50, 58–59, 78, 103, 149, 165. 103. Review of From Christianity to Judaism – The Story of Isaac Orobio de Castro by Y. Kaplan, in Transactions of the Jewish Historical Society of England 32 (1995) 272–73. 104. “William Robertson Smith in relation to Hebraists and Jews at Christ’s College Cambridge”, in William Robertson Smith: Essays in Reassessment, ed. W. Johnstone (Sheffield, 1995) 210–24. 105. “One Hundred Years of Genizah Research at Cambridge”, Jewish Book Annual 53 (1995– 96) 7–28. 106. “Cairo Genizah”, in Encyclopaedia of the Dead Sea Scrolls, eds. L. H. Schiffman and J. C. VanderKam (Oxford and New York, 2000), vol. 1, 105–8. 107. Various short notices in SOTS Booklist 1995, 8, 11, 64, 142, 147–48, 153, 158–59, 162–63, 171.

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108. Review of Sabbath and Synagogue by H. McKay, in Journal of Theological Studies 46 (1995) 610–12. 109. Review of Catalogue of the Hebrew Manuscripts in the Bodleian Library: Supplement by M. Beit Arié and R. A. May, in Journal of Semitic Studies 42 (1997) 165-67. 110. Various short notices in SOTS Booklist 1996, 63–64, 95,152. 111. “The Genizah Fragments. A Unique Archive?”, in Cambridge University Library: the great collections, ed. P. K. Fox (Cambridge, 1998) 54–64. 112. Review of The Yemenite Weekly Prayer: Text and Language by I. Gluska, in Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies 60/3 (1997) 545–6. 113. “Jerusalem in Jewish Liturgy”, in Jerusalem. Its Sanctity and Centrality to Judaism, Christianity and Islam, ed. L. I. Levine (New York, 1998) 424–37. 114. “The Discovery of the Ben Sira Fragments”, in The Book of Ben Sira in Modern Research. Proceedings of the First International Ben Sira Conference 1996, ed. P. C. Beentjes (Berlin, 1997) 1-21. 115. “A Jewish Usurper among Christian Hebraists?”, in Hebrew Study from Ezra to BenYehudah, ed. W. Horbury (Edinburgh, 1999) 277–90. 116 “Aspects of the Jewish Contribution to Biblical Interpretation”, in Cambridge Companion to Biblical Interpretation, ed. J. Barton (Cambridge, 1998) 143–59. 117. “The Cambridge Genizah Story: Some Unfamiliar Aspects” (Hebrew), in Te’uda 15, ed. M. A. Friedman (Tel Aviv, 1999) 413–28. 118. “Solomon Schechter”, in Encyclopedia of Hasidism, ed. T. M. Rabinowicz (Northvale, NJ and London, 1996) 427. 119. Various short notices in SOTS Booklist 1997, 11–12, 16–18, 70. 120. “The Role of Genizah Texts in Jewish Liturgical Research” (Hebrew), in Kenishta, ed. J. Tabory (Ramat Gan, 2001) 43–52. 121. “Written Prayers from the Genizah. Their Physical Aspect and its Relationship to their Content” (Hebrew), in From Qumran to Cairo: Studies in the History of Prayer, ed. J. Tabory (Jerusalem, 1999) 121–130. 122. “The Cairo Genizah”, in The Biblical World, ed. J. Barton (London, 2002) 287–304. 123. “The Damascus Document from the Cairo Genizah”, in The Damascus Document: A Centennial of Discovery, eds. J. M. Baumgarten, E. Chazon and A. Pinnick (Leiden, 2000) 109– 131. 124. “The Genizah and Jewish Liturgy”, in Medieval Encounters 5.1 (1999) 29–45. 125. Various short notices in SOTS Booklist 1998, 108, 116, 196, 204, 218. 126. Review of The Fathers of Piyyut by S. Spiegel, ed. M. Schmelzer, in Journal of Semitic Studies 45 (2000) 196–98. 127. Various short notices in SOTS Booklist 1999, 52–53, 68–69, 129, 144, 164, 186. 128. Review of The Geonim of Babylonia and the Shaping of Medieval Jewish Culture by Robert Brody, in Journal of Semitic Studies 46 (2001) 175–77. 129. “The Discovery of the Damascus Document in the Genizah: Personalities, Documents and Opinions”, in Mitokh Ohalah Shel Torah, vol. 2, ed. Tzvi Koren (Hebrew, Bet Shemesh, 2011) 33-43. 130. “Jewish Prayers and their Cultural Contexts in the Roman and Byzantine Periods”, in Continuity and Renewal: Jews and Judaism in Byzantine-Christuian Palestine, ed. L. I. Levine (Hebrew, Jerusalem, 2004) 389–401. 131. “From Manuscript Codex to Printed Volume: a Jewish Liturgical Transition?”, in Liturgy in the Life of the Synagogue, eds. R. Langer and S. Fine (Winona Lake, IN, 2005) 95–108.

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132. Articles on “Gebet: Judentum”, “Gebetbücher: Judentum”, “Geniza” and “Gottesdienst: Judentum”, in Religion in Geschichte und Gegenwart, vol. 3 (2001) 504–6, 510–12, 673–4 and 1177–1181. 133. “Solomon Schechter”, in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford, 2004) 49.207–210. 134. “Some Recent Developments in the Study of Medieval Jewish Liturgy”, in Hebrew Scholarship and the Medieval World, ed. N. de Lange (Cambridge, 2001) 60–73. 135. “The Impact on Jewish Studies of a Century of Genizah Research”, in Jewish Studies at the Turn of the 20th Century, eds. J. T. Borrás and A. Saenz-Badillos (Leiden, Boston, Köln, 1999) 577–608. 136. “The Second Temple Period, Qumran Research and Rabbinic Liturgy: Some Contextual and Linguistic Comparisons”, in Liturgical Perspectives: Prayer and Poetry in Light of the Dead Sea Scrolls, eds. E. Chazon and A. Pinnick (Leiden, 2003) 133–349. 137. Review of The Formation of Jewish Liturgy in the East and the West by N. Wieder, in Journal of Jewish Studies 51 (2000) 165–67. 138. Review of To Worship God Properly by Ruth Langer, in Journal of Semitic Studies 46 (2001) 344–47. 139. Various short notices in SOTS Booklist 2000, 151, 155, 200–01. 140. Review of Jewish Palestinian Aramaic Poetry by M. Sokoloff and J. Yahalom, in Journal of Jewish Studies 51 (2000) 341–42. 141. “Some Notions of Restoration in Early Rabbinic Prayer”, in Restoration: Old Testament, Jewish and Christian Conceptions, ed. J. Scott (Leiden, 2001) 281–304. 142. “A Centennial Assessment of Genizah Studies”, in The Cambridge Genizah Collections: Their Contents and Significance, ed. S. C. Reif (Cambridge, 2002) 1–35. 143. “A Scholar’s Scholar: Naphtali Wieder, 1905–2001”, Le’ela 51 (2001) 67–78. 144. Various short notices in SOTS Booklist 2001, 9–10, 21–22, 32–33, 64–65 and 111. 145. Review of J. Lassner’s abridgement of Goitein’s Mediterranean Society, in Journal of Semitic Studies 48 (2003) 194–96. 146. “Some Changing Trends in the Jewish Literary Expression of the Byzantine World”, in Literacy, Education and Manuscript Transmission in Byzantium and Beyond, eds. C. Holmes and J. Waring (Leiden, Boston, Köln, 2002) 81–110. 147. Articles on “Liturgie: Judentum” and “Machzor”, in Religion in Geschichte und Gegenwart 4 (2002) 442–43 and 5 (2002) 639-40. 148. Various short notices in SOTS Booklist 2002, 68, 38–39, 202, 206, 231–32. 149. “Prayer in Ben Sira, Qumran and Second Temple Judaism”, in Proceedings of the International Ben Sira Conference, Durham, Ushaw College, 2001, ed. R. Egger-Wenzel (Berlin and New York, 2002) 321–41. 150. “Jews, Hebraists and ‘Old Testament’ Studies”, in Sense and Sensitivity: Essays on Biblical Prophecy, Ideology and Reception in Tribute to Robert Carroll, eds. A. G. Hunter and P. R. Davies (Sheffield, 2002) 224–45. 151. “Professor Naphtali Wieder: Rabbinic Scholar, Teacher and Liturgical Researcher”, Pe‘amim 96 (Hebrew, 2003) 163–75. 152. Review of Surpassing Wonder: The Invention of the Bible and the Talmuds by D. H. Akenson, in Journal of Theological Studies 54 (2003) 199–203. 153. “The Bible in Jewish Liturgy”, in The Jewish Reading Bible, eds. A. Berlin and M. Z. Brettler (Oxford and New York, 2004) 1937–48.

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154. “Giblews, Jews and Genizah Views”, in A Centennial Tribute to Lewis and Gibson, in Journal of Jewish Studies 55 (2004) 332–46. 155. Articles on “Shema‘: Mittelalter und Neuzeit”, in Religion in Geschichte und Gegenwart, vol. 5 (forthcoming). 156. “Prayer in Early Judaism”, in Deuterocanonical and Cognate Literature Yearbook 2004: Prayer from Tobit to Qumran, eds. R. Egger-Wenzel and J. Corley (Berlin and New York, 2004) 439–64. 157. Various short notices in SOTS Booklist 2003, 18 and 170. 158. Review of The Origins of the Synagogue. A Socio-Historical Study by A. Runesson, in Journal of Theological Studies 54 (2003) 657–660. 159. Seven articles in Dictionary of Jewish-Christian Relations, eds. E. Kessler and N. Wenborn (Cambridge, 2005) 71, 120–21, 175, 319, 325–26, 362–63, 446–47. 160. Review of Revelation Restored by D. Weiss Halivni, in Journal of Theological Studies 55 (2004) 305–09. 161. Review of (eds.), Transmitting Jewish Traditions by Y. Elman and I. Gershoni and Torah in the Mouth by M. S. Jaffee, in Journal of Jewish Studies 54 (2003) 343–45. 162. “Ein Genisa-Fragment des Tischdank”, in Liturgie als Theologie: Das Gebet als Zentrum im jüdischen Denken, ed. W. Homolka (Berlin, 2005) 11–29. 163. Various short notices in SOTS Booklist 2004, 81, 130–31, 163. 164. Review of The Oxford Handbook of Jewish Studies, ed. M. Goodman, in Journal of Theological Studies 55 (2004) 693–94. 165. “Approaches to Sacrifice in Early Jewish Prayer”, in Studies in Jewish Prayer, eds. R. Hayward and B. Embry (Oxford, 2005) 135–50. 166. “Liturgy”, in YIVO Encyclopedia of Jews in Eastern Europe (New York, 2008). 167. Review of The Culture of the Babylonian Talmud by Jeffrey L. Rubenstein, in Journal of Theological Studies 56 (2005) 624–28. 168. Review of Biblical Myth and Rabbinic Mythmaking by M. Fishbane, in Journal of Theological Studies 56 (2005) 638–42. 169. Various short notices in SOTS Booklist 2005, 6, 22, 93.197, 206. 170. “The Function of History in Early Rabbinic Liturgy”, in Deuterocanonical and Cognate Literature Yearbook 2006: How Israel’s Later Authors Viewed Its Earlier History, eds. N. Calduch-Benages and J. Liesen (Berlin and New York, 2006) 321–39. 171. “The Emergence and Textual Evolution of a post-Talmudic Prayer: the case of ‘al hanissim” in Manuscrits hébreux et arabes, in Mélanges en l’honneur de Colette Sirat, ed. N. de Lange and J. Olszowy-Schlanger (Turnhout, 2014) 369–85. 172. Review of Avodah: An Anthology of Ancient Poetry for Yom Kippur, eds. M. D. Swartz and J. Yahalom, in Journal of Semitic Studies 52 (2007) 401–3. 173. “Qeṭa‘ Genizah shel Birkat Ha-Mazon”, in Mas’at Aharon: Linguistic Studies presented to Aron Dotan (Hebrew, Jerusalem, 2009) 201–17. 174. “The Meaning of the Cairo Genizah for the Study of Jewish and Christian Liturgy”, in Jewish & Christian Liturgy and Worship: New Insights into its History and Interaction, ed. A. Gerhards and C. Leonard (Leiden, 2007) 43-62. 175. “Shinnuyey Nusha’ot shel Tefillot Ha-Qeva‘ Lefi Qit‘ey Ha-Genizah”, in Essays and Studies in Memory of Dov Rappel, ed. S. Glick (Jerusalem, 2007) 473–88. 176. “A Fresh Set of Genizah Texts”, in SBL Forum 4/8 (October, 2006), electronic format.

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177. Reviews of Early Jewish Exegesis and Theological Controversy by I. Kalimi, in Vetus Testamentum 57 (2007), 570; The Temple Mount: Where is the Holy of Holies by A. S. Kaufman, 570–71; and Rabbinic Interpretation of Scripture in the Mishnah by A. Samely, 573–74. 178. “The ‘Amidah Benediction on Forgiveness: Links between its Theology and its Textual Evolution”, in Seeking the Favour of God: Volume 3: The Impact of Penitential Prayer beyond Second Temple Judaism, eds. M. J. Boda, D. K. Falk and R. A. Werline (Atlanta, 2008) 85–98. 179. Various short notices in SOTS Booklist 2007, 69, 246. 180. Review of S. D. Luzzatto, Prolegomena to a Grammar of the Hebrew Language, ed. and trans. A. D. Rubin, in Journal of Semitic Studies 53 (2008) 363–65. 181. Articles on ‘Amram ben Sheshna’ and ‘Genizah’, in The Cambridge Dictionary of Jewish History, Religion and Culture, ed. J. R. Baskin (forthcoming). 182. Review of Karaite Judaism and Historical Understanding by F. Astren, in Journal of Jewish Studies 59 (2008) 148–50. 183. “Early Jewish Worship”, in New Interpreter’s Dictionary of the Bible, ed. K. D. Sakenfeld (Nashville, TN, 2009) 903–910. 184. “Early Rabbinic Exegesis of Genesis 38”, in The Exegetical Encounter between Christians and Jews in Late Antiquity, eds. E. Grypeou and H. Spurling (Leiden, 2009) 221–44. 185. Review of Undercurrents of Jewish Prayer by J. Schonfield, in Journal of Jewish Studies 59 (2008) 152–54. 186. “The Figure of David in Early Jewish Prayer”, Deuterocanonical and Cognate Literature Yearbook 2008: Biblical Figures in Deuterocanonical and Cognate Literature, eds. H. Lichtenberger and U. Mittmann-Richert (Berlin and New York, 2009), 509–46. 187. “Prayer and Liturgy”, in The Oxford Handbook of Jewish Daily Life in Roman Palestine, ed. C. Hezser (Oxford, 2010) 545–65. 188. “Maimonides on the Prayers”, in Traditions of Maimonideanism, ed. Carlos Fraenkel (Leiden and Boston, 2009) 73–100. 189. Various short notices in SOTS Booklist 2008, 212, 221, 225, 232. 190. “Prayer and Liturgy (including Andalus)”, in the Encyclopedia of Jews in the Islamic World, ed. N. A. Stillman, vol. 4 (Leiden, 2010) 94–99. 191. “Cairo Geniza”, in Encyclopedia of Jews in the Islamic World, ed. N. A. Stillman, vol. 1 (Leiden, 2010) 534–39. 192. “The Genizah and the Dead Sea Scrolls: How Important and Direct is the Connection”, in The Dead Sea Scrolls in Context, vol. 2, eds. A. Lange, E. Tov and M. Weingold (Leiden, 2011) 673–91. 193. “Reviewing the Links between Qumran and the Cairo Genizah”, in The Oxford Handbook of the Dead Sea Scrolls, eds. T. H. Lim and J. J. Collins (Oxford, 2010) 652–79. 194. Review of Jewish Cultural Nationalism by D. Aberbach, in Journal of Jewish Studies 60 (2009) 159–60. 195. Review of Birkat haMinim by Yaakov Y. Teppler, in Journal of Jewish Studies 59 (2008) 326–27. 196. Review of India Traders of the Middle Ages by S. D. Goitein and M. A. Friedman, in Journal of Jewish Studies 60 (2009) 353. 197. “Psalm 93: An Historical and Comparative Survey of its Jewish Interpretations”, in Genesis, Isaiah and Psalms: A Festschrift to Honour Professor John Emerton for his Eightieth Birthday, eds. K. Dell, G. Davies and Y. V. Koh (Leiden, 2010) 193–214.

