A major influence on the development of rabbinic liturgical custom after the destruction of the Temple was the need to establish that this innovative worship of the heart was as acceptable to God as biblically prescribed sacrificial worship. Later Jewish communities and their leaders continually refined the details of the system they inherited to reflect their changing understandings of acceptable; meaningful; and constructive worship. These understandings have in turn been shaped not only by liturgical halakhah and active custom; but by new intellectual and social currents and by the vicissitudes of Jewish history. Ruth Langer uses the tools of historical scholarship and anthropological study of ritual to analyze some of the dynamics that have shaped Jewish liturgical law and determined the broader outlines of the prayer life of the Jews. After a consideration of the talmudic issues upon which the acceptability of prayer depends; she offers a basic list of legal principles derived by later generations from talmudic literature to ensure that prayer takes the form of blessings composed according to a very specific pattern and invoking God in a very precise way. She then investigates the development and implementation of the corollary that invoking this blessing formula in ways that deviate from the specific directions of the Talmud constitutes precisely inefficacious and even dangerous prayer. Questions about appropriate prayer language go beyond the blessing formula to the contents of the prayers themselves. Langer analyzes the battles fought over the legitimacy of inserting liturgical poetry into the fixed texts of the statutory liturgy and over the requirement of community for the proper recitation of certain prayers; specifically those that include the angelic liturgy. Although in each of these controversies the rabbis compromised by reinterpreting either legal theory or custom—or both—to bring them into harmony; their solutions have never been monolithic or simple. In its lucid illumination of those complexities; To Worship God Properly adds to our understanding of the history of Jewish liturgy and the general history of rabbinic leadership and law.
#2701392 in Books 2000-08-11Original language:EnglishPDF # 1 9.00 x 1.10 x 6.00l; 1.41 #File Name: 087580263X299 pages
Review
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful. Fascinating Illinois HistoryBy CaseyThis is a well-written book about the early days of Illinois history. So much Illinois history focuses on the Civil War to modern times; but this book explains antebellum Illinois. I have been researching the years before the Civil War since the issue of slavery was a contentious part of American history long before the Civil War. I heard about this book in a bibliography and I was interested because I am a multi-generational Illinoisan. My parents and my grandparents; and even a number of my great-grandparents were life-long Illinois residents. My paternal grandparents were from southern Illinois. I grew-up near Chicago; but I had many relatives in the southern part of the state and visited there often.The state of Illinois is really two worlds; in that Southern Illinois is very different culturally than northern Illinois. This was more obvious in the past. I knew that there were southern sympathies in pre-Civil War Illinois; but this book explained that there was an active pro-slavery movement in the early days of the state and there was a push to make Illinois a slave state when it joined the Union in 1818. This book explains the culture and the politics that helped shape Illinois and is also representative of the border areas of many states in antebellum America. If you love American history you will like this book.6 of 6 people found the following review helpful. A welcome contribution to 19th century American historyBy Midwest Book ReviewIt was during the 1820s that Illinois experienced one of the earliest and most important battles between the slavery and anti-slavery forces that unleashed riots; arson; and mob violence across the state -- and that would eventually culminate in the American Civil War. James Simeone's supports his contention that the contest over slavery in Illinois prefigured the course of national politics that would lead to four racking years of war with meticulous and scholarly research; revealing and documenting the complexity of the slave problem in fragile American republic. In attempting to bring slavery to a free state; white migrants from southern states hoped to create a "Bottomland Republic" of free and equal white yeoman farmers who could own slaves on the basis of popular sovereignty. Abolitionists allied themselves with the governing class of "aristocrats" against the upstart; pro-slavery migrants in a struggle that would alter the state's political culture and foreshadow the Democratic-Whig cleavage in antebellum politics. Democracy And Slavery In Frontier Illinois: The Bottomland Republic is an impressive and very welcome contribution to 19th century American history in general; and the neophyte struggles between pro- and anti-slavery forces on the Midwestern frontier in particular.
