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Category: Piyut & Religious Poetry

From Medina Raḥamim to Elul Seliḥot: Toward a Prehistory of Nocturnal Penitential Prayer

From Medina Raḥamim to Elul Seliḥot: Toward a Prehistory of Nocturnal Penitential Prayer

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From Medina Raḥamim to Elul Seliḥot: Toward a Prehistory of Nocturnal Penitential Prayer Aton M. Holzer Shulamit Elizur, the undisputed doyenne of piyyut scholarship, published in 2016 a characteristically magisterial study on the origins of the seliḥot liturgy.[1] This liturgical category – like the prayerbook as a whole – is not attested before the eighth and ninth centuries. The great payyetanim of late antique Eretz Israel – Yose ben Yose, Yannai, and R. Eleazar ha-Qalir – composed qinot, qerovot, and…

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Lecture on the Legend of R’ Yehuda Halevi’s Death and more

Lecture on the Legend of R’ Yehuda Halevi’s Death and more

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Lecture on the Legend of R’ Yehuda Halevi’s Death and more Eliezer Brodt Earlier today I had a conversation with Rabbi Moshe Schwed of All Daf.  The conversation was a discussion of the famous Legend of R’ Yehuda Halevi’s death. I also devoted some time to talking about the Cairo Genizah and how some of its discoveries relates to R’ Yehuda Halevi’s final years. Some of this material appeared earlier on the Seforim Blog back in 2011 (here) and in…

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How Jews of Yesteryear Celebrated Graduation from Medical School: Congratulatory Poems for Jewish Medical Graduates in the 17th and 18th Centuries: An Unrecognized Genre

How Jews of Yesteryear Celebrated Graduation from Medical School: Congratulatory Poems for Jewish Medical Graduates in the 17th and 18th Centuries: An Unrecognized Genre

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How Jews of Yesteryear Celebrated Graduation from Medical School: Congratulatory Poems for Jewish Medical Graduates in the 17th and 18th Centuries: An Unrecognized Genre Rabbi Edward Reichman, MD Edward Reichman, Professor of Emergency Medicine at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine, is the author of The Anatomy of Jewish Law: A Fresh Dissection of the Relationship Between Medicine, Medical History and Rabbinic Literature (Published by Koren Publishers/OU Press/YU Press, 2022), as well as the forthcoming, Pondering Pre-Modern(a) Pandemics in Jewish…

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Shnei Zeitim: Two Olive Branches – Piyut by Solomon Ibn Gabirol

Shnei Zeitim: Two Olive Branches – Piyut by Solomon Ibn Gabirol

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Shnei Zeitim: Two Olive Branches Piyut by Solomon Ibn Gabirol Translated & Annotated by Ben Zion Katz[1] Two[2] olive branches[3] cut down in the garden[4] will again produce fresh, pure olive oil[5], For the leaders of the Kohatites[6] and the Ephratites[7] will be crowned as one[8]. They will shine[9] like candles on the holy Menorah[10]- There in the camp opposite the menorah, they shined![11] The son of Ephrat[12] whose ornament[13] was cut off and then dried up[14] Has now become…

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Rambam The Poet?

Rambam The Poet?

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Rambam The Poet? Ovadya Hoffman Most readers are familiar with the general character and productivity of Maimonides, I will therefore keep the preamble to a minimum. The indelible legacy left by Maimonides is that of a legalist and thinker, not of a poet or a preacher. That’s not to say that Maimonides lacked the poetic skill. In fact, even from his purely legal works one can detect his elegant tongue and imaginative faculties, never mind the many missives, introductions and…

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Anim Zemiros – A Poem for All Ages by Rabbi Elchanan Adler book review

Anim Zemiros – A Poem for All Ages by Rabbi Elchanan Adler book review

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Anim Zemiros – A Poem for All Ages By Rabbi Elchanan Adler Feldheim Publishers, New York, 2020, 192 pages Reviewed by Myron Wakschlag Rabbi Myron Wakschlag is a musmach of Rav Ahron Soloveichik zt”l at Yeshivas Brisk of Chicago, and is currently an IT executive in the Washington, DC area. He has researched and published on the early Orthodox rabbinate in America. It is rare to find a book that is able to successfully illuminate a complex topic, yet still…

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