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198. Review of Orthodox Judaism in Britain since 1913 by M. J. Freud-Kandel and Faith Against Reason by M. Persoff, in Journal of Jewish Studies 60 (2009) 160–62. 199. Short notice (on S. Japhet essays) in SOTS Book List 2009, 14–15. 200. Reviews of Jewish Biblical Interpretation and Cultural Exchange, eds. N. B. Dohrmann and D. Stern, and Shai le-Sarah Japhet, eds. M. Bar-Asher et al., in Vetus Testamentum 59 (2009) 328. 201. “Shabbethai Sofer of Przemysl on the text of Mah Nishtanah”, in The Experience of Jewish Liturgy: Studies Dedicated to Menahem Schmelzer, ed. D. Reed Blank (Leiden, 2011) 223– 38. 202. “Another Glance at a Gifted Grammarian: More on Shabbethai Sofer of Przemysl”, in A Universal Art. Hebrew Grammar across Disciplines and Faiths, eds. N. Vidro, I. E. Zwiep and J. Olszowy-Schlanger (Leiden, 2014) 162–75. 203. Entries on “Book: Judaism”, “Bible: Cairo Genizah” and “Haggadah of Pesah” for the Encyclopedia of the Bible and its Reception, eds. H. J. Klauck et al. (Berlin and New York/Boston, 2009-) 6 columns. 204. Review of M. Z. Brettler, How to Read the Jewish Bible, in Journal of Jewish Studies 60 (2009) 358–59. 205. Article “Genisa”, in Enzyclopädie jüdischer Geschichte und Kultur, ed. D. Diner (Stuttgart, 2012) 2.417-21. 206. Review of A. B. Saposnik, Becoming Hebrew. The Creation of a Jewish National Culture in Ottoman Palestine, in Journal of Jewish Studies 61 (2010) 168–69. 207. Review of Rabbinic Culture and its Critics, eds. D. Frank and M. Goldish, in Journal of Jewish Studies 61 (2010) 166–68. 208. “Peace in Early Jewish Prayer”, in Deuterocanonical and Cognate Literature Yearbook 2010: Visions of Peace and Tales of War, eds. J. Liesen and P. C. Beentjes (Berlin, 2010) 377–99. 209. “Consigned to the Genizah but for only a Third of a Century”, in From a Sacred Source, eds. B. M. Outhwaite and S. Bhayro (Leiden, 2010) 377–88. 210. “Liturgy”, in The Cambridge History of Judaism: vol. 5, The Medieval Era: The Islamic World, eds. R. Chazan and M. Rustow (forthcoming), about 20 printed pages. 211. “Liturgy”, in The Cambridge History of Judaism: vol. 6, The Medieval Era: The Christian World, eds. R. Chazan and M. Rustow (forthcoming), about 20 printed pages. 212. “Sources”, in The Cambridge History of Judaism: vol. 5, The Medieval Era: The Islamic World, eds. R. Chazan and M. Rustow (forthcoming), about 35 printed pages. 213. Review of T. Kushner, Anglo-Jewry since 1066: Place, Locality and Memory, in Journal of Jewish Studies 61 (2010) 366–67. 214. “Remarkable Aspects of the Cairo Geniza Story”, in Bulletin of the Israel Academic Center in Cairo (forthcoming, about 18 printed pages). 215. Review of J. Tabory, JPS Commentary on the Haggadah: Historical Introduction, Translation and Commentary, in Journal of Jewish Studies 61 (2010) 162–64. 216. “Ha-Historia He-Tekstualit Ha-Qedumah shel ‘Al Ha-Nissim” (forthcoming, about 15 printed pages). 217. Short notice (on Flusser essays) in SOTS Book List 2010, 179. 218. “The Jewish Heritage of Old Cairo”, in The History and Religious Heritage of Old Cairo, eds. C. Ludwig and M. Jackson (Cairo and New York, 2013) 34–71.

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219. “On some Connotations of the Word Ma’aseh”, in Studies on the Text and Versions of the Hebrew Bible in Honour of Robert Gordon, eds. G. Khan and D. Lipton (Leiden, 2012) 337– 51. 220. Review of M. Persoff, Another Way, Another Time: Religious Inclusivism and the Sacks Chief Rabbinate, in Journal of Jewish Studies 61 (2010) 349–50. 221. Review of H. N. Lupovitch, Jews and Judaism in World History, in Journal of Jewish Studies 62 (2011) 197–98. 222. Review of D. Rosenthal, The Cairo Geniza Collection in Geneva, in Journal of Jewish Studies 62 (2011) 170–72. 223. Review of A. Julius, Trials of the Diaspora, in Journal of Jewish Studies 62 (2011) 172–74. 224. Review of Authoritative Scriptures in Ancient Judaism, ed. M. Popović, in Review of Biblical Literature, published 13 May 2011, online at http://www.bookreviews.org/BookDetail.asp?TitleId=7788. 225. Various entries in Religion in the Past and the Present (Leiden, 2006-2013). 226. “How a Jewish Scribe in Early Modern Poland Attempted to Alter a Hebrew Linguistic Register”, in Scribes as Agents of Linguistic Change, eds. E.-M. Wagner, B. Outhwaite and B. Beinhoff (Boston and Berlin, 2013) 227–38. 227. Various short notices in the SOTS Booklist 2011, 128–9, 140, 178. 228. “The Fathership of God in Early Rabbinic Liturgy”, in Deuterocanonical and Cognate Literature Yearbook 2012/13: Family and Kinship in the Deuterocanonical and Cognate Literature, ed. A. Passaro (Berlin, 2013) 505–25. 229. “In Memoriam Raphael James Loewe, 1919-2011”, Jewish Historical Studies 44 (2013) 1–6. 230. Review of ‘To Settle the Plain Meaning of the Verse’: Studies in Biblical Exegesis, eds. S. Japhet and E. Viezel, in the SOTS Booklist 2012. 231. Review of R. B. Dobson, The Jewish Communities of Medieval England, and R. R. Mundill, The King’s Jews, in Journal of Jewish Studies 63 (2012) 182-84. 232. Foreword to Meir Persoff, Hats in the Ring: Choosing Britain’s Chief Rabbis from Adler to Sacks (Boston, 2013), x-xiii. 233. Review of Y. Kahn, The Three Blessings, in Journal of Jewish Studies 63 (2012) 368–70. 234. “Jewish Prayer and Liturgy”, Oxford Bibliography Online (available 2014, online: http://www.oxfordbibliographies.com/view/document/obo-9780199840731/obo9780199840731-0086.xml). 235. Review of R. Langer, Cursing the Christians?, in Journal of Religion 93/1 (01/2013) 112–14, www.jstor.org/stable/10.1086/669840. 236. “Has More than a Century of Genizah Research Adjusted Jewish Notions of Scholarship, History and Identity? Some Reflections and Speculations”, in Envisioning Judaism: Studies in Honor of Peter Schäfer on the Occasion of his Seventieth Birthday, eds. Ra’anan S. Boustan et al. (Tübingen, Mohr Siebeck, 2013) 1335–55. 237. Review of R. Leicht and G. Freudenthal (eds.), Studies on Steinschneider, in Journal of Jewish Studies 64 (2013) 215–17. 238. “Wisdom Traditions in Some Early Rabbinic Prayers?”, in Wisdom for Life: Festschrift for Friedrich V. Reiterer, eds. R. Egger-Wenzel, K. Schöpflin and J. F. Diehl (Berlin, 2013) 223– 45. 239. Review of Prayer and Poetry in the Dead Sea Scrolls and Related Literature: Essays in Honor of Eileen Schuller, eds. J. and K. M. Penner, in Journal of Jewish Studies 64 (2013) 197–9. 240. Short notice in SOTS Booklist 2012, 27-28.

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241. Review of E. Fleischer, Statutory Jewish Prayers: Their Emergence and Development, eds. S. Elizur and T. Beeri, in Journal of Jewish Studies 64 (2013) 415–18. 242. “A Remnant of an Eleventh-Century Egyptian Rite”, in As a Perennial Spring: A Festschrift Honoring Norman Lamm, ed. B. Cohen (New York, 2013) 379–91. 243. “Late Prayer Books of the Ashkenazi, French, Sefardi and Italian Rites: A Tentative and Comparative Analysis”, in Jewish Prayer: New Perspectives, ed. U. Ehrlich (Beer Sheva, 2016) 71–98. 244. Review of A. Grossman, Rashi, in Journal of Jewish Studies 64 (2013) 418–20. 245. Review of C. S. Spigel, Ancient Synagogue Seating Capacities, in Journal of Jewish Studies 64 (2013) 413–15. 246. “Some Comments on the Connotations of the Stem ‫ גער‬in Early Rabbinic Texts”, in Leshon Limmudim. Essays on the Language and Literature of the Hebrew Bible in Honour of A. A. Macintosh, eds. D. A. Baer and R. P. Gordon (London, 2013) 253–67. 247 Review of Y. Sussmann, Thesaurus of Talmudic Manuscripts, in Jewish Quarterly Review 104 (2014) 601–12. 248. “Some Metaphors in Early Rabbinic Liturgy”, in Deuterocanonical and Cognate Literature Yearbook 2014/2015: The Metaphorical Use of Language in Deuterocanonical and Cognate Literature, eds. M. Witte and S. Behnke (Berlin, 2015) 487-507. 249. Articles on “Cairo Geniza” and “Shema” for the Routledge Dictionary of Ancient Mediterranean Religions, ed. L. S. Fried et al. (New York, 2016) 154-55, 872. 250. Short notices of I. Sassoon’s Status of Women in Jewish Tradition and Werman and Shemesh’s Revealing the Hidden, in Vetus Testamentum 64/3 (2014). 251. Short notice in SOTS Booklist 2013, 153. 252. Review of U. Ehrlich, The Weekday Amidah in Geniza Prayer Books: Origins and Transmission (Hebrew), in Cathedra 159 (2016) 185–88. 253. “The History of Hebrew Manuscripts and their Importance for Biblical and Jewish Studies”, Biblische Notizen (forthcoming). 254. “How did Jewish Prayer in the Medieval Islamic World Differ from its Equivalent in Christian Countries?”, in Muslim-Jewish Relations Past and Present: A Kaleidoscopic View, ed. J. Meri (Leiden, 2017) 94–114. 255. “The Place of Prayer in the Second Temple Period”, in Ancient Jewish Prayers and Emotions, eds. S. C. Reif and R. Egger-Wenzel (Berlin, 2015) 1–17. 256. “Viewing the Other: Attitudes towards Non-Jews in Medieval Jewish Prayer-books” (8,000 words, forthcoming, Universität Erfurt, Max Weber Kolleg, 2017). 257. Review of Studies in Jewish History and Culture in Honor of Lee I. Levine, ed. Z. Weiss et al., in Journal of Jewish Studies 65 (2014) 408-10. 258. Review of Encyclopedia of Hebrew Language and Linguistics, ed. G. Khan et al., in Journal of Jewish Studies 65 (2014) 406-8. 259. Review of From Cairo to Manchester: Studies in the Rylands Genizah Fragments, eds. R. Smithuis and P. S. Alexander, in Bulletin of the John Rylands Library 91/2 (2015) 73–76. 260. “On Some Issue of Identity Facing the Early Rabbis”, in Elements of Jewish Religious Identity Markers: A Workshop on Early Judaism, eds. R. Egger-Wenzel and S. C. Reif, Biblische Notizen 164 (2015) 115-30. 261. Review of E. Baumgarten, Practicing Piety in Medieval Ashkenaz, in Journal of Jewish Studies 66 (2015) 445–47. 262. Review of R. Kalmin, Migrating Tales. The Talmud’s Narratives and their Historical Context, in Journal of Theological Studies 66 (2015) 749–51.

368 | List of Publications of Professor Stefan C. Reif

263. Review of Imagining the Other and Constructing Israelite Identity in the Early Second Temple Period, eds. E. Ben Zvi and D. V. Edelman, in Vetus Testamentum 67/1 (2017) 14142. 264. Review of The Temple in Text and Tradition. A Festschrift in Honour of Robert Hayward, ed R. Timothy McLay, in Vetus Testamentum 67/1 (2017) 1633-64. 265. Review of Y. Septimus, On the Boundaries of Talmudic Prayer, in Journal of Jewish Studies 67 (2016) 207–9. 266. “Jewish Prayer”, in the Oxford Classical Dictionary (New York, online from 2017: http://classics.oxfordre.com/view/10.1093/acrefore/9780199381135.001.0001/acrefore9780199381135-e-8038). 267. Review of J. D. Smoak, The Priestly Blessing in Inscription and Scripture, in Biblische Notizen 176 (2018) 132–34. 268. “Cairo Genizah”, in T&T Clark Companion to Second Temple Judaism, eds. D. M. Gurtner and L.T. Stuckenbruck (forthcoming, 1100 words). 269. “Liturgy as an Educational Process in Talmudic and Medieval Judaism”, in Jewish Education from Antiquity to the Middle Ages, eds. G. J. Brooke and R. Smithuis (Leiden, 2017), 252–68. 270. “Schechter’s Approach to Jewish Liturgy”, in Jewish Historical Studies 48, ed. T. Dunkelgrün (London, 2016) 46–61. 271. “Rabbinic Judaism”, in The Oxford Handbook of Ritual and Worship in the Hebrew Bible, ed. S. Ballentine (forthcoming, 7,000). 272. Review of T. J. Stone, The Compilational History of the Megilloth, in Journal of Jewish Studies 67 (2016) 422–4. 273. Review of R. Langer, Jewish Liturgy: A Guide to Research, in Journal of Jewish Studies 68 (2017) 210–12. 274. Entries on “Ben Sira”, “Siddur” and “Mahzor” for the Encyclopedia of Jewish Book Cultures, eds. K. Kogman-Appel, J. Olszowy-Schlanger et al. (forthcoming), 2,500 words. 275. “Some First Editions of Genizah Manuscripts of Ben Sira: Approaches and Reproaches”, in Deuterocanonical and Cognate Literature Yearbook 2018: Discovering, Deciphering and Dissenting. Ben Sira Manuscripts after 120 Years, eds. J. Aitken, R. Egger-Wenzel and S. C. Reif (Berlin, 2018) 39–65. 276. “Liturgical Fragments from Egypt and Tyrol: Their Special Challenges for the Researcher”, in 700 Jahre jüdische Präsenz in Tirol. Geschichte der Fragmente, Fragmente der Geschichte, eds. U. Schattner-Riesser and J. M. Oesch (Innsbruck, 2018) 25–48. 277. “Is Rabbinic Prayer a Liturgy or Essentially a Reading Of Texts?”, in Describing and Explaining Ritual Dynamics, eds. B. Kranemann and C. Bergmann (forthcoming, about 6,000 words). 278. “The Role of Manuscripts in the Critical Study of Jewish Liturgy from 1859 until the late 20th Century”, Yuvalim (forthcoming, about 7,500 words). 279. Review of E. Baumgarten, R. M. Karras and K. Mesler (eds.), Entangled Histories. Knowledge, Authority and Jewish Culture in the Thirteenth Century, in Journal of Jewish Studies 69 (2018) 429–32. 280. Review of A. S. Ferziger (ed.), The Paths of Daniel. Studies in Judaism and Jewish Culture in Honor of Rabbi Professor Daniel Sperber, in Journal of Jewish Studies 69 (2018) 214–17. 281. “The Work of Creation in Early Rabbinic Prayers and Benedictions”, in Deuterocanonical and Cognate Literature Yearbook 2019: Cosmos and Creation, eds. S. C. Reif and R. EggerWenzel (forthcoming, about 6,500 words).

