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Piyut
A piyyuṭ (plural piyyuṭim, ; from ) is a Jewish liturgical poem, usually designated to be sung, chanted, or recited during Jewish services, religious services. Most piyyuṭim are in Mishnaic Hebrew or Jewish Palestinian Aramaic, and most follow some poetic scheme, such as an acrostic following the order of the Hebrew alphabet or spelling out the name of the author. Many piyyuṭim are familiar to regular attendees of synagogue services. For example, the best-known piyyuṭ may be ''Adon Olam'' "Lord of the World." Its poetic form consists of a repeated rhythmic pattern of short-long-long-long (the so-called hazaj meter). It is so beloved that it is often sung after many synagogue services after the ritual nightly recitation of the Shema and during the morning ritual of putting on tefillin. Another beloved piyyuṭ is ''Yigdal'' "May God be Hallowed," which is based upon the Jewish principles of faith, thirteen principles of faith set forth by Maimonides. Scholars of pi ...
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Yigdal
Yigdal () is a Religious Jewish music, Jewish hymn which in various rituals shares with ''Adon Olam'' the place of honor at the opening of the morning and the close of the evening service. It is based on the Maimonides#Thirteen principles of faith, 13 principles of faith (sometimes referred to as "the 13 Creeds") formulated by Maimonides. This was not the only metrical presentment of the Creeds, but it has outlived all others, whether in Hebrew or the vernacular. A translation can be found in any bilingual siddur. Among Ashkenazi Jews, only thirteen lines are sung, one for each creed; the last line, dealing with the resurrection of the dead, is repeated to complete the antiphon when the hymn is responsorially sung by the hazzan and congregation. Sephardic Jews, who sing the hymn in congregational unison throughout, use the following line as the 14th: "These are the 13 bases of the Rule of Moses and the tenets of his Law." Authorship There is scholarly debate as to the hymn's auth ...
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Adon Olam
Adon Olam (; "Eternal Lord" or "Sovereign of the Universe") is a hymn in the Jewish liturgy. It has been a regular part of the daily and Shabbat ( Sabbath) liturgy since the 15th century.Nulman, Macy, ''Encyclopedia of Jewish Prayer'' (1993, NJ, Jason Aronson) page 7. Origin Its authorship and origin are uncertain. It is sometimes attributed to Solomon ibn Gabirol (1021–1058 CE), who is known for his Hebrew poetry, although there is no solid evidence for this, and the regular metric structure does not seem to accord with his other compositions. John Rayner, in his notes to the Siddur Lev Chadash, suggests it was written in the thirteenth or fourteenth century in Spain, noting its absence from the prayer book Sefer Abudarham c. 1340. It has also been attributed to Hai Gaon (939–1038) and even to the Talmudic sage Yohanan ben Zakkai. Although its diction indicates antiquity, it did not become part of the morning liturgy until the 15th century. Text The text of Adon Ol ...
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Jewish Services
Jewish prayer (, ; plural ; , plural ; Yinglish: davening from Yiddish 'pray') is the prayer recitation that forms part of the observance of Rabbinic Judaism. These prayers, often with instructions and commentary, are found in the '' Siddur'', the traditional Jewish prayer book. Prayer, as a "service of the heart," is in principle a Torah-based commandment. It is mandatory for Jewish women and men. However, the rabbinic requirement to recite a specific prayer text does differentiate between men and women: Jewish men are obligated to recite three prayers each day within specific time ranges ('' zmanim''), while, according to many approaches, women are only required to pray once or twice a day, and may not be required to recite a specific text. Traditionally, three prayer services are recited daily: * Morning prayer: ''Shacharit'' or ''Shaharit'' (, "of the dawn") * Afternoon prayer: '' Mincha'' or ''Minha'' (), named for the flour offering that accompanied sacrifi ...
