A Guide to Jewish Studies: Prayers & Liturgy

"In an effort to counter the confusion and isolation often experienced by a novice synagogue-goer, as well as by many who regularly attend synagogue, The Synagogue Survival Kit: A Guide to Understanding Jewish Religious Services offers introductions and instructions for all aspects of the synagogue experience. No matter what kind of synagogue you attend, the roadmap is the same. Some synagogues may read certain prayers in English translation rather than the original Hebrew or replace some traditional prayers with newer versions, but the service will still touch on the same topics in the same order for the same reasons. If you know the structure of the traditional service, you can readily find your place in any other one. The Synagogue Survival Kit maps the complete traditional service structure and points out the changes commonly encountered in different congregations in an effort to counter the confusion and isolation often experienced by novice synagogue-goers and regular attendees, alike. Always mindful of the sophisticated, adult reader with little or no Jewish background, Jordan Lee Wagner clearly and comprehensively explains the practices, vocabulary, objects, and attitudes that one can expect to find in any synagogue." - from the publisher

"Jewish Liturgy: A Guide to Research enables the reader to access intelligently the rich bibliography now available in English. In this volume, Ruth Langer, an expert on Jewish liturgy, provides an annotated discussion of the most important books and articles, on topics ranging historically from the liturgy of the Second Temple period and the Dead Sea Scrolls to today, addressing the synagogue itself, its daily, weekly, and festival liturgies and their components, home rituals and the life cycle, as well as questions of liturgical performance and theology. Introductions to every section orient the reader and provide necessary background." - from the publisher

"The Jewish prayer book, the siddur, is the longest continuous record of the history, philosophy, literature, and ethos of the Jewish people. It has been read and reread in every generation, in every Jewish community. Now, for the first time, Ismar Elbogen's Jewish Liturgy: A Comprehensive History, the most complete scholarly study of Jewish liturgy in existence today, is available to the English-speaking community. Originally published in German, the work was reissued in.An updated Hebrew version in 1972. It has now been masterfully translated from the German and the Hebrew by Raymond P. Scheindlin. Elbogen's analysis covers the entire range of Jewish liturgical development - beginning with the early cornerstones of the siddur, such as the Amidah, the Shema, and Ashrei, through the evolution of the medieval piyyut tradition, to modern prayerbook reform in Germany and the United States. The book traces the origins of present-day prayers,Noting the many variants that arose within historical periods and different geographic communities. Elbogen includes generous citations from primary sources such as rabbinic texts, comparative historical documents, medieval commentators, and modern scholarship. The work is complemented by a study of the history of the synagogue as an institution; its functionaries, architecture, and music. Also included are full bibliographies and several useful indexes, among them an.Index of prayers in Hebrew and English. Elbogen's studies will prove invaluable to Jewish scholars because of the presentation of primary sources and variants, to interested laypersons because of his comprehensive overview and systematic format, and to Christian scholars because of his attention to parallel developments in Christian liturgy. Eighty years after its first appearance, Elbogen's magisterial work remains the most thorough academic study of the Jewish liturgy.Ever written. It is a monument to the historical and philological approach that characterized Jewish studies - and humanistic studies generally - in the second half of the nineteenth century." - from the publisher

"Traditional Jews encounter the prayer-book - the Siddur - more often in their daily lives than any other text, yet it is mysteriously absent from their otherwise nearly comprehensive curriculum of study. In addition, they tend to recite it mantrically, more for its sound than its meaning. The neglect of meaning is so complete that no edition of the prayer-book has yet appeared with a comprehensive range of commentaries. The present work, the first to examine this paradox, explains it as a reluctance to engage with the intellectual and emotional questions that lie just beneath the surface of the text.

An analysis of the opening sequences of the daily ritual reveals that the prayer-book, far from representing one side of a deferential dialogue with an attentive deity, actually challenges God to allow access to the revelation on which human safety depends and to keep his side of the covenant. Confronting the chaotic unpredictability of the human condition, this undercurrent of protest allows Jews to question why God's urgently needed intervention seems absent. Anger at this apparent absence is qualified only by gratitude at being alive.

The core of this book consists of a novel examination of the opening sections of the traditional daily morning liturgy according to the Ashkenazi rite. The analysis is based on mostly untranslated medieval and later commentaries identifying the biblical and rabbinic echoes from which the liturgy is woven, and employs analytical methods of the kind traditionally applied to talmudic and midrashic texts. It shows how each citation and echo imports aspects of its original context into the new composition, forming a countertext to the words on the page. It examines each textual layer, as well as the surface meaning that is usually the only one to be noted, and relates these to the speaker's actual location-home and later the synagogue-as well as to the time of day when the prayers are recited, as the worshipper faces the dangers of the day ahead. The resulting chorus of ideas-linking everyday life to the sacred narrative from creation to exile-demonstrates the philosophical sophistication of rabbinic spirituality in offering poetic insight into an ultimately tragic vision of reality." - from the publisher

"This collection of essays offers an analysis of central texts in Greek, Hebrew and Aramaic relating to emotions within literary prayers. Their discussions touch upon such diverse topics as relations with God, exegesis, education, prophecy, linguistic expression, feminism, happiness, grief, cult, suicide, non-Jews, Hellenism, Qumran and Jerusalem. The articles contribute to a scientific understanding of early Rabbinic and Christian ideas." - from the publisher

"Features the authentic Hebrew text with a new translation designed to let people know what prayers to say. introductions tell the reader what to look for in the the prayer service, how to use the commentaries, how to search for and find meaning in the prayer book." - from the publisher

Editor's Note: Gustavus Adolphus College has Vol. 1 The Sh'ma and its blessings; Vol. 2 The Amidah; Vol. 4 Seder K'riat haTorah (the Torah service); Vol. 6 Tachanun and concluding prayers; Vol. 8 Kabbalat Shabbat (welcoming Shabbat in the synagogue); Vol. 10 Shabbat morning: Shacharit and Musaf (morning and additional services).