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282. Review of J. Penner, Patterns of Daily Prayer in Second Temple Period Judaism, in Journal for the Study of Judaism 49 (2018) 150–51. 283. Review of S. Conermann (ed.), Muslim-Jewish Relations in the Middle Islamic Period, in Journal of Jewish Studies 70 (2019). 284. Review of M. R. Cohen, Maimonides and the Merchants. Jewish Law and Society in the Medieval Islamic World, in Journal of Jewish Studies 70 (2019). 285. Review of I. G. Marcus, Sefer Hasidim and the Ashkenazic Book in Medieval Europe, in Journal of Jewish Studies 70 (2019). 286. Review of A. Hurvitz, From Genesis to Chronicles: Chapters in the Linguistic History of Biblical Hebrew, in SOTS Booklist 2019. 287. Review of Laura S. Lieber, Jewish Aramaic Poetry from Late Antiquity, Journal of Jewish Studies 70 (2019). 288. Review of Javier Castaño et al., Regional Identities and Cultures of Medieval Jews, Journal of Jewish Studies 70 (2019). 289. “Medieval Jewish Liturgy as Religious Education”, in Disseminating Religious Knowledge in Antiquity, eds. Diana Edelman and Catherine Hezser (c. 9,000 words, Equinox Press, Sheffield, forthcoming). 290. Review of B. N. Melton, Where is God in the Megilloth?, in Biblica (forthcoming). 291. Review of Kenneth E. Berger. Tradition, Interpretation, and Change, in AJS Review (forthcoming).

C. Articles and reviews published in other serials, plus miscellaneous publications 1. Glasgow Hebrew College Educational Workshop 1970/71: A Report, Glasgow, 1971. 2. “Social Values” (review), Jewish Echo (January, 1972). 3. “The Citation Game”, Jewish Echo (May, 1972). 4. “Conservation Mahzor a Happy Synthesis” (review), Jewish Bookland (April, 1973). 5. “Quaker City Digs Israel” (Translation of Z. Vilnay), Jewish Exponent Literary Supplement (May, 1973). 6. “Isaiah: Modern and Traditional Views” (review), Jewish Bookland (October, 1973). 7. “The Origins of Chanucah”, Jewish Echo (December, 1973). 8. “Jewish Hiding Place: Material from the Cairo Genizah”, Jewish Chronicle Literary Supplement (December, 1973). 9. Review of B. D. Weinryb’s The Jews of Poland, in Jewish Bookland (May, 1974). 10. “Cambridge Treasure”, Jewish Chronicle (October, 1974). 11. Review of V. E. Reichert’s Tahkemoni ii, in Jewish Bookland (February, 1975). 12. Review of M. Hengel’s Judaism and Hellenism, Epworth Review (1975). 13. Review of L. Jacobs’ Theology in the Responsa, Jewish Chronicle (November, 1975). 14. Review of A. Momigliano’s Alien Wisdom, in Jewish Chronicle (February, 1976). 15. Review of The Jewish Year by I. Shachar, in Epworth Review (1976). 16. Review of John Eaton’s Kingship in the Psalms, in Epworth Review (1977). 17. Review of Polack and Lawrence’s Cup of Life: A Short History of Post-biblical Judaism, in Epworth Review (1977). 18. “Cant or Cantor”, in Manna 1977 (CUJS Annual Magazine). 19. “BBC is not BCE”, Jewish Chronicle (March, 1977).

370 | List of Publications of Professor Stefan C. Reif

20. “Genizah Fragments at Cambridge”, L’eylah 1/4 (1977). 21. Review of A. Oppenheimer’s The ‘Am Ha-Aretz: A Study in the Social History of the Jewish People in the Hellenistic-Roman Period, in Epworth Review (1979). 22. “Is Christianity Credible?”, Epworth Review (1978), now reprinted in a volume of essays with the same title edited by David Stacey (1981). 23. A Priceless Collection. The Taylor-Schechter Genizah Fragments. The Facts (written with Raphael Levy), Cambridge, 1978, second edition 1979, third edition 1983, fourth edition 1986, fifth edition 1992. 24. “Jews’ College in Crisis”, Jewish Chronicle (November, 1979). 25. “Everyday Life in Genizah Times”, in Jewish Chronicle Colour Magazine (September, 1980). 26. Review of The Night-Sky of the Lord by A. Ecclestone, in Epworth Review (1980). 27. “The ‘Al Het Prayer”, Jewish Chronicle Supplement (September, 1980). 28. Obituary for Jacob Leveen in The Times (8 August 1980). 29. (Ed.) Genizah Fragments (Newsletter of Taylor-Schechter Genizah Research Unit) 1–51 (April, 1981 – April, 2006). 30. “The Taylor-Schechter Genizah Research Unit”, in Newsletter of the World Union of Jewish Studies, Summer, 1981. 31. Review of Archaeology, the Rabbis and Early Christianity by E. M. Meyers and James F. Strange, in Epworth Review (1982). 32. “1898 Preserved in Letter and Spirit”, Cambridge Review (January, 1982). 33. “An Orthodox response to Reform”, Jewish Chronicle (July, 1982). 34. Review of This Year in Jerusalem by K. Cragg, in Epworth Review (1982). 35. “Genizah Treasures (1)”, Jewish Chronicle (August, 1982). 36. “Genizah Treasures (2): The Discovery of a Lifetime”, Jewish Chronicle (November, 1982). 37. “Genizah Treasures (3)”, Jewish Chronicle (January, 1983). 38. Review of Rashi; The Man and his World by E. Shereshevsky, in Jewish Chronicle (February, 1983). 39. Review of Neveh Ya‘akov: Jubilee Volume Presented to Dr. Jaap Meijer edited by L. Dasberg and J. N. Cohen, in Jewish Chronicle (April, 1983). 40. “Genizah Treasures (4)”, Jewish Chronicle (June, 1983). 41. “Genizah Treasures (5)”, Jewish Chronicle (October, 1983). 42. “Prelude for a Sextet”, Bookmark (March, 1984). 43. “The Nash Papyrus”, Cambridge (published by The Cambridge Society) 15 (1984). 44. Obituaries for Professor S. D. Goitein in The Times (15 February 1985) and the Jewish Chronicle (22 February 1985). 45. “Explaining the Talmudic Paradox”, Jewish Chronicle (May, 1985). 46. Review of Short Digest of Jewish Literature in the Middle Ages by A. Krausz, in Jewish Chronicle (November, 1985). 47. Review of Niv Hamidrashia 18–19, ed. A. Carlebach, in Jewish Chronicle (April, 1986). 48. Review of Ages of Man by L. Gubbay and A. Levy, in Epworth Review (1986). 49. “Belated Honour for Cinderella Siddur”, Jewish Chronicle (January, 1987). 50. Review of The Jewish People in the First Century, ed. S. Safrai and M. Stern, and Jewish Writings of the Second Temple Period, ed. M. E. Stone, in L’eylah (Autumn, 1987). 51. Review of Methodology in the Academic Teaching of Judaism, ed. Z. Garber, in Jewish Chronicle (July, 1987). 52. “Ninety Years of the Genizah”, Jewish Chronicle (August, 1987). 53. “Kiddush Hashem in Berlin’s Mausoleum”, Jewish Chronicle (December, 1987).

List of Publications of Professor Stefan C. Reif | 371

54. Review of various volumes of Bible exegesis, in L’eylah (Spring, 1988). 55. Review of The Ruling Class of Judaea by M. Goodman and Dead Sea Scrolls in English by G. Vermes, in Jewish Chronicle (March, l988). 56. Review of various volumes in Jewish history and liturgy, in L’eylah (Autumn, l988). 57. Review of Approaches to Auschwitz by R. L. Rubenstein and J. K. Roth, in Epworth Review (1988). 58. “Introduction to Islamic Material in the Cambridge University Library”, The Maghreb Review 13 (1988). 59. Review of The World’s Religions, ed. S. Sutherland et al., in Jewish Chronicle (September, 1988). 60. Review of various volumes in Jewish history and literature, in L’eylah (Spring, 1989). 61. “Revelation” a review essay on Helping with Inquiries, by Louis Jacobs, in Jewish Chronicle (June, 1989). 62. Review of A Sign and a Witness: 2,000 Years of Hebrew Books by L. S. Gold, in L’eylah (Spring, 1990). 63. Review of Pharisees, Scribes and Sadducees in Palestinian Society by A. J. Saldarini, in Epworth Review (1990). 64. Review of The Talmud edited by A. Steinsaltz, in Times Literary Supplement (April 20–26, 1990). 65. Review of Gown and Tallith edited by W. Frankel, in L’eylah (Autumn, 1990). 66. Review of Goitein’s Mediterranean Society, in L’eylah (Spring, 1991). 67. “A Singer with a New Song” (Essay on Singer’s Prayer Book), L’eylah (Autumn, 1991). 68. Obituaries for Dr Erwin Rosenthal, in The Independent, 8 June 1991 and in the Jewish Chronicle, 14 June 1991. 69. Review of various volumes on Jewish Bible commentary, in L’eylah (Spring, 1992). 70. “Scholars organising a medieval revolution”, Jewish Chronicle (July, 1992). 71. Review of Judaism: Practice and Belief, 63 BCE–66 CE by E. P. Sanders, in Epworth Review (1993). 72. “The Seder as a Learning Experience”, in L’eylah (Spring, 1993). 73. Reviews of various volumes in, L’eylah (Spring, 1993). 74. “New Insights into the World’s Oldest Story”, Jewish Chronicle (March, 1993). 75. Review of One People by J. Sacks, in Jewish Chronicle (April, 1993). 76. Obituary for Abe Rabstaff, in The Edinburgh Star (May, 1993). 77. “William Robertson Smith and Christ’s College”, Christ’s College Magazine 219 (1994) 23– 25. 78. Review of Interpretation of Difficult Passages in Rashi by P. Doron, in Le’ela (Autumn, 1994). 79. “Tradition Supports Women’s Role”, Jewish Chronicle (October, 1994). 80. Obituary for Haskell Isaacs, in Jewish Chronicle (December, 1994). 81. Obituary for Edmund Stekel, in Jewish Chronicle (April, 1995). 82. Review of Hebräische Handschriften, eds. E. Roth and L. Prijs, in Le’ela (Spring, 1995). 83. Review essay on Fortifications and the Synagogue, ed. P Lambert, in Le’ela (Autumn, 1996). 84. Review essay on The Kaddish by D. Telsner and Tefillin by M. S. Emanuel, in Jewish Chronicle (November, 1996). 85. “History in Fragments”, Israelal 75 (September/October, 1997) 11-16. 86. “Jerusalem in Jewish Liturgy”, Judaism 46/2 (1997), 159-68. 87. “Fragments of Anglo-Jewry?”, The Jewish Year Book 1998.

372 | List of Publications of Professor Stefan C. Reif

88. History in Fragments: A Genizah Centenary Exhibition, with Shulie Reif (Cambridge, 1998) 22 pages. 89. “Genizah Unit at Cambridge Celebrates Centenary”, Jewish Chronicle (January, 1998). 90. “The Hebraist Benjamin of Cantabrigia”, Jewish Chronicle (October, 1998). 91. “Best Books of 1998”, Judaism Today (Winter 1998/99) 47. 92. Obituary for E. J. Wiesenberg in The Times, unattributed (17 February, 2000). 93. Review of The Ancient Synagogue by L. I. Levine, in Times Literary Supplement, 25 August 2000, 36. 94. “The Genesis of A Jewish Archive from Old Cairo”, in Cambridge University Library Readers’ Newsletter 16 (October, 2000) 2. 95. “A Medieval Mediterranean Deposit and a Modern Cambridge Archive”, IFLA Journal 27/1 (January, 2001). 96. “Writing for a Popular Audience”, AJS Perspectives 2/1 (2001). 97. Preface to a new edition of Jesus the Jew by G. Vermes (2001). 98. Obituary for N. Wieder in The Times, unattributed (6 April, 2001). 99. “Cairo Geniza”, in Concise Encyclopedia of Language and Religion, eds. J. F. A. Sawyer and J. M. Y. Simpson (2001). 100. “The Cairo Genizah”, Libraries and Culture 37/2 (2002). 101. Review (with Peter Linehan) of Meshal Haqadmoni, ed. R. Loewe, in The Eagle 106 (2004) 52-54. 102. “Views on Judaism and Zionism”, in a collection of essays edited by Ami Bouganim (Jerusalem, forthcoming), about 25 printed pages. 103. “Tafqidam shel Ha-Genizah Ha-Qahirit Be-Heqer Toledot Ha-Tefillah”, in Mitokh Ohalah Shel Torah, eds. G. Patinkin, I. Gal-Dor and H. Fine (Hebrew, Bet Shemesh, 2005) 113-20. 104. “Rabbi Cohen’s 90th Birthday Celebration”, The Edinburgh Star 52 (2005). 105. Review of The Cambridge History of Judaism, vol. 4, edited by S. T. Katz, in Times Literary Supplement (23 February, 2007). 106. Appreciation of Ezra Fleischer, in Genizah Fragments 53 (April, 2007). 107. ‘Those Days, This Time’, in Genizah Fragments 53 (April 2007). 108. ‘Some Thoughts on Living in Two Worlds’, in the CTJC Bulletin, Purim/Pesach 5768. 109. ‘Passover Fragments’, Genizah Fragments 55 (April 2008). 110. ‘Cairo Celebrations’, Genizah Fragments 55 (April 2008). 111. Review of M. Alpert, Secret Judaism and the Spanish Inquisition, and M. Rustow, Heresy and the Politics of Community, in Times Literary Supplement, February 20, 2009, 8. 112. “David in early Jewish Liturgy”, Genizah Fragments 57 (April 2009). 113. Review of G. Bohak, Ancient Jewish Magic, in Times Literary Supplement (25 September, 2009). 114. “The Achievements of Charles Taylor – A Century after his Death”, The Eagle 111 (2009) 3439. 115. “Three Genizah Peaces”, Genizah Fragments 61 (April 2011). 116. “Afterword”, in Michael Klein on the Targums: Collected Essays 1972-2002, eds. A. Shinan and R. Kasher (Leiden, 2011) 263–65. 117. “Raphael James Loewe, 1919-2011”, The Eagle 114 (2012) 178–82. 118. Review of Radical Responsibility. Celebrating the Thought of Chief Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks, eds. M. J. Harris, D. Rynhold and T. Wright, in Times Literary Supplement, 12 July 2013, 28.

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119. “Why is this Haggada Different from all other Haggadot ”, Genizah Fragments 65 (April 2013). 120. “The Famous Genizah: Some Personal Reminiscences?”, Ginzei Qedem Website 2014 (https://www.ybz.org.il/_Uploads/dbsAttachedFiles/stefanreif.pdf). 121. “Bread with Another Meaning?”, From Forbidden Fruit to Milk and Honey: A Commentary on Food in the Torah, ed. D. Lipton (New York, 2018) 69–73. 122. Shulamit Devora Reif 1945-2010: Memories of One Who Gave Much Love and was Greatly Loved, privately printed for the family, 2013. 123. Various articles in the new annotated Sefardi prayer-book edited by Abraham Levy. 124. “Diary of a visit to Dad’s birthplace”, in the CTJC Bulletin, March 2014. 125. Review of H. Freedman, The Talmud and M. Vidas, Tradition and the Formation of the Talmud, in Times Literary Supplement, 20 February, 2015, 28. 126. Foreword to Living Judaism: Talks, Poems and Articles by David Tabor, eds. D. and M. Tabor (Peterborough, 2015). 127. “A Response to Tragedy”, in the CTJC Bulletin, April 2016, 5–6. 128. “Some Thoughts at the Centenary of the Balfour Declaration”, in the CTJC Bulletin, December, 2017, 36–40. 129. “A Lost Tradition and a Found Portfolio, in the CTJC Bulletin 125, April, 2019, 25–27.

