On the Boundaries of Talmudic Prayer

Download or read book On the Boundaries of Talmudic Prayer written by Yehuda Septimus and published by Mohr Siebeck. This book was released on 2015-05-28 with total page 388 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The English term "prayer" is usually understood as communication with God or the gods. Scholars of Jewish ritual until now have accepted this characterization and applied it to Jewish tefillah. Does rabbinic prayer indeed necessarily entail second-person address to God, as many scholars of rabbinic prayer to this point have presumed? In this work, Yehuda Septimus investigates a boundary phenomenon of talmudic prayer - ritual speech with addressees other than God. The book represents a fresh look at the possible range of performances undertaken by talmudic ritual prayer. Moreover, it places that range of performances into the historical context of the rapid emergence of prayer as the centerpiece of Jewish worship in the first half of the first millennium CE.