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The Rhetoric of Jewish Prayer
A Literary and Historical Commentary on the
Prayerbook
Author Information - Publication Details
Reuven Kimelman's ground-breaking study of the history and literature of the Jewish liturgy incorporates modern literary theory and recent historical research to explore the rhetoric of Jewish prayer.
Professor Kimelman's literary approach to the liturgy shows how each prayer is a literary whole with its own compositional integrity. Each essay presents the literary structure, the historical background, and the theology of the prayer. The integration of literary, historical, and theological approaches all converge to show how the liturgy engages the mind and mobilizes the emotions to create the experience of prayer.
The history of each prayer incorporates its linkage with the Bible and the Dead Sea Scrolls of Qumran along with its contemporary setting and the history of commentary. All this is woven together in order to present its full literary tapestry which includes form and content, mode of argumentation, texture of language, and re-use and recontextualizing of images. It is the interplay of all these factors along with the movement between surface and subtext that creates what Kimelman calls the rhetoric of the liturgy.
Each chapter can be enjoyed as a self-contained study of a part of the liturgy. The book works systematically through the liturgy starting with the morning blessings and concluding with the closing prayer, Aleynu. Some of the highlights of the book include the presentation of Mah Tovu as the psychological introduction to prayer and Adon Olam as the theological introduction. There is also fresh analysis of the structure of the Pesukei De-Zimra along with one of Ashre as the Shema of the Book of Psalms. The Shema itself is shown to be the rabbinic remoulding of a biblical covenant ceremony into a coronation ceremony, while the Amidah is revealed as a study in the rhetoric of redemption.
Reuven Kimelman is Professor of Rabbinic Lityerature at Brandeis University. He is also the author of The Mystical Meaning of Lekdah Dodi (forthcoming), as well as many articles on history, ethics, and liturgy in journals of scholarly and general interest.
| Format | 23.5 x 15.5 cm / 6" x 9" |
| Pages | 336 |
| ISBN | 978-1-874774-50-1 |
| Price | £39.50 / $59.50 |
| Date of publication | June 2010 |
© The Littman Library of Jewish Civilization, 2008