List of Contributors Pancratius C. Beentjes, Emeritus Professor at Tilburg University Jonathan Ben-Dov, Haifa University Stefan Beyerle, University of Greifswald Nuria Calduch-Benages, Pontifical Gregorian University, Rome Jeremy Corley, St Patrick’s College, Maynooth Kristin De Troyer, University of Salzburg Michael W. Duggan, Emeritus Professor at St. Mary’s University in Calgary Renate Egger-Wenzel, University of Salzburg Uri Ehrlich, Ben Gurion University, Beersheba Shulamit Elizur, Hebrew University, Jerusalem Maurice Gilbert, Emeritus Professor at the Pontifical Biblical Institute, Rome Reuven Kimelman, Brandeis University, Boston Ruth Langer, Boston College Clemens Leonhard, University of Münster David Levine, Hebrew Union College, Jerusalem Alona Lisitsa, Hebrew Union College, Jerusalem Dalia Marx, Hebrew Union College, Jerusalem Vered Raziel Kretzmer, Haifa University, Ben-Gurion University, Beersheba Richard S. Sarason, Hebrew Union College, Cincinnati

376 | List of Contributors

Avi Shmidman, Bar-Ilan University, Ramat Gan Joseph Tabory, Emeritus Professor at Bar-Ilan University, Ramat Gan Emanuel Tov, Emeritus Professor at Hebrew University, Jerusalem Oda Wischmeyer, Emerita Professor at Friedrich-Alexander Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg

Index of References Hebrew Bible

Genesis

Exodus

Gen 1:5 106 Gen 1:8 106 Gen 1:10 1:17 Gen 1:11 164 Gen 1:13 106 Gen 1:19 106 Gen 1:23 106 Gen 1:31 106 Gen 2:7 63, 196 Gen 2:20 109 Gen 6:9 41, Gen 8:1 273, 274 Gen 9:15–16 278, 280 Gen 13:16 282, Gen 14:19 188 Gen 14:22 188 Gen 15:2 188 Gen 15:6 162, 163 Gen 15:8 188 Gen 17:2 282 Gen 18:27 58 Gen 19:21 16 Gen 21:1–34 277 Gen 21:1 273, 274, 278 Gen 21:33 190 Gen 24:1 177, 178 Gen 25:1 276 Gen 26:4 282 Gen 26:19 115 Gen 32:13 62, 282 Gen 35:2 105 Gen 37:31 116 Gen 37:34 76 Gen 40:13 104 Gen 50:10 120

Exod 1–10 146 Exod 2:25 90 Exod 3:1–4:17 91 Exod 3:7–8 89 Exod 3:15 219 Exod 3:16 276 Exod 7:19 117 Exod 12 243 Exod 12:22 11 Exod 12:42 144 Exod 12:43–51 139, 142 Exod 12:43–44 143 Exod 12:43 144 Exod 12:44–46 143, 144 Exod 12:46–13:5 143 Exod 12:46–51 143, 144 Exod 13:1–10 138, 139, 141, 144, 146 Exod 13:1–5 142, 143 Exod 13:5 145 Exod 13:6–10 144 Exod 13:11–16 138, 141, 144, 146 Exod 13:14 146 Exod 14:24 104 Exod 15:1 132 Exod 15 4 Exod 15:17 90 Exod 15:18 132 Exod 17:11 287 Exod 17:15 197 Exod 19:10–16 105 Exod 19:10 105, 115 Exod 19:14 115 Exod 20 139 Exod 20:22 89 Exod 12:22 116 Exod 30:8 102 Exod 30:22–33 107 Exod 33:7–11 91

https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110630282-023

378 | Index of References

Exod 34:6–7 64, 176 Exod 34:6 64 Exod 40:35–40 93

Leviticus Lev 4:6 116 Lev 4:17 116 Lev 6:20 115 Lev 9:9 116 Lev 9:23–24 97 Lev 10:16–19 97 Lev 11:25 115 Lev 11:28 115 Lev 11:36 117 Lev 11:40 115 Lev 13:6 115 Lev 13:34 115 Lev 13:47–59 115 Lev 13:54–56 115 Lev 13:58 115 Lev 14:1–9 113 Lev 14:5 115 Lev 14:6 116 Lev 14:8–9 115 Lev 14:16 116 Lev 14:47 115 Lev 14:50 115 Lev 14:51 116 Lev 15:5–8 115 Lev 15:5 105 Lev 15:10–11 115 Lev 15:13 115 Lev 15:16 115 Lev 15:17 115 Lev 15:19–30 120 Lev 15:21–22 115 Lev 15:27 115 Lev 16:1–34 55 Lev 16:4 115 Lev 16:24 115 Lev 16:26 115 Lev 16:28 115 Lev 16:34 55 Lev 17:15–16 115 Lev 21:17 111

Lev 22:6 115 Lev 23:4 106 Lev 23:23–25 55 Lev 23:27–28 56 Lev 23:26–32 55, 106 Lev 23:33–36 87 Lev 26:1–37 91 Lev 36:1–37 91

Numbers Num 6:24–26 220 Num 8:7 105, 115 Num 8:21 105, 115 Num 9:1–13 243 Num 12:13 217 Num 12:15 115 Num 15:37–41 220 Num 19:7–8 115 Num 19:10 115 Num 19:11–22 114 Num 19:18 116 Num 19:19 105, 115 Num 19:21 115 Num 24:17 132 Num 29:1–6 55 Num 29:1 286 Num 29:7–11 55 Num 31:24 115

Deuteronomy Deut 1:3 146 Deut 2:16 259 Deut 4:32 40 Deut 5:1–6:3 139 Deut 5 142, 144 Deut 5:1 146 Deut 5:3 146 Deut 5:4 146 Deut 5:7 146 Deut 5:9 146 Deut 5:28 146 Deut 5:31 145, 146 Deut 5:32b 146

Index of References | 379

Deut 6 140, 220 Deut 6:2ab 146 Deut 6:4 139 Deut 6:4–9 138, 141, 220 Deut 6:5 65 Deut 6:11 322 Deut 8 142 Deut 8:5–10 142, 145 Deut 8:6 146 Deut 8:7 146 Deut 10:1–5 91 Deut 10:12–11:6 143 Deut 10:12–11:12 139 Deut 11 142, 144, 220 Deut 11:6–12 143 Deut 11:10 145 Deut 11:11 145 Deut 11:11–21 141 Deut 11:13–21 138, 139, 144 Deut 11:13 143 Deut 18:15 91 Deut 18:18 91 Deut 21:10–14 107 Deut 28:25 LXX 89 Deut 30:4 LXX 89 Deut 31:9–13 91 Deut 31:14 91 Deut 32 4, 132, 139, 140, 142, 144, 147 Deut 32:1–8 142 Deut 32:7–8 143, 144 Deut 32:7 40 Deut 33:24 116 Deut 34:1–6 91 Deut 34:5–7 91

Joshua Josh 2:16 104 Josh 2:22 104 Josh 3:11 190 Josh 3:13 190 Josh 3:15 117 Josh 7:6–9 44 Josh 8 43 Josh 10:11 44 Josh 10:12–14 44

Josh 10:12 45 Josh 10:14 43

Judges Judg 4:10 78 Judg 4:13 78 Judg 20:26 79 Judg 21:2 79

1Samuel 1 Sam 2:1 49, 127, 132 1 Sam 3:19–20 46 1 Sam 7:9 46 1 Sam 7:7–14 47 1 Sam 9:9 46 1 Sam 9:11 46 1 Sam 9:18–19 46 1 Sam 14:20 78 1 Sam 7:6 79 1 Sam 7:9 78 1 Sam 7:15–17 46 1 Sam 14:27 116 1 Sam 17 49, 50 1 Sam 18:8–30 48 1 Sam 18:17 43 1 Sam 14:27 116 1 Sam 15:11 78 1 Sam 25:28 43

2 Samuel 2 Sam 2:22–132 2 Sam 2:25 11 2 Sam 3:31 76 2 Sam 7:10 90 2 Sam 7:12–16 95 2 Sam 11 48 2 Sam 12:16 79 2 Sam 12:22 73, 79 2 Sam 15–19 48 2 Sam 19:4 78 2 Sam 19:25 115 2 Sam 21:10 76

380 | Index of References

2 Sam 23 305 2 Sam 23: 1–7 302, 304

1 Kings 1 Kgs 3:6–9 125 1 Kgs 8:2 87 1 Kgs 8:4–9 87, 91 1 Kgs 8:11 93 1 Kgs 8:28–38 289 1 Kgs 8:30 290 1 Kgs 8:60 90 1 Kgs 9:3 93 1 Kgs 17:18 LXX 159, 164 1 Kgs 18:42 LXX 159 1 Kgs 18:27 7 1 Kgs 18:39 260 1 Kgs 20:27 76 1 Kgs 21:27 76 1 Kgs 22:32 78

2 Chr 6:21–29 289 2 Chr 6:32 290 2 Chr 6:34 290 2 Chr 6:38 290 2 Chr 7:1 93 2 Chr 7:2 93 2 Chr 7:8–9 87 2 Chr 7:16 93 2 Chr 13:11 103 2 Chr 14:10 45 2 Chr 18:31 78 2 Chr 20:6–12 45 2 Chr 28:7 43 2 Chr 36:10 91 2 Chr 36:18–19 91

Ezra Ezra 3:1–4:5 96 Ezra 5:14–15 91 Ezra 6:5 91

2 Kings Nehemiah 2 Kgs 5:10 113 2 Kgs 5:13 115 2 Kgs 5:14 113, 116 2 Kgs 5:15 116 2 Kgs 5:17 109 2 Kgs 6:30 76 2 Kgs 6:31 76 2 Kgs 8:15 116 2 Kgs 19:1 76 2 Kgs 19:15–19 76 2 Kgs 20:3 78

Neh 1:1–7:5 95 Neh 2:1–7:4 95 Neh 1:4 79 Neh 9:1–5 77 Neh 9:1 76 Neh 9:32 344, 345 Neh 12:31–32 95 Neh 12:37–40 95 Neh 12:43 95 Neh 13:4–31 95

1 Chronicles

Esther

1 Chr 17:9 90

Esth 2:9 122 Esth 2:12 107 Esth OG 2:20 74 Esth 3:13 105 Esth OG 4:16a 71 Esth 4:1–17 72 Esth OG 4:1–17 72 Esth 4:1–2 76

2 Chronicles 2 Chr 1:8–10 125 2 Chr 5:5–10 87, 91 2 Chr 5:14 93

Index of References | 381

Esth 4:1 76, 77, 78, 79, 80, 81 Esth 4:2 78 Esth 4:3 73, 76, 78, 79 Esth 4:8 81 Esth OG 4:8 72, 74, 79, 80 Esth 4 :11 105 Esth 4:14 72, 73 Esth 4:16 72, 73, 74, 75, 80, 81, 105 Esth 4 :17 80 Esth OG 4:16 75 Esth 5:1 71, 80 Esth 5:1–2 72 Esth OG 6:1 72 Esth 6:13 72 Esth 14:17 122, 132

Job Job 4:7 41 Job 4:18–19 58 Job 7:13 6, 7 Job 9:9 12, 13 Job 9:31 116 Job 12:4 41 Job 12:8 6 Job 14:7–12 57 Job 15:15–16 58 Job 19:25 197 Job 25:5–6 58 Job 36:26 62 Job 38:31 12, 13, 17

Psalms Pss 1–89 137 Ps 1:3 182 Ps 3 45 Ps 4 45 Pss 8:6 61 Ps 16:5 198 Ps 18:3–5 197 Ps 18:3 49 Ps 18:5 197 Ps 19:15 292, 293 Ps 22 45

Ps 23:1 64 Ps 22:5–6 40 Ps 24:3 90 Ps 29 224, 225, 226 Ps 29:12 76 Ps 31:6 198 Ps 31:25 179 Ps 32 136 Ps 33:15 279 Ps 34:5 33 Ps 34:12 34 Ps 34:14 34 Ps 35 45 Ps 35:13 76, 77 Ps 37:25 41 Ps 37:28 41 Ps 37:33 41 Ps 38 136 Ps 41(42):7 33 Ps 44:3 90 Ps 46:7 15 Ps 48:11 58 Ps 51:1–4 57 Ps 51:4 115 Ps 51:9 115 Ps 51:17 293 Ps 55:3 6, 7 Ps 55:18 7, 102 Ps 64:2 6, 7 Ps 66:10 197 Ps 68:5 90 Ps 71 136 Pss 77–78 301 Ps 77:13 6 Ps 77(78):20 107 Ps 78:3–4 40 Ps 78:27 62 Ps 80:2 64 Ps 80:4 64 Ps 80:8–9 90 Ps 83 45 Ps 84:5 309 Ps 87(88):7 33 Ps 88:10–12 57 Ps 89:27 197 Ps 89:53 179 Pss 90–150 137

382 | Index of References

Ps 90 303 Ps 90:10–12 62 Ps 92(93):4 33 Ps 93 301, 303 Ps 97:5 190 Ps 101:5 32, 33 Ps 102 45 Ps 102:1 6, 7 Ps 102:3 197 Ps 102:27 192 Ps 103:8–10 58 Ps 103:13–18 58 Ps 103:13–14 63 Ps 104 136 Ps 104:32 15 Ps 104:34 6, 7 Ps 105 136 Ps 105:2 6 Pss 109–118 302 Ps 109 302, 304 Pss 111–119 235 Ps 111 235 Ps 112 235 Ps 112:3 198 Pss 113–118 233, 234, 235, 236, 237, 238, 239, 241, 300, 302, 304 Pss 113–115 239 Pss 113–114 233, 236, 237, 238, 242 Ps 113:9 237, 238 Ps 114 233, 234, 237, 238, 239, 240, 241, 242, 246 Ps 114:1 237, 239 Ps 114:8 234, 235, 237, 238, 239, 240, 241, 246 Pss 115–118 233, 236, 238, 242 Ps 115 233, 238, 239, 240, 241, 246 Ps 115:1–11 236, 239 Ps 115:1 234, 235, 237, 239, 246 Ps 115:11 237 Ps 115:12–18 237 Ps 115:12 237, 239 Ps 115:17 57 Pss 116–118 239 Ps 116 237, 239 Ps 116:1–11 236 Ps 116:1 237, 239 Ps 116:10 237

Ps 116:13 198 Ps 117:1–118:4 236 Ps 118 136, 234, 236, 302, 303, 304 Ps 118:6 199 Ps 118:16 237 Ps 119 137, 235, 239, 304 Ps 119:148 6, 7 Ps 119:62 104 Ps 119:164 102, 222 Pss 120–150 309 Pss 120–137 239 Pss 120–136 308, 309 Pss 120–134 300 Pss 120–132 304 Ps 120 304, 306 Ps 133 304 Ps 134 304 Pss 135–136 236, 300, 304 Ps 131:1 32, 33 Ps 132 305 Ps 134 305 Ps 146 136 Ps 136 236 Ps 139:18 62 Ps 140 305 Ps 140:4 32 Ps 140:9 32 Ps 141:2 103 Pss 144–150 308, 309 Ps 144 309 Ps 144:3–4 61 Ps 144:3 61 Ps 144:5 15 Pss 145–150 304, 306, 307, 308, 309 Ps 145 28, 137, 303, 304, 309 Ps 146:2 LXX 89 Ps 146:9–10 137 Ps 147 136 Ps 147:2 182 Ps 150 306

Proverbs Prov 3:11 65 Prov 8:27–30 131 Prov 15:29 161

Index of References | 383

Prov 16:26 47 Prov 21:4 32, 33 Prov 25:10 89

Qoheleth Qoh 1:17 33 Qoh 2:22 33 Qoh 3:19–21 57 Qoh (Eccl) 4:8 194 Qoh 4:16 33 Qoh 6:12 62

Song of Solomon Song 4:4 291 Song 4:15 115

Isaiah Isa 2:11 32, 33, 192 Isa 5:15 32, 33 Isa 14:12–14 58 Isa 20:2 76 Isa 21:4 114 Isa 22:11 117 Isa 22:12 76, 78, 79 Isa 24:21 58 Isa 25:9 180 Isa 37:1 76 Isa 37:14–20 76 Isa 37:20 90 Isa 38:3 78 Isa 38:10–20 126 Isa 38:18–19 57 Isa 40:5 90 Isa 40:6 61 Isa 40:15 62 Isa 40:28 190 Isa 43:7 17 Isa 44:6 193 Isa 45:3 90 Isa 45:7 17 Isa 45:18 17 Isa 48:12 190

Isa 49:6 LXX 89 Isa 49:7 90 Isa 49:22 197 Isa 49:26b 90 Isa 54:10 LXX 91 Isa 58:3 79 Isa 58:5 76 Isa 58:6 11 Isa 60:20 79 Isa 65:19 78

