Poetry and Contemporary Prayer Practice

Session Submission Type: Roundtable

Abstract

Meditating on the place of poetry in contemporary prayer, Elie Wiesel proclaims: “Jewish poetry suffuses prayer and is suffused by it.” This view presumes that the boundary between poetry and prayer is wonderfully porous and uncontested. Indeed the current predilection for incorporating poetry into SIDDURIM, so as to to revitalize or “renew” a liturgy that seems antiquated or remote, happily trades on this perspective.
Still this perspective has been the subject of long dispute. In the eleventh century, for example, Maimonides launched a particularly sharp attack on how prayer-poems (PIYYUTIM) could distract the would be worshipper, leading to chitchat and other sorts of “light headed” behaviors. This position seems to assume that poetry and prayer are categorically distinct; wholly different kinds of utterances with divergent strategies and objectives.
The distance between these two positions constitutes a rich space that our roundtable will explore. While scholars such as David Jacobson CREATOR< ARE YOU LISTENING?) Avi Sagi (PETUZAI TEFILA) have demonstrated how contemporary Hebrew poetry, typically blurs the boundary between the secular and the sacred, neither study addresses the potential and actual use of these materials in contemporary prayer practices and liturgies.
This roundtable brings together scholars of Hebrew and American poetry and experts in liturgy and rabbinics to engage in an interdisciplinary inquiry especially central to those liberal denominations which pointedly include poems that are not part of traditional liturgy. Aryeh Cohen, Professor of Rabbinics (American Jewish University) brings the perspective of both a scholar and paytan interested in exploring how piyyutim function in religio/political settings. Haim Rechnitzer, (Modern Jewish Thought, HUC ) raises important questions about the role of Hassidic thought in modern Hebrew verse. Wendy Zieler (Modern Jewish Literature, HUC) takes an ethnographic approach to our subject, examining contemporary siddurim (Israeli and American) in the interest of discovering more about the nature of these poetic interpolations. Finally, Maeera Shreiber (Jewish and American Literature,University of Utah), asks: how does poetry enhance our understanding of Jewish liturgy and how does liturgy challenge our understanding of the poetic? Rachel Adler (Modern Jewish Thought, HUC) will serve as moderator.

Sub Unit

• Modern Jewish Thought and Theology

Moderator

• Rachel Rubin Adler, Hebrew Union College - Jewish Institute of Religion

Discussants

• Wendy Ilene Zierler, Hebrew Union College - Jewish Institute of Religion

• Haim Otto Rechnitzer, Hebrew Union College - Jewish Institute of Religion

• Maeera Shreiber, University of Utah

• Aryeh Cohen, American Jewish University