liturgy secondary source material

Chazon, Esther - Prayers from Qumran and Their Hisrtorical Implications

• examines how Qumran texts relate to rabbinic liturgy

  • it’s hard to make a legitimate argument about development

• claims many texts were simply adapted by Qumran and weren’t unique to the sect

  • the texts don’t say what Qumranic beliefs actually were

  • we don’t know how representable these texts are

Kattan-Gribetz, Sarit - The Shema in the Second Temple Period A Reconsideration

• questions shema recetation during 2nd temple period

  • it certainly existed as a concept but unclear if it was actually recited regularly

• understandings of the shema varried

  • viewed as a commandment for general, regular torah study rather than recitation

  • cites Josephus, philo, and Qumran

Langer, Ruth - The Amidah as Formative Rabbinic Prayer

• the Amidah probably grew out of the destruction of the temple although parts of it existed before

• there is no set structure found in early rabbinic literature

  • it was either so obvious or it was flexible

  • although the topics for the blessings were set

• evidence points to flexibility + interpretation in the Amidah

• precise text later helped draw social/communal boundaries

Kimelman, Reuven - The Literary Structure of the Amidah

• understanding the order as literarily significant

  • 4-9 = individual focused ; 10-15 = communal

  • each blessing relates to those before + after

• there is minimal apocalyptic language

  • the Amidah is about redemption

    • correlates to Shirat HaYam

Kimelman, Reuven - Untaneh Tokef as a Midrash

• U-n’taneh tokef better represents the spirit of Rosh Hashanah than the rabbinic liturgy

  • trial between God + Humanity

  • connects to each part of the Musaf service

• the piyyut incorporates midrashic ideas

• analyzes the rhyme scheme

• integrates the dichotomies between heaven/earth and annual/final judgement as well as merges space/time

Swartz, Michael - Ritual about Myth about Ritual: Towards an Understanding of the Avodah in the Rabbinic Period

• relationship between the payetanim, the Rabbis, and the priests

  • Rabbis wanted to supplant the authority of the priests and Temple rituals and created the liturgy as a substitute for the cult rituals

  • the piyyutim later accompanied the liturgy as supplementary pieces

• the piyyutim emphasize the lineage of the priesthood from Adam whereas the rabbis emphasize an academic lineage

  • the priests + rituals were still thought of highly post-second temple

Elbogen, Ismar - Jewish Liturgy: A Comprehensive History

• discusses the “nucleus” of the kaddish and its variants

• the blessing of God’s name is especially old

• additional petitions were added later (prayer acceptance, peace, etc)

• variants on the Kaddish are said throughout the service and changed across geographic locations

  • eg. variations included the name of the exilarch in Babylonia

Lehnardt, Andreas - Christian Influences on the Yahrzeit Qaddish

• saying kaddish on a yahrzeit was a later tradition (seen from the fact that yahrzeit is a yiddish term)

  • some responsa recognize observing a yahrzeit but not necessarily observing it by saying kaddish

• story of Rabbi Akiva and the son

• saying qaddish on a yahrzeit emerged in the 14th and 15th c. around the same time that Catholicism was debating mourning rituals

  • promotion of the belief that mourning rituals impacted the dead souls

Marx, Dalia - The Morning Ritual in the Talmud: The Reconstitution of One’s Body and Personal Identity through the Blessings.

• argues birkot hashachar is a continuation of the prayers before sleep

• bases this argument on the idea that sleep is liminal and somewhat scary, thus it requires a blessing before and after

• the blessings later became associated with shacharit because of laws regarding sleep impurity

Stern, David - Jewish Art and the Making of the Medieval Jewish Prayerbook

• it was not typical for individuals to pray out of a book, instead there were large machzorim for communities

• the requirements for community worship led to the development of local rites

  • piyyut played an important role in this

• prayerbooks would only include the non-standard parts of the service → the things that a community would do differently

Schmelzer, Menahem - Building a Great Judaica Library—At What Price?

Ullendorff, Edward - Some Notes on the Relationship of the Paternoster to the Qaddish

• argues that The Lord’s Prayer is dependent on the Qaddish

• because the Qaddish is in Aramaic, it would have been accessible to the writers of the gospels

• translates the Greek of Matthew 6:9-10 back to Aramaic to show the similarities to the Qaddish

Rouwhorst, Gerard - The Roots of the Early Christian Eucharist: Jewish Blessings of Hellenistic Symposia

• one argument is that the Eucharist is based in Jewish meal rituals and prayers such as birkat ha-mazon.

  • older scholarship, can often overemphasize the last supper

• another argument is that the Eucharist is rooted in Greco-Roman symposia

  • newer scholarship

Langer, Ruth and Richard S. Sarason - Re-Examining the Early Evidence for Rabbinic Liturgy: How Fixed Were Its Prayer Texts?

• emphasizes examining tannaic literature

  • Mishnah and Tosefta seem to say that prayer was not fixed

• criticizes Fleischer’s theory that the Amida was fixed at Yavneh

• if there was any sense of a fixed Amida, it was only among the rabbinic elite

• liturgy was likely structured, not standardized during this time

Kimelman, Reuven - Rabbinic Prayer in Late Antiquity.

• after the destruction, the synagogue became the primary place of Jewish worship thus shifting theological perspectives on where God existed

  • synagogues became “templized” → emphasized hand and feet washing, facing Jerusalem, menorah, etc

• there was a certain resistance to equating prayer with sacrifice → though some aspects of the Amida were reworded to reinforce the link between prayer and sacrifices

• the ritual of the Amida itself became significant → standing before God directly

Tabory, Joseph - Prayers and Berakhot

• three types of brachot

  • short (close only); long (open + close); minimal (open only)

  • allowed for some level of formalization while also leaving room for spontaneity

• public liturgies were built on Ezra’s torah reading

  • public readings of blessings followed by “amen”

• the Shema became a more developed liturgy following 70 CE, prior it was linked to covenant renewal and Torah study

• liturgy to fill all parts of the day has also been developed

  • life cycle + holiday rituals came to include brachot as well