Jeremiah Jer 1:1–3 95 Jer 1:4–10 91 Jer 1:10 90 Jer 1:13–14 4 Jer 2:13 115 Jer 2:22 115 Jer 3:21 78 Jer 3:22 57 Jer 4:8 76, 77 Jer 4:14 115 Jer 5:5 78 Jer 6:26 76, 77, 79 Jer 9:9(10) 109 Jer 11:17 90 Jer 12:3 64 Jer 14:12 79 Jer 15:7 89 Jer 17:13 115 Jer 16:19 197 Jer 23:23 195 Jer 27:20 LXX 91 Jer 31:9 78 Jer 31:15 78 Jer 31:28 90 Jer 31:31–34 97 Jer 31:33 91 Jer 31:34 91 Jer 32:41 90 Jer 36:27–31 4 Jer 38:13 79 Jer 38:34 LXX 91 Jer 41(34):17 LXX 89 Jer 47(29):2 108

384 | Index of References

Jer 49:3 76 Jer 50:20 91

Joel 2:13 253 Joel 2:14 73

Lamentations

Amos

Lam 2:10 76 Lam 5:15 79

Amos 2:6–8 4 Amos 3:7 7 Amos 4:1–4 4 Amos 4:4–5 14 Amos 4:6–13 4–5 Amos 4:6–11 14 Amos 4:12–13 9 Amos 4:12 14, 17 Amos 4:13 3, 6–8, 9, 11, 12, 14, 17 Amos 5:1–17 15, 16 Amos 5:4–6 4 Amos 5:6–9 9 Amos 5:7 16 Amos 5:8–9 3, 8, 12–14 Amos 5:8 7, 8, 9, 12, 13, 16, 17 Amos 5:9 12 Amos 5:10–12 4 Amos 5:16 79 Amos 7:1–9 4 Amos 8:4–6 4 Amos 8:8 9, 10, 17 Amos 8:10 76, 77, 79 Amos 9:1–4 15 Amos 9:4 15 Amos 9:5–6 3, 8–11, 15, 17 Amos 9:5 8, 9, 10 Amos 9:6 9, 11 Amos 9:7–10 15 Amos 9:11–15 15

Ezekiel Ezek 7:18 76 Ezek 8:16 294 Ezek 13:11 107 Ezek 13:13 107 Ezek 14:14 41 Ezek 14:20 41 Ezek 18:30 58 Ezek 27:31 76 Ezek 34:11–12 64 Ezek 34:31 183 Ezek 36:36 90 Ezek 36:37–38 183 Ezek 38:22 107

Daniel Dan 1:5–16 122 Dan 1:8 110 Dan 1:12 111 Dan 6 41 Dan 6:11 102, 289 Dan 9:3 76, 77 Dan 9:18 176

Hosea Hos 4:3 10

Joel Joel 1:8 76, 77 Joel 1:13 76 Joel 2:12 78

Jonah Jonah 1 63 Jonah 1:17 105 Jonah 2:1–2 63 Jonah 2:2 132 Jonah 2:4 33 Jonah 2:6 63 Jonah 2:9 63 Jonah 3:4 57, 63

Index of References | 385

Jonah 3:5 Jonah 3:6 Jonah 3:8 Jonah 3:9 Jonah 3:10 Jonah 4:11

76 76 76, 77 73 63, 253 64

Zechariah Zech 4:14 Zech 6:5 Zech 7:5 Zech 11:4 Zech 14:8

190 190 79 64 115

Nahum Nah 1:5 15

Malachi Mal 2:13 78

New Testament

Matthew

Luke

Matt 5:33–37 156 Matt 6 159 Matt 6:1–18 160 Matt 6:14–15 158 Matt 12:40 105 Matt 17:14–20 164 Matt 17:20 164 Matt 26:30 264 Matt 26:64 129 Matt 27:63 105

Luke 1:9–10 103 Luke 1:48 132 Luke 4:25 164 Luke 9:37–43a 164 Luke 11 159 Luke 11:1 159 Luke 24:46–47 105

John John 9:2 158

Mark Mark 1:23–26 158 Mark 1:29–31 158 Mark 6:13 158 Mark 8:31 105 Mark 9:31 105 Mark 9:14–29 164 Mark 9:23–24 165 Mark 9:28–29 165 Mark 10:34 105 Mark 14:26 234

Acts Acts 10:28 120

Romans Rom 4:3 162, 163 Rom 4:9 162

1 Corinthians 1 Cor 13:2 164

386 | Index of References

Galatians Gal 3:6 162

James Jas 1:1 152, 163 Jas 1:2 162 Jas 1:3 164 Jas 1:10–12 151 Jas1:15–18 151 Jas 2:1–7 156 Jas 2:1 152 Jas 2:14–26 162 Jas 2:14–17 156 Jas 2:19–3:2 152 Jas 2:23 162, 163 Jas 3:1–5:6 156 Jas 3:4–9 151. Jas 3:13–4:4 151 Jas 3:18 161

Jas 4:9–5:1 151 Jas 5:7–20 155 Jas 5:7–12 155, 156, 161 Jas 5 160, 164, 166 Jas 5:12 156, 161 Jas 5:13–20 156 Jas 5:13–18 151–166, 155, 156, 161, 163 Jas 5:14–18 156 Jas 5:13–16 156 Jas 5:13 155, 163 Jas 5:14 155, 157, 158, 163 Jas 5:15–16 162 Jas 5:15 155, 158, 162, 165 Jas 5:16 158

Revelation Rev 5:8 103 Rev 8:3–4 103 Rev 22:14 105

Deuterocanonical Works and Septuagint Tobit Tob 1:10–12 122 Tob 1:10 111 Tob 6:2–3 108 Tob 6:2(3) 108 Tob 6:16 111 Tob 10:5 108 Tob 12:19 108 Tob 13 125

Judith Jdt 2:5–13 114 Jdt 2:18 110 Jdt 4:13 79 Jdt 5:9 110 Jdt 5:10 111

Jdt 5:19 89 Jdt 6:2 111, 114 Jdt 6:5 111 Jdt 6:11 112 Jdt 6:19 111 Jdt 7:21–22 101 Jdt 8:4–6 120, 121 Jdt 8:6 79 Jdt 8:8 101 Jdt 8:9–31 106 Jdt 8:20 111 Jdt 8:22 89 Jdt 8:32–34 106 Jdt 8:32 111 Jdt 8:35–36 106 Jdt 9:1 102, 103, 106, 108, 115, 122 Jdt 9:2–14 106 Jdt 9:14 111 Jdt 10:2–3 118

Index of References | 387

Jdt 10:2 119 Jdt 10:3–4 107 Jdt 10:3 101, 102, 106, 107, 121 Jdt 10:5 103, 111, 114 Jdt 10:9 119 Jdt 10:22 110 Jdt 10:23 109 Jdt 11:5 103, 109 Jdt 11:6 109 Jdt 11:7 109 Jdt 11:8 109 Jdt 11:10 111 Jdt 11:11–12 114 Jdt 11:12 110, 121 Jdt 11:13 103, 121 Jdt 11:16 103 Jdt 11:17–18 111 Jdt 11:17 103, 109, 110, 114 Jdt 11:19 103 Jdt 11:20 104 Jdt 11:21–23 110 Jdt 11:23 109 Jdt 12:1–9 110 Jdt 12:1 110, 115 Jdt 12:2 110, 111, 114 Jdt 12:3 103, 111 Jdt 12:4 109, 112 Jdt 12:5 104 Jdt 12:6–7 111 Jdt 12:6 109, 112 Jdt 12:7–9 112–115, 118 Jdt 12:7 102, 104, 112, 113, 119, 121 Jdt 12:8–9 101, 113 Jdt 12:8 114, 119, 122 Jdt 12:9 102, 105, 112, 113, 114, 115, 116, 121 Jdt 12:13 109, 110 Jdt 12:15–16 121 Jdt 12:15 115, 121 Jdt 12:17 110 Jdt 12:19 108, 115 Jdt 12:20 110 Jdt 13:2 110 Jdt 13:7 114 Jdt 13:10 113, 119 Jdt 13:20 111 Jdt 15:9 111

Jdt 15:11 110 Jdt 16:1 132 Jdt 16:17 111 Jdt 16:22 120 Jdt 16:24 111

Additions to Esther Add Esth A:9 73, 79 Add Esth C:1–11 71, 72 Add Esth C:1 72 Add Esth C:2 72 Add Esth C:4 72 Add Esth C:5 72 Add Esth C:7 72 Add Esth C:8 72 Add Esth C:10 72 Add Esth C:12–30 71, 72, 80, 81 Add Esth C:12 72 Add Esth C:13 79 Add Esth C:14 72 Add Esth C:16 72 Add Esth C:18 72 Add Esth C:22 72 Add Esth C:23 72 Add Esth C:25 72 Add Esth C:29 72 Add Esth C:30 72 Add Esth D:1–16 71, 72, 80 Add Esth D:1–6 81 Add Esth D:1 74 Add Esth D:2 74 Add Esth D:8 72 Add Esth D:13 72 Add Esth E:4 72 Add Esth E:16 72 Add Esth F:6 73

Wisdom of Solomon Wis 1–9 125 Wis 1:1 129 Wis 1:3 129 Wis 1:4–5 129 Wis 1:6–7 129

388 | Index of References

Wis 6:4 129 Wis 7–8 125, 127, 132 Wis 7:1–6 127, 128 Wis 7:7–8:21 126, 128 Wis 7:7–10 131 Wis 7:7 125, 133 Wis 7:11–14 131 Wis 7:11–12 128, 133 Wis 7:21–22 133 Wis 7:22–8:1 128 Wis 8:2–21 127 Wis 8:2–8 131 Wis 8:4 128 Wis 8:6 128 Wis 8:9–16 131, 132 Wis 8:9–15 128 Wis 8:19–21 126 Wis 8:21 126, 128 Wis 9 125–133 Wis 9:1–6 128, 131 Wis 9:1 126 Wis 9:1–3 132 Wis 9:2–3 126, 128, 129 Wis 9:2 128 Wis 9:4 127, 128, 132 Wis 9:5–6 132 Wis 9:5 126, 127, 128 Wis 9:7–12 128 Wis 9:7–8 128 Wis 9:8–16 132 Wis 9:8 126 Wis 9:9 132 Wis 9:9–11 131 Wis 9:9–10 126 Wis 9:9 128, 130 Wis 9:10 127, 128, 130, 132 Wis 9:11 126 Wis 9:12 126, 128 Wis 9:13–18 128 Wis 9:13–17 126, 131, 132 Wis 9:16–17 126 Wis 9:17 128, 129 Wis 9:18 126, 128, 130, 131, 132 Wis 10:1–21 130 Wis 10–19 125, 127, 130 Wis 10 125 Wis 10:1 130

Wis 10:4 107, 130 Wis 10:19 107 Wis 10:20 130 Wis 14:4 130 Wis 16:7 130 Wis 18:4 130 Wis 18:5 130 Wis 18:9 243 Wis 19:10–22 130 Wis 19:22 130

Sirach Sir 1 38 Sir 1:2 62 Sir 1:9–10 65 Sir 2 38 Sir 2:1–11 38 Sir 2:1–6 38, 41 Sir 2:1 38 Sir 2:10–11 38–42 Sir 2:10 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 51 Sir 2:18 64 Sir 3:19 31 Sir 4:18 31 Sir 5:5 55 Sir 10:11 57 Sir 10:13 120 Sir 11:8 6 Sir 13:11 6 Sir 14:16 57 Sir 15:11–18:14 56, 63 Sir 15:11–20 63 Sir 16:17 61 Sir 17:11–12 65 Sir 17:24 57 Sir 17:25–18:14 55–68, 56, 65, 66, 68 Sir 17:25–32 57–59, 57 Sir 17:27–28 62 Sir 17:27 67 Sir 17:29 55, 58, 68 Sir 17:32–18:2 58, 59, 66 Sir 17:31–32 58, 67 Sir 18:1–7 59–60, 59 Sir 18:1–4 68 Sir 18:1 55, 59, 68

Index of References | 389

Sir 18:2–3 65 Sir 18:4–5 60 Sir 18:5 67 Sir 18:7–14 66 Sir 18:7 55, 60, 68 Sir 18:8–10 61–62, 61 Sir 18:8 56 Sir 18:9–10 61 Sir 18:9 62, 67 Sir 18:10 67 Sir 18:11–14 63–65, 63 Sir 18:11 67 Sir 18:12 55, 56, 63, 68 Sir 18:13–14 61, 64 Sir 18:13 64, 65, 67 Sir 19:8 31 Sir 20:4LXX 6 Sir 22:19–26 23, 28, 34 Sir 22:22–23:10 22 Sir 22:22–23:9 21, 22, 24–26, 34 Sir 22:22–26 22, 28 Sir 22:22 22, 23, 31 Sir 22:24–26 22 Sir 22:24 23, 30 Sir 22:26 23 Sir 22:27–23:9 26–27 Sir 22:27–23:6 21–34, 24, 26, 27, 28, 29, 34, 37 Sir 23:4 32, 33 Sir 23:7–9 34 Sir 24:2 129 Sir 26:9 32, 33 Sir 27:16 31 Sir 27:17 31 Sir 27:21 31 Sir 34:30(25) 113 Sir 35:14–26 45 Sir 36:1–17 37 Sir 36:1 56 Sir 36(33):21 41 Sir 38:16–24 120 Sir 38:21–23 57 Sir 39:5 51 Sir 41:23 (42:1) 31 Sir 42:19 31 Sir 44:1–8 39 Sir 44:16–50:21 39

Sir 44:1 39 Sir 44:1–50:24 42 Sir 44:9–15 40 Sir 44:17–18 282 Sir 44:17–45:26 42 Sir 45:5 47 Sir 45:16 55 Sir 46:1–49:16 42 Sir 46:1–49:16 42 Sir 46:1–47:11 41 Sir 46:1–10 42 Sir 46:2–3 43 Sir 46:4–6 42–45, 43, 46 Sir 46:5 37, 45, 47 Sir 46:6 45 Sir 46:1–10 46 Sir 46:11–12 42, 46 Sir 46:13–47:11 42 Sir 46:13–15 46 Sir 46:13–20 46 Sir 46:16–18 45–48, 46, 47 Sir 46:16 37, 48 Sir 46:17 48 Sir 46:18 48 Sir 46:19–20 46 Sir 47:1 48 Sir 47:2–11 48 Sir 47:3–7 50 Sir 47:4–15 49 Sir 47:4–5 48–51 Sir 47:4 50 Sir 47:5 37, 47, 51 Sir 47:8–10 49 Sir 47:11 48 Sir 48:20–25 42, 47 Sir 49:7 42 Sir 49:8–9 42 Sir 49:9 41 Sir 49:10 42 Sir 47:12–49:16 Sir 50:5–10 56 Sir 50:5 56 Sir 50:19 64 Sir 51:1–12 37, 45, 51, 126 Sir 51 302 Sir 51 (Hebrew) 228

390 | Index of References

Baruch Bar 1:5 79 Bar 4:4 130 Bar 4:9 79

Epistle of Jeremiah Ep Jer vv. 4–6 92

Additions to Daniel Add Dan 3:24 TH 132

1 Maccabees 1 Macc 1:56–58 95 1 Macc 1:62–63 122 1 Macc 2:1–4 95 1 Macc 4:17–31 92 1 Macc 4:42–51 96 1 Macc 10:21 96 1 Macc 10:61 96 1 Macc 11:21 96 1 Macc 11: 25–26 96 1 Macc 13:41–42 85, 96 1 Macc 16:23–24 96

2 Maccabees 2 Macc 1:1–9 8, 84 2 Macc 1:2–6 83 2 Macc 1:7–8 83, 85 2 Macc 1:7 85 2 Macc 1:9 83 2 Macc 1:10–2:18 83–97, 83, 84, 85 2 Macc 1:10 85, 90, 95 2 Macc 1:11–2:15 84 2 Macc 1:11–17 85 2 Macc 1:11–12 85, 86, 87 2 Macc 1:13–16 85, 87 2 Macc 1:14–15 87 2 Macc 1:14 87 2 Macc 1:17 85, 86