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Authors Of Piyyut
Authors of piyyut are known as ''paytanim'' (singular: ''paytan''). '' Piyyut'' is Jewish liturgical poetry, in Hebrew or occasionally Aramaic. The earliest authors of ''piyyut'' did not sign their names in acrostics, nor do manuscripts preserve their names. The earliest ''paytan'' whose name is known is Yosé ben Yosé, usually dated to fifth-century Palestine; he did not sign his name in his work, but copyists of manuscripts preserved it along with his work. Starting in the sixth century, ''paytanim'' began to sign their work. Pre-classical Palestine (up to the 5th century CE) * Yosé bar Yosé—5th-century CE Palestine Classical Palestine (6th to mid-8th centuries CE) * Eleazar ben Qallir (or: ben Qillir)—6th- to 7th-century Palestine * Joshua the Kohen—7th-century Palestine * Pinḥas the Kohen, son of Jacob—8th-century Tiberias, Palestine * Simeon bar Megas the Kohen—6th-century Palestine * Yannai—6th-century Palestine * Yoḥanan the Kohen, so ...
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Hazaj Meter
Hazaj meter is a quantitative verse meter frequently found in the epic poetry of the Middle East and western Asia. A musical rhythm of the same name is based on the literary meter. Hazaj in Arabic poetry Like the other meters of the ''al-ʿarūḍ'' system of Arabic poetry, the basic rhyme unit of hazaj meter compositions is a closed couplet—a ''bayt'' "distich" (literally "tent")—of two hemistichs known as ''miṣrāʿ''s ("tent flaps"). Characteristic of the hazaj meter (in relation to the other ''al-ʿarūḍ'' meters) is its leading iamb, that is, the first two syllables of its prosodic feet are short-long. This syllable pair (the ''watid'', "peg") is then repeated at fixed points along the length of a line, and two variable syllables (the ''sabab'', "guy-wire"s) are "tied" to each instance of it. The hazaj measure is thus nominally tetrasyllabic. Its two common variations are: : In classical Arabic the hazaj is generally used in a dimeter version of four feet. Th ...
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Syria (region)
Syria, ( or ''Shaam'') also known as Greater Syria or Syria-Palestine, is a historical region located east of the Mediterranean Sea in West Asia, broadly synonymous with the Levant. The region boundaries have changed throughout history. However, in modern times, the term "Syria" alone is used to refer to the Syria, Syrian Arab Republic. The term is originally derived from Assyria, an Ancient Semitic-speaking peoples, ancient Semitic-speaking civilization centered in northern Mesopotamia, modern-day Iraq. During the Hellenistic period, the term Syria was applied to the entire Levant as Coele-Syria. Under Roman Empire, Roman rule, the term was used to refer to the Roman Syria, province of Syria, later divided into Phoenice (Roman province), Syria Phoenicia and Coele-Syria, Coele Syria, and to the province of Syria Palaestina. Under the Byzantine Empire, Byzantines, the provinces of Syria Prima and Syria Secunda emerged out of Coele Syria. After the Muslim conquest of the Levant ...
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Cairo Geniza
The Cairo Geniza, alternatively spelled the Cairo Genizah, is a collection of some 400,000 Judaism, Jewish manuscript fragments and Fatimid Caliphate, Fatimid administrative documents that were kept in the ''genizah'' or storeroom of the Ben Ezra Synagogue in Fustat or Old Cairo, Egypt. These manuscripts span the entire period of Middle-Eastern, North African, and Al-Andalus, Andalusian Jewish history between the 6th and 19th centuries CE, and comprise the largest and most diverse collection of medieval manuscripts in the world. The Genizah texts are written in various languages, especially Hebrew language, Hebrew, Arabic language, Arabic, and Aramaic language, Aramaic, mainly on vellum and paper, but also on papyrus and cloth. In addition to containing Jewish religious texts such as Hebrew Bible, Biblical, Talmudic, and later Rabbinic Judaism, Rabbinic works (some in the original hands of the authors), the Genizah gives a detailed picture of the economic and cultural life of the M ...
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Eleazar Birabbi Qallir
Eleazar beRabbi Qallir (; ), also known as Eleazar ha-Kalir, was a Byzantine Jewish poet whose Hebrew-language liturgical verses or piyyuṭim are sung during significant religious services, especially in the Nusach Ashkenaz rite, as well as in the Italian Nusach and well as the Romaniote rite. In particular, he wrote hymns for the Three Pilgrimage Festivals, for special Shabbats, for weekdays of festive character, and the fast days. Biography Although his poems have had a prominent place in printed ritual and he is known to have lived somewhere in the Near East, documentation regarding details of his life has been lost to history, including the exact year and circumstances of his birth and death. He is said to have been the disciple of another 6th-century composer of piyyuṭim, Yannai, who, according to a certain legend, grew jealous of Eleazar's superior knowledge and caused his death by inserting into his shoe a scorpion whose sting proved to be fatal. Samuel Davi ...
