Description:
The Rhetoric of the Jewish Liturgy is the first comprehensive academic study of its kind in over a century. It integrates material from biblical literature, Second Temple literature - including the Dead Sea Scrolls of Qumran and Jewish Hellenistic literature - rabbinic literature, early Christian literature, the Cairo Genizah, classical piyut, and medieval manuscripts and commentary, along with modern philological, literary, and historical research. Since the liturgy reflects the history of Judaism, its study becomes an expedition through the pathways of Jewish history and thought from biblical to modern times. By integrating historical, literary, and theological perspectives, this study succeeds in clarifying many heretofore obscure liturgical issues.
Brief description: Reuven Kimelman is Professor of Classical Judaica at Brandeis University and rabbi of the Beth Abraham Sephardic Congregation of New England. He is the author of The Mystical Meaning of 'Lekhah Dodi' and 'Kabbalat Shabbat' (Hebrew; 2003) and a contributor to The Cambridge History of Judaism and The Cambridge Companion to Jewish Theology.
Review Quotes:
'Reuven Kimelman's works on liturgy have been indispensable
reading for decades. This new book is eagerly awaited
and promises to make a major contribution to attempts to
understand the liturgy in the twenty-first century.'
Jewish Prayer