2 Macc 1:18–2:18 85 2 Macc 1:18–36 86, 87, 95 2 Macc 1:18 83, 85, 86, 95 2 Macc 1:19–2:12 85 2 Macc 1:19–36 96 2 Macc 1:19–20 86, 94 2 Macc 1:19 94, 96 2 Macc 1:20 87, 94, 95 2 Macc 1:21–23 88 2 Macc 1:21–22 86, 87 2 Macc 1:24–25 88 2 Macc 1:26 87 2 Macc 1:26–29 88 2 Macc 1:27–29 84, 88, 89 2 Macc 1:27 89, 90, 94, 95, 96 2 Macc 1:28 90 2 Macc 1:29 90, 96 2 Macc 1:30–32 86, 88 2 Macc 1:33–35 87 2 Macc 1:33–34 94 2 Macc 1:33 86 2 Macc 2:1–8 85 2 Macc 2:1–6 92 2 Macc 2 :1 94 2 Macc 2:2 91, 92 2 Macc 2:3 91 2 Macc 2:4–8 91 2 Macc 2:4–7 87 2 Macc 2:5 94 2 Macc 2:6–7 92 2 Macc 2 :6 94 2 Macc 2:7–8 91, 93, 94 2 Macc 2:7 18, 88, 94 2 Macc 2:8 93, 95 2 Macc 2:9–10 86 2 Macc 2:9–12 85, 93 2 Macc 2:11 86 2 Macc 2:10 87 2 Macc 2:12 86, 87 2 Macc 2:13–15 84, 85 2 Macc 2:14–15 95 2 Macc 2:15 95 2 Macc 2:16–18 85, 86 2 Macc 2:16 83, 86, 93, 96 2 Macc 2:17 87, 90, 93 2 Macc 2:18 84, 86, 87, 88, 93, 94, 95, 96 2 Macc 2:19–15:39 83

Index of References | 391

2 Macc 2:22 88, 91 2 Macc 2:24–25 84 2 Macc 3:1–4:34 96 2 Macc 3:35–36 105 2 Macc 4:7–26 83 2 Macc 4:11 92 2 Macc 5:5–10 83 2 Macc 5:21 33, 90 2 Macc 5:27 127 2 Macc 6:1–11 95 2 Macc 6:18–7:2 127 2 Macc 7:6 90 2 Macc 7:13 90 2 Macc 7:17 90 2 Macc 7:36 90 2 Macc 8:2 90 2 Macc 8:5 91 2 Macc 9:1–10:9 85, 87 2 Macc 9:5–7 87 2 Macc 9:5 87 2 Macc 9:6 90 2 Macc 9:7 90 2 Macc 9:8 87 2 Macc 9:11 90 2 Macc 9:12 87, 90 2 Macc 9:13–14 87 2 Macc 9 :17–18 90 2 Macc 10:1–8 96 2 Macc 10:3 86

2 Macc 10:10–15:36 85 2 Macc 10:17 86 2 Macc 11:16–21 85 2 Macc 11:27–33 85 2 Macc 11:34–38 85 2 Macc 13:41–42 85 2 Macc 14:34–36 96 2 Macc 14:36 86 2 Macc 15 :31–35 87 2 Macc 15:31 96 2 Macc 15:34 96 2 Macc 15:38–39 84

1 Esdras 1 Esd 4:42–6:2 96 1 Esd 6:22–7:15 96

Psalm 151 Ps 151 234, 305

3 Maccabees 3 Macc 4:4 63

Old Testament Pseudepigrapha 2 Baruch

Eupolemus

2 Bar. 6:4–9 92

Eup. On the Kings in Judea 92

4 Baruch

4 Ezra

4 Bar. 3:11 92

4 Ezra 6:35–9:25 160 4 Ezra 6:59 160 4 Ezra 7 160 4 Ezra 7:1–115 160 4 Ezra 7:107 44 4 Ezra 7:109 159 4 Ezra 7:112–115 160

1 Enoch 1 En. 18:12–14 16 1 En. 21:1–5 16

392 | Index of References

Liber Antiquitatum Biblicarum

Jubilees Jub. 2:1–3 Jub. 22:16 Jub. 49:6 Jub. 49:10 Jub. 49:12

302 121 243 104 104

(Pseudo–Philo) LAB 13:6 60, 64

Lives of the Prophets Liv. Pro. 19:4 159

Dead Sea Scrolls and Related Texts Qumran 1Q11 Psalmsb 304 1Q30 304 1Q30 frag. 1 304 1QpHab 11:4–8, 12–15 96 1QpHab 12:2–10 96 1QpHab 8:16–9:2 96 1QpHab 8:8–13 96 1QpHab 9:9–12 96 1QPhyl 135, 140, 142, 146, 147 1QS 10:10 220

4QPhyl A 135, 142, 143, 144, 145, 146, 147 4QPhyl B 140 4QPhyl C 146 4QPhyl G–H–I 140 4QPhyl J 146 4QPhyl J–K 135, 142, 146, 147 4QPhyl L–N 140 4QPhyl P 146 4QPhyl Q 146 4QPsa 4QPsb 4QPsd 4QPse 4QPsf 4QPsq

136 136 136 136 136 136

4Q87 Psalmse 301 4Q88 Psalmsf 302 4Q96 (Pso) 239 4Q274 2i.4–6 (4QToharot A) 116 4Q378 44 4Q379 44 4Q385b 92 4Q385b I, 2, 5–9 92

4QXIIg 47α ii 8 6 4QXIIg 69 1–3 10 4QXIIg 69 2 10

4QDeutj,k1,n 135, 136, 147 4QDeutj 135, 136, 141, 142, 143, 144, 145, 146 4QDeutk1 135, 141, 142, 144, 146 4QDeutn 143

11QPsa or Psalmsa (11Q5) 136, 137, 138, 236, 299, 300, 301, 302, 303, 304, 308 11QPsb or Psalmsb (11Q6) 136, 301

4QTest 21 (4Q175) 44

8QPhyl I 146 8QPhyl III 140

CD 10:10–13 119

Index of References | 393

Wadi Murabba‘at

Philo

MurXII 10 MurXII col. VIII 15 10 MurXII col. VIII 14–18 6 MurPhyl 139, 146

QG 2:1 191 Spec. 2.145–48 243 Spec. 2.148 243

Josephus Naḥal Ḥever XḤev/Se Phyl 139

Ant. 4.165 42 Ant. 4:212–13 220 Ant. 13:372 96 C. Ap. 2:190 192

Naḥal Ṣe’elim 34SePhyl 139

Mishnah, Talmud and Related Literature Mishnah m. Ber. 1:4 212, 214, 221, 222 m. Ber. 2:2 221 m. Ber. 3:4–6 118 m. Ber. 3:5 119, 213 m. Ber. 4:1 218 m. Ber. 4:3 207, 213, 216, 218, 224, 225, 337, 343 m. Ber. 4:4b 209 m. Ber. 4:5–6 289 m. Ber 5:1 219 m. Ber. 5:2 209, 224, 345 m. Ber. 5:3 217 m. Ber. 5:4 218 m. Ber. 6–9 209 m. Ber. 6 172 m. Ber. 8 172 m. Eruv. 1:2 210 m. Meg. 2:1 343 m. Meg. 3:5 277 m. Meg. 4:9 217, 218 m. Miqw. 1:1 119 m. Mikw. 1:4 117 m. Mikw. 2:1–2 119 m. Mikw. 2:6 119

m. Mikw. 2:10 119 m. Mikw. 7:6 119 m. Mikw. 8:1 117 m. Mikw. 9:1–4 119 m. Mikw. 1:1; 7:6 119 m. Pe’ah. 2:6 344 m. Pesah. 5:5 244 m. Pesah. 5:6 237, 244 m. Pesah. 5:7 241, 243, 244 m. Pesah. 9:3 243, 245 m. Pesah. 10:6 209, 237, 238 m. Rosh Hash. 1:2 60, 64, 279 m. Rosh Hash. 3:7 286 m. Rosh Hash. 3:8 287 m. Rosh Hash. 4:5–6 213 m. Rosh Hash. 4:5 211, 218, 283 m. Rosh Hash. 4:6 273, 276, 279 m. Rosh Hash. 4:9 341 m. Rosh Hash. 5:4 210 m. Sanh. 1:6 348 m. Sukkah 5:4 294, 309 m. Ta’an. 1:1 218, 219 m. Ta’an. 1:3 218 m. Ta’an. 1:6 261 m. Ta’an. 2 213, 220 m. Ta’an. 2:1 63

394 | Index of References

m. Ta’an. 2:1b 253 m. Ta’an. 2:4 63, 275 m. Ta’an. 2:5 275 m. Tamid 5:1 221 m. Yoma 3:5 103 m. Yoma 7:1 221

Tosefta t. Ber. 1:2 219 t. Ber. 1:5 209 t. Ber. 1:6 212 t. Ber. 1:9 209, 213 t. Ber. 2:1 221, 222 t. Ber. 2:3–4 219 t. Ber. 2:9 221 t. Ber. 3 211, 216, 224 t. Ber. 3:1–2 218 t. Ber. 3:3 216 t. Ber. 3:4b 216 t. Ber. 3:5 213, 216 t. Ber. 3:6 216, 219, 221 t. Ber. 3:7 309 t. Ber. 3:9 318 t. Ber. 3:10–13 209 t. Ber. 3:13 209, 210, 218 t. Ber. 3:14 290 t. Ber. 3:15–16 291 t. Ber. 3:19 219 t. Ber. 3:20b 211 t. Ber. 3:21 219 t. Ber. 3:23–24 224 t. Ber. 3:25 209, 224, 225, 226, 228 t. Ber. 4–6 209 t. Ber. 4 215 t. Ber. 4:4a 216 t. Ber. 4:4–5 215 t. Ber. 5:2 218 t. Ber. 5:30 210 t. Ber. 6:1 318 t. Ber. 6:20 215 t. Betzah 3:10 210 t. Ed. 2:4 210 t. Git. 6:8 210 t. Hag. 1:4 210 t. Kelim Baba Metziʻa 1:2 210

t. Kelim Baba Metziʻa 4:16 210 t. Kelim Baba Metziʻa 5:1 210 t. Kelim Baba Batra 1:12 210 t. Kelim Baba Batra 4:9 210 t. Kelim Baba Batra 5:8 210 t. Kip. 4:14 213 t. Ma’as. Sh. 2:16 210 t. Ma’as. Sh. 2:18 210 t. Ma’as. 1:5 210 t. Ma’as. 3:10 210 t. Makhsh. 1:2 210 t. Meg. 2:1–3 219 t. Meg. 3:6 277 t. Naz. 2:10 210 t. Naz. 3:1 210 t. Pesah. 4:11 237, 241, 244 t. Pesah. 7:2 210 t. Pesah. 8:10 244 t. Pesah. 8:22 244 t. Pesah. 10:7 237, 238 t. Pesah. 10:8–9 237 t. Pesah. 10:8 245 t. Pesah. 10:9 237, 238 t. Pesah. 10:12 241 t. Rosh Hash. 2: 4 278 t. Rosh Hash. 2:6–7 288 t. Rosh Hash. 2:11 211, 212 t. Rosh Hash. 2:13–14 276 t. Rosh Hash. 2:13 276, 283 t. Rosh Hash. 2:17 209, 210, 217, 218 t. Rosh Hash. 2:18 342 t. Shabb. 15:9 210 t. Shev. 2:6 210 t. Ta’an. 1:9 209 t. Ta’an. 1:11–13 275 t. Tehar. 8:10 210 t. Tehar. 10:10 210 t. Zavim 1:4 210 t. Zavim 1:5 210 t. Zavim 1:7 210 t. Zavim 1:8 210

Jerusalem Talmud y. Ber. 1:3c 139 y. Ber 1:4 222

Index of References | 395

y. Ber. 1:5, 3d 172, 222, 318 y. Ber. 2:3, 4d 226 y. Ber. 2:4, 4d 346 y. Ber. 2:4, 5a 294 y. Ber. 4:1 188, 338 y. Ber. 4:2 293 y. Ber. 4:33a 293 y. Ber. 4:3 213, 223, 224 y. Ber. 4:4, 8a 292 y. Ber. 4:5, 8b 290 y. Ber. 4:7d–8b 223 y. Ber. 4:7d–8a 213, 224 y. Ber. 4:7a 188 y. Ber. 5:3, 9c 341 y. Ber. 5:4, 9c 227 y. Ber. 5:5 349 y. Ber. 7:1 172 y. Ber 7:3 220 y. Ber. 7:11a 172 y. Ber. 7:11c 220 y. Ber. 9:1 216 y. Ber. 9:12d 216 y. Git. 3:8 257 y. Git. 3:45b 257 y. Ketub. 1:1 180 y. Ketub. 1:25a 180 y. Meg. 1:5, 70d 348 y. Meg. 2:1, 73a 343 y. Meg. 3:7 220 y. Meg. 3:74c 220 y. Meg. 4:4 180 y. Meg. 4:75b 180 y. Pe’ah 7:3 263 y. Pe’ah 7:3 20a 263 y. Rosh Hash. 1: 3, 57a 280 y. Rosh Hash. 4:6 212 59c y. Rosh Hash. 4:59c 212 y. Sanh. 1:1 194 y. Sanh. 1:18a 194 y. Shabb. 16:1 234 y. Shabb. 16:15c 234 y. Ta’an. 1:1, 63d 220 y. Ta’an. 2:2, 65c 224 y. Ta’an. 3:4, 66c 252, 255 y. Ta’an. 4:2 68a 263 y. Ta’an. 4:3 66d 260 y. Ta’an. 3:4, 66c 255

Babylonian Talmud b. Ber. 3a:4 120 b. Ber. 3a–b 104 b. Ber. 4b 291 b. Ber. 5a. 198 b. Ber. 6:2 215 b. Ber. 7b 188 b. Ber. 9b 291 b. Ber. 10a 191 b. Ber. 11b 219 b. Ber. 12b 283 b. Ber. 6:10b 215 b. Ber. 11b 283 b. Ber. 16a–b 293 b. Ber. 25b:2 120 b. Ber. 27b 338 b. Ber. 28b 204, 205, 206, 223, 227, 228, 229, 293, 339, 340, 344, 347 b. Ber. 28b–29a 340 b. Ber. 29a 213 b. Ber. 30b 291 b. Ber. 33a 344, 345 b. Ber. 33b 217, 344, 345 b. Ber. 34a 217, 343 b. Ber. 34b 319 b. Ber. 40b 215 b. Ber. 48b 172, 318 b. Ber. 48b–49a 318 b. Ber. 49a 228, 318 b. Ber. 56a 237 b. Ber. 59a 283 b. Ber. 60b 196, 283 b. Ketub. 7b 184 b. Ketub. 8b 171, 175 b. Ketub. 8a 173 b. Mak. 7a:6 121 b. Meg. 4a 286 b. Meg. 17a 343 b. Meg. 17b–18a 204 b. Meg. 17b 226, 339, 346, 347 b. Meg. 18a 227, 274 b. Meg. 25a 220 b. Meg. 25b 344 b. Meg. 31a 57, 63, 195 b. Menah. 34a–37b 138 b. Menah. 42b–43b 138

396 | Index of References

b. Ned. 40b:2 119 b. Pesah. 117a 235 b. Rosh Hash. 10b–11a 59 b. Rosh Hash.10b 277, 283 b. Rosh Hash 16a 60 b. Rosh Hash. 17b 64 b. Rosh Hash. 18a 279 b. Rosh Hash. 27a 280 b. Rosh Hash. 31a 191 b. Rosh Hash. 32b 277 b. Rosh Hash. 34b 341 b. Rosh Hash. 35b 342 b. Sanh. 74a 111 b. Shabb. 24b 318 b. Shabb. 65b 121 b. Sukkah 52b 261 b. Ta’an. 2a–b 258 b. Ta’an. 3b 220 b. Ta’an. 16a 254 b. Ta’an. 16b 275 b. Ta’an. 24b–25a 266 b. Ta’an. 25a 265 b. Ta’an. 25b 261 b. Yoma 69b 344 b. Yoma 87b 62

Other Rabbinic Works Avot Rabbi Nathan Avot R. Nat. 1:5 191

Mekilta Mek. Vayasa 1 213, 217 Mek. deRashbi, Beshalaḥ 16:25 213, 217 Mek. Pisḥa, 16 219

