A NEW RAHAT BY

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Rabbi Saadia Gaon (Egypt 882 - Baghdad 942) is considered one of the most prominent persons to have reshaped Jewish culture in the Middle

Ages. r His prolific output in various fields of learning greatly influenced the character and development of Hebrew literature, particularly in areas that were within the Arabic-Islamic cultural sphere. His manifold literary enterprises include works in the following fields: translation and exegesis of the Bible; halakhah; the Jewish prayer book; philosophy; polemics; linguistics and lexicography; belles-lettres - poetry and prose. Saadia's life and works have been widely studied by scholars of the various fields mentioned and there is no need to repeat them here.2 In this paper we shall briefly refer to Saadia's paytanic activity, but only to the extent that is relevant to the text published here. Saadia's liturgical poetry is neo-classical in essence. It is based on a clear-cut ideology, formed as a reaction against the paytanic works of his age, which to him seemed inferior and degenerate.3 It must be remem- bered that in Saadia's time, Hebrew liturgical poetry had behind it already a history of some five hundred years of creative activity. The growing demand for 'modern' piyyutim by the people of his day in most Oriental had a deleterious effect on the literary quality of the poems composed. Many of the local hazzanim-paytanim (cantors) could not live up to the high literary demands of the classical . They had to compose fast and produce a great number of texts, their works fell

I See EncyclofJedia .fudaica 14, 543-558.

2 About his liturgical works see Y. Tobi, The Liturgical Pocms of Rav Sa'adia Gaon: Critical Edition (of the Yoserot) with a General Introduction to his Poetic Work (dissertation; Jerusalem 1982). , Concerning Saadia's conception of poetry, see M. Zulay, Ha-Askola ha-Payyetanit she! Rav Se'adyah Ga'ol1 (Jerusalem 1964); Y, Tobi, The Liturgical Poems; E. Fleischer, 'The Place of Rav Saadia Gaon in the History of the Hebrew Poetry', Peamim 54 (J993) 4-17 (Hebrew).

S. Berger, M.Jlrocke and l.Zwlep {eds}, Zutot 2002, 34-40 34 A NEW RAHAT BY SAADIA GAON

short of the great achievements of the classical paytanim. As a result, the liturgical poetry in Saadia's time had lost much of its former glory, partic- ularly in the fields of language use and poetics. The way in which the piyyutim were performed contributed greatly to the degradation of the literary texts. In the tenth century many Oriental synagogues engaged choirs to help the hazzan in performing his piyyutim.4 The congregation demanded to hear the choir as often as possible. In order to satisfy these demands, the hazzanim composed special poetic works for choirs, called pizmon and rahat. These poems, usually of a light rhythm and simple language, were interpolated between the old, classical compositions (written by paytanim of Eretz Israel), thus corrupting and perverting the structure of the original compositions.5 Saadia Gaon detested these popular trends; he preferred to return to the old and classical models, despite of what was in vogue in his day. He composed yoserot for the weekly Readings of the Pentateuch; qerobot for the festivals; hosha'not; qinot; selihot; sidre 'avodah for the Day of Atonement; and azharot for Pentecost.6 All these paytanic genres are documented in the classical tradition of Eretz Israel. He included a small selection of each of these genres in his well-known , except for yoserot.7 Saadia's revolutionary inventiveness can be seen most clearly in his attitude toward the Hebrew language or, to be more precise, the kind of Hebrew which he believed was suitable for writing poetry or prose. The suitable and 'elegant' Hebrew should be 'pure' and 'correct' ('seha' in Hebrew, mirroring the Arabic equivalent term, 'fasaha'); it should make use of the entire biblical lexicon as well as all the existing patterns of deri- vation recorded in the Bible, however rare or even unique. Whoever wrote in this pure and correct language (n1n~l1tll?) might, in fact should,

4 Th is phenomenon can be detected in the Eastern paytanic creativity from the end of the eighth century onwards. See E. Fleischer, "lyynnim be-hashpa'ot ha-maqhelatiyyim 'al 'issuvam ve-hitpathutam she! suge ha-piyyut', Yuual 3 (Jerusalem 1974) 18-48; idem, Hebrew Liturgical Poetry in the Middle Ages (Jerusalem 1975), index s.v. Maqhela; idem.,

The Pizmonim of the Anonymus (Jerusalem 1974) I I -3 I • .\ See Fleischer, Shirat ha-Qodesh, 289-297. (, See Tobi, The Liturgical Poems. 7 On this subject see Y. Tobi, 'Yahaso shel Rav Se'adyah Ga'on la-Piyyut', in S. Ehzur e.a., eds, Knesset 'Ezra: Literature and Life in the . Studies Presented to Ezra Fleischer (Jerusalem 1994) 235-25°.

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