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The Accommodation of the Yom Kippur Seder Avodah

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The Accommodation of the Yom Kippur Seder Avodah THE ACCOMMODATION OF THE YOM KIPPUR SEDER AVODAH: A REVIEW OF ITS DEVELOPMENT INTO THE MODERN PERIOD by Rhoda JH Silverman A Dissertation Presented to the faculty of Towson University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree Doctor of Philosophy in Judaic Studies Towson University Towson, Maryland 21252 May 2012 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS For inspiring and nurturing a passion for the study of Jewish liturgy, I am indebted to many teachers throughout my graduate studies at both The Hebrew Union College and The Baltimore Hebrew University (now The Baltimore Hebrew Institute at Towson University). Two stand out: Dr. Lawrence Hoffman, my first teacher of liturgy and my Master‘s thesis advisor at The Hebrew Union College who generously nurtured my interest in liturgy, and Dr. Barry Freundel, my most recent teacher of liturgy and my Dissertation advisor who pointed me in the direction of the Yom Kippur Seder Avodah for this project. I am also grateful to Dr. Susanna Garfein for her patience and steady encouragement as she helped make the transition from Baltimore Hebrew University to Towson University as smooth as possible while seeing me through to the end of this project. Thank you also to Dr. Eric Friedland who, due to a shared passion for the development of Jewish liturgy, agreed to serve as a reader and guide throughout the journey of dissertation writing without having the opportunity to meet me in person. His astute comments and suggestions coupled with pointed encouragement have been extremely valuable. I am also eternally grateful for the support and encouragement of my colleague, Rabbi Gustav Buchdahl, whose wisdom and insight continually surprise and inspire me to be a better Rabbi and scholar while remaining grounded in my humanity. I am indebted to a number of administrative helpers who enabled me to finish this project far faster than would have been otherwise possible. Lacy Leblanc meticulously compiled contact information for all of the liberal congregations included in my survey, discussed in Chapter Six of this dissertation. Former BHU student, Johan Nicolai ii assisted me in deciphering the Gothic German script used in many of the nineteenth century manuscripts. And, Marty Coffman, my accompanist extraordinaire, who also has a keen eye for editing, took the time to read through and comment copiously on various stages of this manuscript. I am forever grateful! Of course, I could not have finished this Dissertation project without the support of the staff and lay leadership of my congregation, Temple Emanuel of Baltimore. I thank them for giving me the time to research and write and for putting up with many sermons and lectures on the topic of liturgical reform and the Seder Avodah. Last, but certainly not least, I thank my two beautiful daughters, Ande and Rachel, for inspiring me daily to do my best and for graciously giving up some precious ‗mother-daughter‘ time so that I could finish this task! And to all who may choose to read this work, please consider the words of the nineteenth century prayer book editor, Rabbi, Dr. Samuel Adler, Be only kind enough to give [me] some credit for sincerity, how different soever [my] ideas may be from yours, and my ways from yours, and be - כל מחלוקת שהיא לשם שמים סופח להתקים ,reminded of the saying of our sages Every discord that is for a holy purpose is destined towards the establishment of something sustaining, (M. Avot 5:17).1 rd The Order of Prayer for Divine Service, 3 – סדר תפילה ,Leo Merzbacher 1 Edition, revised by Samuel Adler (New York: John Medole & Son, 1864), v. iii ABSTRACT THE ACCOMMODATION OF THE YOM KIPPUR SEDER AVODAH: A REVIEW OF ITS DEVELOPMENT INTO THE MODERN PERIOD Rhoda JH Silverman This Dissertation project seeks to establish that the genre of synagogue poetry known as the Seder Avodah remains an open and fluid liturgical rubric in the Jewish prayer book worthy of scholarly attention. The Seder Avodah, a liturgical rubric that includes at its center a verbal re-enactment of the ancient atonement ritual as it played out in the Temple, is recited on Yom Kippur in synagogues of all denominations. Research on the Seder Avodah to date has focused solely on the development of the Avodah genre from the period of the Mishnah (third century) through the appearance of Kolonymus ben ʼAmits Koaḥ). Following) אמיץ כח Meshullam‘s eleventh century Seder Avodah entitled Meshullam‘s work, there was a substantial hiatus in liturgical creativity with regard to the Seder Avodah; however, the nineteenth century witnessed an interest in re-writing and adapting this traditional rubric for the modern synagogue. This interest continued through the twentieth century and