Midrash Midr. Leqaḥ Tov, ed. Buber, 1:55 189 Midr. Ps. 25, 2 198

Pirqe Rabbi Eleazar Pirqe R. El. 24, 197

Rabbah Gen. Rab. 3:7 191 Gen. Rab. 8:9 216 Gen. Rab. 39:1 189 Exod. Rab. 29:5 194 Num. Rab. 20:20 198 Lev. Rab. 4 191 Lev. Rab. 9 191 Deut. Rab. 2:33 194 Eccl. Rab. 4:8 194 Song Rab. 1:9, 1 194

Kohelet Zuta Eccl. Zuta 4, 8 126

Seder Rav Amram Gaon Amram 1:1, 2, l. 11–13 191, 196

Sifra Sifra, Tazri’a, Pereq 1:6 210

Sifre Sifre Num. 139 198 Sifre Num. 185 198 Sifre Deut. 312 197

Soferim Sof. 19:2 58

Index of References | 397

Jewish Medieval Sources Maimonides Mishneh Torah 1:3 191

“Laws of the Foundations of the Torah” 1:1–4 191, 194

Roman Authors Cicero

Plutarch

The Nature of the Gods 1. 24. 68 193

The E at Delphi, 20 195 Mor. 5:393 195

Lactantius Tertullian A Treatise on the Anger of God 28 201 Marc. 1.3 192

Apostolic Fathers 1 Clement

Polycarp, To the Philippians

1 Clem. 59:4 157

Pol. Phil. 6:1 157

Didache Did. 8 157

Early Church Fathers Clement of Alexandria

Eusebius

Exhortation to the Greeks, 4 192, 195

Preparatio Evangelica 9.39.2–5 92

Qur’an Qur’an 23:91 194 Qur’an 112:1–4 193

Index of Authors Abraham b. Nathan (of Lunel) Raphael 193, 200 Adler, Hermann 56, 66, 68 Adler, Yonatan 102, 116, 117, 118, 123 Al-Qirqisani, Ya‘kub 311, 313, 316 Albani, Matthias 12, 13, 16, 18 Albeck, Chanoch 342, 346, 352 Alexander, Philip 252, 268, 269 Allison, Dale C. 155, 156, 157, 158, 159, 162, 163, 164, 166 Alon, Gedalyahu 262, 268 Alonso Schökel, Luis, 49, 52, 133 Alter, Robert 3, 4, 17, 18 Amir, Yehoshua 188, 200, 313 Amsler, Samuel 7, 11, 13, 18 Andersen, Francis I. 8, 10, 18 Apple, Raymond 238, 247 Aptowitzer, Victor 306, 308, 313 Arad, Motti [Mordechai] 236, 237, 242, 247 Arnet, Samuel 7, 8, 18 Assaël, Jacqueline 152, 166 Assaf, Simcha 184, 185, 239, 247 Assis, Moshe 255, 268 Auwers, Jean-Marie 234, 235, 237, 247 Avigad, Nahman 117, 263, 268 Bahya b. Asher 191, 200 Bahya ibn Paquda 295, 296 Baker, Colin F. 239, 247 Balla, Ibolya 21, 34 Bar Ilan, Meir 184, 185, 331, 335 Barthélemy, Dominique 30, 34, 146, 147 Barzillai, Judah 193, 200 Bauckham, Richard 154, 166 Beal, Timothy K. 73, 77, 81 Beauchamp, Paul 125, 133 Bechtel, Carol M. 76, 77, 81 Becker, Hans-Jürgen 225, 231 Beentjes, Pancratius C. 21, 22, 32, 34, 48, 49, 52 Bemmerl, Christian 151, 166 Ben-Dov, Jonathan 299 Benowitz, Moshe 261, 268

https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110630282-024

Bergen, Theodore A. 95, 98 Berkhofer, Robert F. 251, 268 Berlin, Adele 3, 4, 18, 80, 81 Beyerle, Stefan 3, 16, 18 Bickerman, Elias J. 98 Bin-Nun, Yoel 345, 349, 352 Bird, Michael F. 98 Bizzeti, Paolo 125, 133 Blidstein, Gerald J. 185, 304, 313, 348, 352 Boda, Mark J. 208, 229 Böhmisch, Franz 23, 24, 30, 34 Bokser, Baruch 267, 268 Boyarin, Daniel 340, 351, 352 Brettler, Marc 56, 68, 148 Brody, Robert 200, 252, 268, 299, 308, 311, 313 Brown, Peter 266, 267, 269, 270 Brown, Teresa R. 42, 52 Bruner, Yair 343, 352 Büchler, Adolf 352 Budde, Karl 10, 11, 12, 18 Bullard, Roger A. 102, 104, 110, 112, 120, 121, 123 Bussino, Severino 59, 68 Calduch-Benages, Nuria 21, 35, 37, 38, 39, 41, 52, 64, 65, 69, 134 Cameron, Averil M. 267, 269 Charlesworth, James H. 69, 98, 154, 159, 160, 166 Chazon, Esther G. 135, 137, 146, 208, 229, 230, 231, 284 Chesnutt, Randall D. 111, 123 Clark, Elizabeth A. 251, 269 Cohen Stuart, Geert Hendrik 31, 35 Cohen, Josuah 201 Cohen, Naomi G. 340, 341, 342, 352 Cohn, Leopold (Isaak Heinemann) 243, 247 Cohn, Yehudah B. 139, 147 Collins, John J. 31, 35, 147

Index of Authors | 399

Corley, Jeremy 22, 23, 35, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 51, 52, 53, 54, 55, 62, 69, 123, 133, 168 Crenshaw, James L. 7, 9, 10, 11, 12, 14, 15, 16, 18, 21, 35, 39 Cripps, Richard S. 7, 10, 11, 13, 18 Cuvillier, Élian 152, 166 Dahmen, Ulrich 18, 138, 147, 301, 302, 303, 304, 305, 313 Danby, Herbert 60, 62, 64, 69 Davidson, Herbert 192, 201 Davidson, Israel 201, 239, 247 Davila, James R. 135, 147 Davis, Malcolm C. 237, 240, 241, 247 De Troyer, Kristin 71 Demitrów, Andrzej 42, 45, 47, 48, 49, 50, 53 Di Lella, Alexander A. 32, 33, 36, 40, 49, 54, 61, 62, 65, 69 Dibelius, Martin 153, 155, 158, 166 Dietrich, Walter 7, 8, 18 Dillmann, Chr. Fr. August 243, 247 Dimant, Devorah 92, 98 Dimitrovsky, Hayim Z. 265, 269 Doran, Robert 85, 91, 98 Duggan, Michael W. 34, 83, 199, 285, 337 Duhm, Bernhard 7, 10, 12, 18 Duncan, Julie A. 142, 143, 144, 145, 147 Dunn, James D. G. 153, 166 Egger-Wenzel, Renate 19, 35, 53, 54, 69, 101, 111, 123, 133, 168 Ego, Beate 6, 18 Ehrlich, Uri 179, 185, 204, 229, 289, 291, 292, 293, 294, 295, 296, 299, 309, 313, 317, 323, 324, 325, 327, 330, 332, 335, 341, 352 Eidevall, Göran 7, 9, 10, 13, 14, 15, 16, 18 Eilberg-Schwartz, Howard 285, 287, 291, 296 Elbogen, Ismar 56, 58, 61, 64, 69, 236, 280, 284, 306, 308, 313, 349, 352 Eliav, Yaron Z. 118, 123

Elizur, Shulamit 171, 172, 181, 185, 191, 201, 202, 204, 229, 307, 313, 314, 332, 335 Elßner, Thomas R. 42, 43, 53 Enelow, Hyman G. 285, 296 Engel, Helmut 102, 104, 106, 109, 110, 111, 121, 124, 125, 133 Enslin, Morton S. 102, 104, 110, 120, 121, 123 Epstein, Jacob Nahum 213, 217, 229, 279, 284 Eshel, Esther 147 Fabry, Heinz-Josef 137, 147 Falk, Daniel K. 137, 147, 208, 229, 352 Fallon, Francis T. 92, 98 Farber, Zev 42, 43, 45, 53 Ferrer, Joan 52 Fine, Steven 309, 314 Finkelstein, Louis 197, 233, 237, 247, 273, 284, 317, 325, 335, 344, 348, 352 Fishbane, Michael 148, 197, 201 Fitzmyer, Joseph A. 21, 35 Fleischer, Ezra 23, 177, 178, 179,182, 183, 185, 197, 201, 204, 205, 206, 207, 208, 210, 211, 212, 213, 214, 216, 217, 222, 223, 227, 228, 229, 230, 306, 307, 308, 311, 313, 314, 338, 339, 340, 342, 343, 350, 352, 353 Fleischer, Gunther 11, 13, 18 Flint, Peter W. 136, 137, 147, 148, 239, 248, 301, 302, 303, 304, 305, 313, 314 Fonrobert, Charlotte E. 251, 269 Foresti, Fabrizio 16, 17, 18 Förster, Niclas 159, 166, Fraenkel, Jonah 262, 269, 288, 294, 296, 335 Frankel, David 262 Freedman, David Noel 8, 10, 18 Frey, Jörg 159, 161, 167, 168 Friedman, Mordechai A. 307, 314 Friedman, Shamma 190, 201 Fuks, Menachem 341, 346, 352 Fuller, Russell 6, 18

400 | Index of Authors

Galor, Katharina 117, 119, 123 Gärtner, Judith 238, 239, 247 Gera, Deborah Levine 102, 104, 105, 109, 111, 112, 114, 120, 121, 123 Gerleman, Gillis 72, 73, 77, 81 Gese, Hartmut 7, 10, 19 Gesenius, Wilhelm 8, 11, 13, 19 Gil, Moshe 306, 314 Gilat, Yitzhak D. 210, 230 Gilbert, Maurice 21, 35, 37, 53, 56, 63, 68, 69, 125, 129, 130, 133, 134 Ginsburg, Christian David 237, 247 Ginzberg, Louis 184, 185, 255, 269, 345, 349, 353 Glenny, W. Edward 6, 19 Goering, Greg Schmidt 53, 65, 69 Goitein, Shelomo D. 306, 314 Goldenberg, Robert 285, 297 Goldschmidt, Daniel Ernst 175, 185, 194, 201, 273, 284 Goldsmith, Simḥah 243, 245, 248 Gordon, Aryeh 187, 201 Goshen-Gottstein, Alon 42, 53 Goshen-Gottstein, Moshe H. 137, 148, 303, 314 Granat, Yehoshua 307, 314 Green, William S. 267, 269 Greenberg, Moshe 3, 5, 17, 19 Gurtner, Daniel M. 56, 69 Habermann, Abraham M. 179, 182, 183, 185 Hadjiev, Tchavdar S. 9, 19 Hakham, Amos 197, 201 Halevi, Isaak 191, 349, 350, 353 Halévy, Joseph 152, 167 Hallamish, Moshe 320, 335 Hammer, Reuven 235, 248 Hammer, Robert Alan 236, 248 Hammershaimb, Erling 7, 11, 13, 19 Hanhart, Robert 71, 81, 112, 113, 123 Haran, Menahem 137, 148, 303 Harnack, Adolph 154, 157, 167 Harrington, Daniel J. 60, 64, 69 Hart, John Henry Arthur 61, 69 Haspecker, Josef 38, 39, 53

Hatton, Howard A. 102, 104, 110, 112, 120, 121, 123 Hauptman, Judith 206, 207, 230 Hayes, Elisabeth 236, 248 Hazani, Israel 310, 314 Heil, Johannes 28, 35 Heinemann, Joseph 185, 204, 206, 207, 208, 209, 214, 221, 230, 273, 274, 275, 284, 306, 313, 314, 338, 350, 353 Henshke, David 184, 185, 289, 290, 297, 341, 353 Herr, Moshe D. 252, 269 Heschel, Abraham 195, 201 Hezser, Catherine 263, 264, 269 Hill, Andrew E. 4, 5, 19 Hoffmann, Georg 12, 19 Hofmann, Lawrence A. 299, 314 Holladay, Carl R. 154, 167 Holladay, William L. 91, 98 Hollender, Elisabeth 27, 35 Horovitz, H. Saul 213, 217, 219, 230 Horowitz, Isaiah 200, 201 Horst, Friedrich 9, 19 Hossfeld, Frank-Lothar 234, 235, 238, 239, 248 Hrushovski, Benjamin 29, 35 Hurvitz, Avi 303, 314 Hvalvik, Reidar 163, 167 Hyman, Aaron 296, 339, 353 Idelsohn, Abraham Z. 56, 69 Ilan, Tal 116, 123 Irshai, Oded 309, 314 Jacob b. Asher 192, 201 Jacob b. Jehuda (Ḥazan of London) 187, 201 Jacobson, Issachar 195, 198, 201 Jain, Eva 301, 302, 303, 304, 305, 314 Jarden, Dov 198, 201 Jastram, Nathan 147, 148 Jastrow, Marcus 216, 230 Jellinek, Adolph 192, 201 Jenner, Konrad Dirk 239, 248 Jeremias, Jörg 7, 9, 11, 14, 19 Joel, B. Issachar 247

Index of Authors | 401

Johnson, Luke Timothy 152, 167 Joosten, Jan 28, 35, 134 Kaiser, Sigurd 156, 158, 161, 162, 167 Kalimi, Isaac 92, 98 Kalmin, Richard 267, 269 Kasher, Menaḥem 191, 201 Katz, Menachem 173, 174, 176, 179, 185 Kaufman, Judah (Even-Shemuel) 187, 201 Kehati, Pinhas 119, 123 Keil, Friedrich 7, 10, 19 Kennicott, Benjamin 236, 237, 248 Kiley, Mark 159, 167 Kimelman, Reuven 187, 188, 190, 192, 193, 198, 199, 200, 201, 304, 314 Kister, Menahem 23, 33, 35, 194, 201, 229, 231 Kleer, Martin 48, 49, 50, 51, 53 Kloppenborg, John S. 153, 154, 164, 167 Koch, Klaus 13, 16, 19, 234, 238, 239, 248 Kofski, Aryeh 267, 269 Kosiński, Rafał 267, 269 Koskenniemi, Erkki 42, 44, 53 Kovalishyn, Mariam Kamell 159, 167 Kraft, Robert A. 154, 167 Kratz, Reinhard 303, 304, 305, 314 Krupp, Michael 216, 220, 230 Kugel, James L. 3, 4, 17, 19, 127, 134, 231, 279, 284, 313 Landes, Yitz 346, 353 Lange, Armin 98, 136, 137, 142, 144, 148 Langer, Ruth 203, 204, 205, 206, 207, 212, 217, 227, 229, 230, 309, 314, 338, 351, 352, 353 Lapin, Hayim 252, 269 Larcher, Chrysostome 126, 129, 133 Lavee, Moshe 252, 269 Lehmann, Manfred R. 56, 69 Leonhard, Clemens 233, 234, 243, 248, 314 Leproux, Alexis 131, 133 Levenson, John D. 73, 76, 81 Levin, Israel 202 Levine, Benjamin M. 181, 185

Levine, David 208, 230, 251, 252, 253, 262, 263, 266, 267, 269, 270, 273, 275, 284 Levine, Lee I. 148, 205, 230, 255, 263, 264, 269, 270, 271, 309, 313, 314 Lewin, Benjamin 343, 353 Lieberman, Saul 174, 182, 185, 194, 211, 212, 213, 215, 216, 224, 230, 237, 238, 241, 244, 245, 248, 255, 261, 264, 270, 278, 279, 284, 291, 294, 297, 318, 339, 343, 353 Liebreich, Leon J. 306, 314, 315 Liesen J. 52 Lisitsa, Alona 273 López Navas, Emilio 125, 126, 127, 134 Lubsczyk, Hans 238, 248 Mack, Hananel 230, 273, 284 Maimonides, Moses 191, 194, 202, 348, 349, 353 Malter, Henry 261, 265, 267, 270 Mann, Jacob 185, 306, 307, 315 Mantel, Hugo 345, 353 Marböck, Johannes 46, 47, 48, 49, 50, 53, 61, 69 Marcus, Joseph 21, 22, 25, 35 Margalioth, Mordecai 331, 335 Margulies, Mordecai 176, 178, 185, 191 Marmorstein, Arthur 190, 201, 320, 335 Marttila, Marko 48, 49, 50, 53 Marx, Dalia 184, 186, 196, 199, 202, 236, 285, 292, 297, 337 Mason, Steve 153, 167, 229 Massebieau, Louis 152, 167 Mathys, Hans-Peter 7, 16, 19, 54 Mays, James Luther 7, 19 Mazzinghi, Luca 125, 134 McCann, J. Clinton 303, 315 McCollough, Thomas 123, 124 Melamed, Ezra Zion 213, 217, 229 Metzner, Rainer 155, 158, 159, 167 Meyer, Arnold 152, 167 Milik, Józef T. 6, 19, 142, 146, 147, 148 Milikowsky, Chaim 339, 353 Millard, Matthias 237, 240, 248 Miller, Athanasius 77, 81, 102, 112, 123