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Midrash
''Midrash'' (;"midrash"
. ''Random House Webster's Unabridged Dictionary''.
; or ''midrashot'') is an expansive Judaism, Jewish Bible, Biblical exegesis using a rabbinic mode of interpretation prominent in the Talmud. The word itself means "textual interpretation", "study", or "exegesis", derived from the root verb (), which means "resort to, seek, seek with care, enquire, require". Midrash and rabbinic readings "discern value in texts, words, and letters, as potential revelatory spaces", writes the Hebrew scholar Wilda Gafney. "They reimagine dominant narratival readings while crafting new ones to stand alongside—not replace—former readings. Midrash also asks questions of the text; sometimes it provides answers, sometimes it leaves the reader to answer the questions". Vanessa Lovelace defines midrash as "a Jewish mode of int ...
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Siddur
A siddur ( ''sīddūr'', ; plural siddurim ) is a Jewish prayer book containing a set order of daily prayers. The word comes from the Hebrew root , meaning 'order.' Other terms for prayer books are ''tefillot'' () among Sephardi Jews, ''tefillah'' among German Jews, and ''tiklāl'' () among Yemenite Jews. History The earliest parts of Jewish prayer books are the '' Shema Yisrael'' ("Hear O Israel") (Deuteronomy 6:4 ''et seq'') and the Priestly Blessing ( Numbers 6:24-26), which are in the Torah. A set of eighteen (currently nineteen) blessings called the ''Shemoneh Esreh'' or the ''Amidah'' (Hebrew, "standing rayer), is traditionally ascribed to the Great Assembly in the time of Ezra, at the end of the biblical period. The name ''Shemoneh Esreh'', literally "eighteen", is a historical anachronism, since it now contains nineteen blessings. It was only near the end of the Second Temple period that the eighteen prayers of the weekday Amidah became standardized. Even at ...
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Hakham
''Hakham'' (or ''Chakam(i), Haham(i), Hacham(i), Hach''; ) is a term in Judaism meaning a wise or skillful man; it often refers to someone who is a great Torah scholar. It can also refer to any cultured and learned person: "He who says a wise thing is called a ''Hakham'', even if he be not a Jew." Hence, in Talmudic-Midrashic literature, wise gentiles are commonly called ' ("wise men of the nations of the world"). In Sephardic usage, ''hakham'' is a synonym for " rabbi". In ancient times ''Hakham'' as an official title is found as early as the first Sanhedrin, after the reconstruction of that body, when the Hadrianic religious persecutions had ceased. In addition to the Simeon ben Gamliel, two other scholars stood at the head of the Sanhedrin, namely Nathan the Babylonian as '' Av Beit Din'' and Rabbi Meir as ''hakham''. Another hakham mentioned by name was Simon, the son of Judah ha-Nasi, who after the death of his father officiated as ''hakham'', with his elder brother ...
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Geonim
''Geonim'' (; ; also Romanization of Hebrew, transliterated Gaonim, singular Gaon) were the presidents of the two great Talmudic Academies in Babylonia, Babylonian Talmudic Academies of Sura Academy , Sura and Pumbedita Academy , Pumbedita, in the Abbasid Caliphate. They were generally accepted as the spiritual leaders of the Jewish community worldwide in the early medieval era, in contrast to the ''Resh Galuta'' (exilarch) who wielded secular authority over the Jews in Islamic lands. ''Geonim'' is the plural of (''Ga'on'') , which means "pride" or "splendor" in Biblical Hebrew and since the 19th century "genius" as in modern Hebrew language, Hebrew. As a title of a Babylonian college president it meant something like "His Excellency". The ''Geonim'' played a prominent and decisive role in the transmission and teaching of Torah and Halakha, Jewish law. They taught Talmud and decided on issues on which no ruling had been rendered during the period of the Talmud. Era The per ...
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