into the first decade of the twenty-first century and has allowed for the injection of renewed creativity and innovation into this liturgical gem. This doctoral project provides the first examination of the liturgical development of the Seder Avodah in the modern period. iv TABLE OF CONTENTS Chapter One: Introduction and Literature Review ..............................................................1 Chapter Two: The Non-Canonical Status of the Jewish Prayer Book ..............................18 Chapter Three: The History of the Seder Avodah through the Medieval Period ..............33 Chapter Four: An Era of Reform: The Development of the Seder Avodah in the Nineteenth Century ................................................................................................77 Chapter Five: The Seder Avodah in the Twentieth Century ...........................................113 Chapter Six: The Seder Avodah: Current Practice .........................................................134 Chapter Seven: The Accommodation of the Seder Avodah: Summary and Conclusions ..........................................................................................................169 Appendices Appendix A: Mishnah Yoma................................................................................183 Appendix B: List of High Holiday Prayer Books Reviewed for This Study ......193 Appendix C: The Use of the Yom Kippur Seder Avodah Today – Survey Questions and Summary of Results .........................................................199 Appendix D: Two Unpublished Examples of Contemporary Avodah Texts ......203 Bibliography ....................................................................................................................209 Curriculum Vita ...............................................................................................................227 v 1 Chapter One: Introduction and Literature Review The genre of synagogue poems written for the Avodah service of the Jewish Day of Atonement (i.e., Yom Kippur) provides an enlightening window into the tension between conservation and reform in the process of liturgical development. The Avodah Service (Seder Avodah; Sidrei Avodah, pl.) refers to a liturgical unit recited in the minḥa) in rites that ,מנחה) musaf)2, or in the Afternoon Service ,מוסף) Additional Service omit the Additional Service on Yom Kippur. It contains two primary narratives that are woven together, often along with additional poetic material, into a seamless liturgical unit. These two narratives include: 1) a poetic review of biblical history that begins with creation and continues through the selection of the Aaronic priesthood, and 2) a verbal re- enactment of the atonement ritual performed by the High Priest in the ancient Temple that stood in Jerusalem during the Second Commonwealth. Again, these two central narratives often incorporate additional poetic material which has over time become an expected part of the Avodah genre. For instance, many Sidrei Avodah conclude with both a poetic passage which serves to highlight the splendor of the High Priest and a prayer seeking blessing and prosperity for the upcoming year. Additionally, common to the Avodah genre are introductory texts which work to prepare the congregation for the Seder Avodah. In all cases, the atonement ritual stands at the center. 2 I have used the General Purpose Style of Transliteration as notated by The SBL Handbook (Peabody: Hendrickson Publishers, 1999), 28-29 with one exception: for .(ח) clarity, I use the symbol ḥ for the letter ḥet 2 While there has been a significant amount of scholarship on the development of the Seder Avodah as a liturgical rubric from the Rabbinic period through the medieval period, the apparent absence of critical attention paid to attempts at re-writing and/or adapting the Avodah liturgy for the modern liberal prayer book is striking. Despite Tzvi Malachi‘s qualification, anticipated by Meir Ydit in his Encyclopedia Judaica entry on the Avodah, that save for one outstanding Seder Avodah by nineteenth century Italian scholar Samuel David Luzzatto,3 new Seder Avodah compositions ceased to appear after the twelfth century,4 ample evidence supports ongoing creativity within this liturgical genre throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Eric Friedland, for instance, in his study of non-Orthodox liturgies that appear in the nineteenth century, identifies a number of Avodah compositions written and/or adapted by, among others, such prominent ninteenth century liturgists as Isaac M. Wise, David Einhorn, and Leo Merzbacher.5 The 1948 High Holiday prayer book of the Reconstructionist movement contains an innovative reworking of the Seder Avodah that Samuel David Luzzatto lived ,(שד"ל) Often referred to by the acronym Shadal 3 during the first half of the nineteenth century (1800-1865)
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