402 | Index of Authors

Miller, Stuart S. 117, 121, 123, 252, 255, 263, 264, 270 Minissale, Antonino 40, 53 Mirsky, Aharon 192, 202, 320, 335 Moore, Carey A. 89, 98, 102, 104, 105, 108, 109, 111, 112, 114, 120, 121, 122, 124 Morla, Víctor 44, 47, 53 Mroczek, Eva 301, 303, 305, 315 Müller, Hans-Peter 13, 19 Münz-Manor, Ophir 309, 315 Naeh, Shlomo 216, 230 Netzer, Ehud 117, 124 Neusner, Jacob 121, 124, 205, 210, 230, 352, 353 Newman, Hillel I. 252, 261, 270 Newman, Judith H. 38, 53, 134, 159, 167 Nickelsburg, George W. E. 121, 122, 124 Niebuhr, Karl-Wilhem 152, 153, 163, 167 Niessen, Friedrich 241, 248 Nitzan, Bilhah 137, 148, 159, 168, 304, 315 Nulman, Macy 188, 196, 202 O’Connor, Michael 6, 7, 20 Öhler, Markus 159, 168 Opitz, Sophie 7, 19 Otzen, Benedikt 102, 120, 121, 122, 124 Outhwaite, Ben 241, 247 Pajunen, Mika 301, 302, 303, 304, 315 Palmisano, Maria Carmela 48, 53 Parker, Victor 85, 98 Parry, Donald W. 135, 148 Paul, Shalom M. 6, 10, 11, 14, 16, 19 Penner, Jeremy 305, 314, 315 Peters, Norbert 59, 60, 69 Petraglio, Renzo 46, 47, 48, 54 Petuchowski, Jakob 283, 284 Pfeifer, Gerhard 9, 19 Pietersma, Albert 124 Polliack, Meira 239, 247 Prinsloo, Gert T. M. 234, 236, 237, 239, 240, 241, 249 Priotto, Michelangelo 132, 134

Rabin, Israel Abraham 213, 217, 219, 230 Rabinovitch, Refael Nathan 349, 353 Rabinovitz, Zvi 194, 202 Ramsey, George W. 14, 19 Rand, Michael 191, 201 Ratzersdorfer-Rosen, Gilla 285, 297 Ravasi, Gianfranco 40, 54 Raziel Kretzmer, Vered 202, 299, 307, 308, 315 Reich, Ronny 117, 124 Reif, Stefan C. 5, 19, 22, 35, 37, 54, 55, 56, 58, 69, 83, 98, 102, 111, 118, 124, 159, 168, 171, 203, 204, 205, 209, 229, 230, 231, 233, 285, 299, 300, 313, 315, 317, 318, 319, 322, 325, 335, 339, 340, 352, 353, 355 Reiterer, Friedrich V. 21, 35, 88, 98, 168 Reuchlin, Johann 192, 202 Rocca, Samuel 118, 124 Rose, Martin 48, 49, 54 Roth, Cecil 56, 69 Rousseau, Philip 267, 269, 270 Rubenstein, Jeffrey L. 206, 231, 271, 286, 297 Rüpke, Jörg 156, 168 Russ-Fishbane, Elisha 307, 315 Sabato, Mordechai 173, 174, 176, 179, 186 Safrai, Chaim 267, 270 Safrai, Shmuel 335 Safrai, Zeev 267, 270, 335 Sanders, James A. 137, 148, 303 Sandnes, Karl O. 163, 167 Sarason, Richard S. 203, 208, 214, 220, 222, 230, 231, 285, 338, 351, 353 Sassoon, David 180, 186 Scarpat, Giuseppe 129, 134 Schäfer, Peter 193, 202, 225, 231, 330, 331, 335 Schart, Aaron 10, 14, 20 Schechter, Solomon 21, 35, 56, 69, 191, 192, 200, 237, 240, 241, 247 Scheiber, Alexander 311, 315, 334, 335 Schepansky, Israel 344, 345, 350, 353 Schiffman, Lawrence H. 135, 147, 148, 231, 284

Index of Authors | 403

Schildenberger, Johannes 77, 81 Schmitz, Barbara 102, 104, 106, 109, 110, 111, 121, 124, 247 Schorch, Stefan 98 Schremer, Adiel 205, 228, 231, 252, 271 Schuller, Eileen 21, 35, 159, 168, 314 Schwartz, Daniel R. 86, 88, 229, 269, 270 Schwartz, Joshua J. 264, 269, 270, 271 Schwartz, Seth 252, 269, 271 Schwemer, Anna Maria 159, 168 Secunda, Shai 251, 271 Segal, Moshe Z. 23, 27, 36, 43, 46, 47, 49, 54, 56, 60, 61, 63, 65, 69 Seligman, Baer 328, 329, 331, 335 Seybold, Klaus 16, 20, 248 Shivtiel, Avihai 241, 248 Shmidman, Avi 174, 176, 178, 179, 182, 183, 185, 186, 292, 293, 296, 317, 321, 322, 323, 325, 335 Siegert, Folker 153, 154, 168 Simon, Uriel 311, 315 Singer, Simeon 56, 59, 61, 63, 65, 69 Skehan, Patrick W. 32, 33, 36, 40, 49, 54, 61, 62, 65, 69, 137, 148, 239, 248, 302, 315 Smalley, William A. 15, 20, 148 Smend, Rudolf 44, 46, 54, 60, 61, 69 Smith, Morton 267, 271 Sokoloff, Michael 255, 257, 261, 271 Sonnet, Jean-Pierre 125, 127, 128, 131, 132, 134 Sperber, Daniel 191, 202 Spiegel, Gabrielle M. 251, 271 Spitta, Friedrich 152, 168 Stadel, Christian 7, 19 Sterling, Gregory E. 159, 168 Stökl Ben Ezra, Daniel 60, 69 Stone, Michael E. 124, 133, 160, 168 Story, Cullen I. K. 7, 11, 20 Strange, James R. 156, 168 Strotmann, Angelika 21, 36 Sussman, Yaacov 255, 271, 296 Swartz, Michael D. 56, 65, 69 Ta-Shma, Israel 230, 306, 308, 315

Tabory, Joseph 200, 202, 204, 231, 273, 284, 288, 297, 337, 339, 353 Talmon, Shemaryahu 137, 148, 303 Tamar, Isachar 348, 353 Taylor, Charles 56, 69, 237, 240, 241, 247, 248 Tov, Emanuel 135, 138, 139, 140, 148 Tropper, Amram 98, 252, 271 Troublet, Jacques 239, 249 Ulrich, Eugene C. 6, 18, 20, 137, 138, 147, 148, 149 Urbach, Efraim E. 286, 297 Urbanz, Werner 21, 36, 37, 38, 47, 48, 54 van Bekkum, Wout Jac. 34 van der Horst, Pieter W. 159, 167, 168 van der Kooij, Arie 239, 248 VanderKam, James C. 147, 305, 315 Vignolo, Roberto 125, 134 Vílchez Líndez, José 125, 134 Waard, Jan de 15, 20 Wacholder, Ben Zion 98 Wahl, Harald Martin 41, 54 Walfish, Avraham 288, 297 Wallfish, Avi 350, 354 Waltke, Bruce K. 6, 7, 20 Waschke, Ernst-Joachim 15, 20 Watts, James W. 125, 126, 127, 134 Watts, John D. W. 9, 10, 12, 14, 20 Weinfeld, Moshe 305, 308, 316 Weiss, Avraham 345, 354 Weiss, Isaac Hirsh 350, 354 Weiss, Moshe Yitzhak 210, 231 Whitley, John B. 7, 8, 20 Wieder, Naphtali 173, 186, 306, 310, 311, 315, 316 Wilke, Alexa F. 3, 5, 17, 20 Wilson, Gerald H. 137, 149, 302, 303, 304, 305, 316 Winston, David 125, 134 Wischmeyer, Oda 151, 155, 163, 168 Witold, Marchel 35 Witte, Markus 237, 238, 249 Wöhrle, Jakob 9, 14, 20 Wolff, Hans Walter 6, 7, 10, 11, 13, 14, 20

404 | Index of Authors

Wolfson, Harry 191, 202 Wordsworth, William 193, 202 Wright, Benjamin G. 48, 50, 53, 54, 124, 228, 231 Wright, Jacob L. 95, 99 Xeravits, Géza G. 48, 49, 53, 54, 98 Yahalom, Joseph 56, 65, 69 Yarbro Collins, Adela 158, 168 Yeivin, Israel 240, 241, 249 Youngblood, Ronald 14, 20 Yuval, Israel Jacob 209, 231

Zahavy, Tzvee 236, 249 Zapff, Burkard M. 35, 49, 54 Zawanowska, Marzena 24, 36 Zeitlin, Solomon 123, 236, 249, 286, 297, 338, 342, 350, 354 Zenger, Erich 147, 234, 235, 237, 238, 239, 248, 249 Zidkeiah b. R. Abraham Anav Harofei 193, 202 Ziegler, Joseph 6, 20, 25, 26, 36, 39, 54 Zsengellér, József 54, 98 Zulay, Menahem 23, 179, 186 Zunz, Leopold 193, 202, 204, 342, 349, 350, 354

Index of Subjects adon Olam 187–202 Amos 3–20 Atonement 55–58, 63–65 Apocalypticism 16–18 Babylonian rite 171–83, 224–28, 306–29, 337, 347–59 Ben Sira 21–36, 37–54, 55–69, 126, 228 n. 79, 302 Benediction (see: Blessing) blessing (Berakha) 118, 157, 161, 163 n. 57, 171–86, 190 n. 9, 191 n. 12, 193, 206–31, 273–84, 295, 307–16, 317– 35, 337–54 Cairo Genizah XI–XIII, 55, 56, 61, 171, 175–83, 187, 204, 205, 225, 228, 233, 240–41, 299–316, 314–28, 332– 34, 337 Creation 7–20, 59–60, 106, 173 n. 2, 191– 95, 280–82, 340 David (King) 15, 18, 42, 43, 47, 48–52, 76, 78, 90, 160, 224, 225 n. 72, 228, 229, 291, 299, 300, 302, 304–305, 310– 13, 337 Day of Atonement (Yom Kippur) 55–69, 106, 188, 213, 221 n. 63, 274 n. 1 Disease 87, 115, 155, 157, 158, 163, 165 divine praise 300, 305, 327 Eighteen Benediction (Amidah) 157 n. 36, 172, 178, 203–29, 273, 275, 283, 289 n. 11, 292–93, 295, 299, 310, 312 n. 52, 327, 331, 332, 337–54 Esther 71–81, 105, 111 n. 35, 121 n. 68, 132 Example 37–54, 130, 164, 264 faith 39 n. 11, 40, 49, 51, 151–68, 199, 289 fasting 55, 63 n. 25, 64, 71, 73, 74, 75–81, 105, 106, 114, 120, 121, 208 n. 22, 213, 220 n. 60, 252–71, 274–75, 280, 284

https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110630282-025

fixed and fluid in Jewish prayer 136, 187 n. 1, 199 n. 51, 203–31, 305, 337–54 friendship 22, 23, 28, 31, 34 (Rabban) Gamliel 118 n. 61, 204, 206– 208, 211, 212, 216, 218, 225, 228 n. 78, 229, 337, 338, 339–44, 347, 349 generations of old 37–54, 189 grace after meals (birkat Ha–mazon) 172, 178, 182, 213, 224 n. 70, 317–35 (The) Great Assembly (Knesset ha– gdolah) 337, 338, 344–45, 346 n. 31 Halakhah (religious law) XII, 111, 119, 172 n. 1, 175 n. 9, 204, 212 n. 33, 215 n. 40, 226, 228, 229, 287, 288, 307 Hallel 219, 233–49, 300, 302, 304, 310, 311, 343, 350 Hanina bar Hama 251–71 Hasmonean era 83–84, 86–87, 95, 96, 97, 118, 121 n. 71 Hekhalot literature 328–32 Hellenistic Judaism 13, 88, 92, 96, 117, 122, 129 n. 16, 299 heretics (minim) blessing 139 n. 18, 206, 217, 224–28, 340, 342–44, 351 holy man 266–68 hymns (psalms) 3–19, 130, 135, 137 n. 13, 138 n. 14, 233–49, 299–316 immersion 101–24 inset Psalm 125–34 intentionality (kavvanah) in prayer 216, 285–97 Jerusalem 38 n. 9, 47, 78, 83–99, 102, 109, 117, 172–84, 224, 225 n. 72, 228–29, 233 n. 3, 234, 241, 243, 289–92, 296, 310, 311, 337 Joshua 42–46, 47, 48, 51, 52, 275 n. 7 Letter of James 151–68 literary genre 84–88, 125, 133

406 | Index of Subjects

2 Maccabees 83–99 Marriage 78, 108 n. 23, 122, 171–86 Masoretic text 71, 138, 235, 240, 246, 301 Midrash 187, 188, 192–98, 205 n. 8, 207, 219, 222 n. 68, 224, 266, 292, 344 n. 26, 346 mourning rituals 73–81, 102, 120, 253 narrative and literary technique 9, 29–32, 83–84, 263 New Year Day (Rosh Hashana) 9 n. 26, 55–69, 209–10, 212, 213, 218, 273– 84, 286–89 Noah 41, 273–74 nuptial blessing 171–86 orthography 138, 140, 142, 145, 146 Palestinian (eretz Yisrael) rite 171–86, 190 n. 10, 225 n. 72, 228–29, 299– 316 Passover (Pessah) 106, 233–49, 328 physical gestures in prayer 285–97 poetry (piyyut) 3–19, 21–36, 55–69, 126– 32, 187–202, 238 n. 23, 292, 307, 319, 321–24 Psalms (see: hymns) Psalms Scroll (Qumran) 136–49, 301–305 purity 101–24, 243 n. 39 revealing secrets 21, 24, 28, 31 n. 32, 281 righteousness 15–16, 61, 73, 128, 151–68, 176 ritual bath (see: immersion) Sabbath 60, 107, 120, 121, 122, 176–79, 180, 184, 188, 209–10, 213, 218, 220, 221, 268, 273, 307–309, 310, 328, 345

Said ben Babshad ha–Kohen 24–36 Samuel 45–48, 51–52, 78, 160 Sarah 273–84 Septuagint 6 n. 14, 79–80, 164, 166, 234 n. 6, 305 n. 26 sermon 160, 251–84 shema Yisrael 147 n. 41, 190 n. 9, 191 n. 12, 194 n. 27, 212, 213–14, 219, 220– 23, 299, 311, 343, 346 Simeon the Pakuli 206–208, 226–27, 338, 339–44, 345 n. 28, 346–347, 348–50 stepped pool 116, 117 Talmudic biography 252, 263 tefillat Ha–Shir 300, 306, 307–13 tefillin 135–49, 220 Temple (Jerusalem) 15, 17–18, 55, 83–99, 102, 108, 109, 115, 117 n. 55, 121, 122, 204, 208, 210, 214, 220, 234, 236, 241, 242–47, 267, 274, 275, 289–92, 294, 309, 339, 344, 350 transcendence and immanence 131, 190, 195 Wisdom of Solomon 126–34 wording (of prayer) 60, 61, 93, 103, 106, 114, 159, 212–20, 221, 223, 229, 255, 345 n. 27 zikhronot blessing 273–84