Undercurrents of Jewish Prayer
Even those who lavish close attention on talmudic and halakhic writings have rarely studied the Jewish prayer-book. Its dense and apparently impenetrable texts are here subjected to close analysis that exposes the messages and covert concerns implicit in the underlying narrative. The controversial conclusions establish the prayer-book as one of the greatest achievements of Jewish literary creativity.
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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.
About the author
Jeremy Schonfield, who was born in London and is the son and grandson of rabbis, studied comparative literature and worked in archaeology in Israel and in publishing in London before becoming involved in Jewish education. He taught Jewish studies to adults in London, received a PhD from the University of Cambridge, and is now both Mason Lecturer at the Oxford Centre for Hebrew and Jewish Studies, and Lecturer at Leo Baeck College in London. Although raised in the Ashkenazi tradition he is member of Bevis Marks Synagogue, the Spanish and Portuguese Synagogue in London, where he sings in the choir and occasionally leads services. He is currently working on a study of the Jewish annual and life cycles as enactments of the Jewish sacred narrative.
Publication details
| Format | 23.5 x 15.5 cm / 6" x 9" |
| Pages | 414 pages |
| ISBN | 978-1-904113-00-3 |
| Price | £37.50 / $55.00 out of print £19.95 / $29.95 paperback |
| Date of publication | 26 October 2006 out of print paperback: 25 October 2007 |
Contents
Preface and Acknowledgements
Note on Transliteration and Conventions Used in the Text
Note on Extracts from the Liturgy
List of Extracts
Part I
1 The Incuriousness of the Jewish Worshipper
2 The Reticence of the Ideal Reader
3 The Liturgical Narrative: Modern and Traditional Views
Part II
Birkhot Hashahar
4 The Darkness of Waking
5 The Bonds of Freedom
6 The Silence of Language
7 Building in Babel
8 The Scattering
9 The Imagined Temple
Pesukei Dezimra
10 Hope in Words
Part III
11 The Liturgical Argument Encapsulated
12
Other Versions, Other Readings
Appendix: Photographs of Ritual Objects Used in Prayer
Bibliography
Index of Biblical and Rabbinic References
Index of Subjects and Names
Reviews
'The Littman Library of Jewish Civilization continues to publish academic works that are not only of the highest scholarly calibre, but are highly readable as well . . . highly recommended for academic and public libraries, as well as synagogues . . .'
Daniel Scheide, Association of Jewish Libraries Newsletter
'Breathtakingly original'
Cambridge Day Limmud Handbook
'Recommended.'
R. Langer, Choice
'A remarkable attempt to explain and analyse the morning prayers . . . provides the reader with a tremendous amount of interesting information.'
Andreas Lehnardt, European Journal of Jewish Studies
'A captivating analysis . . . reading Schonfield will ensure that the Siddur is never read cursorily again.'
Jewish Book World
'With Undercurrents of Jewish Prayer, Jeremy Schonfield asserts his undeniable right to be accepted into the first rank of Jewish liturgical scholars, as well as achieving the production of a work whose quality and weight would undoubtedly have aroused his esteemed forebears' pride and admiration, as well, just possibly, as anxiety. Schonfield's purpose is to analyse in minute detail the first two sections of the daily liturgy, Birchot Hashachar and Pesukei Dezimra. He does so with a forensic quality that is at times breathtaking for its verve and originality, and its convincing audacity . . . no-one who completes this superb book will be able to look at a prayer book in the same way again. Schonfield sets the tone for his approach in the first three chapters, preparing his reader for an analysis that will be minute, lateral, creative, and highly convincing, as well as informed throughout by the author's broad scholarship . . . a collection of jewels.'
Charles Middleburgh, Jewish Chronicle
'Challenges the customary devotional attitudes and behaviour of most Jews . . . should establish Jeremy Schonfield . . . as one of the most innovative and unsettling scholars in the world of Jewish studies . . . absorbing and intellectually exhilarating . . . [his] familiarity with Jewish sources is intimate, comprehensive, and meticulous. Not only are arguments penetrating, but his findings often jar with our preconceptions . . . The gains of this heady, bracing exploration of sources of the Jewish quotidian are manifest.'
Haim Chertok, Jewish Quarterly
'His comments are rich in data, comprehensible and interesting for a broad readership, well written and cogently argued . . . The physical production of the volume is also impressive in many ways . . . readers will undoubtedly find here numerous insights into the traditional Jewish liturgy . . . we are here being treated not just to the views of a serious literary critic with a good knowledge of the scientific and historical study of Jewish liturgy but also to a very personal expression of devotion that is familial as well as ethnic . . . we are likely to learn much from the volume and to be deeply grateful to the author for carefully guiding us into what is often novel, and sometimes even exciting, territory.'
Stefan C. Reif, Journal of Jewish Studies
'In many respects, a ground-breaking study which, while aimed chiefly at scholarly readers, raises core questions that should concern the most occasional worshippers as well as the daily devotees . . . Dr Schonfield is too prudent an explorer to suggest a redrawing of liturgical cartography but the contour lines he draws through the daily prayers leave tantalizing possibilities for anyone attempting a modernization of the siddur‹or, indeed, a modern translation . . . These structural observations contain, in my view, some of the most valuable of Jeremy Schonfield¹s observations‹and if they have to be pursued through a thicket of textual detail, the effort is well rewarded by a multitude of such insights.'
Norman Lebrecht, Sephardi Bulletin
