This article is about the genre of liturgical poetry inserted into the Seven-Faceted Blessing. For the blessing itself, see
Seven-Faceted_Blessing
.
Magen Avot
is a
genre
of
piyyut
designed to be inserted into the blessing
Berakha A?at Me‘en Sheva‘
in the Jewish liturgy for Friday evening, right before the words “Magen avot bidvaro” (“He shielded the patriarchs with His word”), from which the name of the genre is taken.
[1]
High Medieval Europe
[
edit
]
This genre, unlike most genres of piyyut, does not go back to
late antique
Palestine
, but rather to
high medieval
Europe
. The first known author to write a poem in this genre was
Joseph Kimhi
, who was born in Muslim Spain, but spent his later life in
Narbonne
,
Provence
.
[2]
Kimhi wrote two piyyutim to embellish this prayer: the first one, “Yom Shabbat Zakhor” (??? ??? ????), is intended to be recited before the beginning of the standard liturgical paragraph “Magen Avot”, and every line ends in the syllable "-hu", to rhyme with the end of the first sentence of “Magen Avot” (
ha-’el ha-qadosh she-’en kamo
hu
);
[3]
the second one, “Yom Shabbat Shamor”, is intended to be recited before the second line of the standard paragraph ("He gives rest to His people on His holy Sabbath day, for He desired them, to give rest to them"), and every line ends in the syllables "-lehem", to rhyme with the end of that second line in the standard paragraph, (
ki vam ra?a le-hania?
lahem
).
[4]
These two poems of Joseph Kimhi had very different fates; “Yom Shabbat Zakhor” became quite popular, and appears in a number of manuscripts; the first two lines even made it into printed rites, and are recited even today in some synagogues of the Western Ashkenazic Rite on the evening of the Festival of
Shavu‘ot
that falls on the Sabbath.
[5]
Though Joseph Kimhi was in Provence, the genre really became popular only in Germany. In the late 13th century,
Samuel Devlin
of
Erfurt
wrote a Magen Avot poem “Shipperam Ram Be-ru?o” (???? ?? ?????), following the style of “Yom Shabbat Zakhor”, and intended to be inserted in the same place in the liturgy.
[6]
Like Kimhi's poems, this one is about the Sabbath in general. Later German poets wrote piyyutim of this general specifically for special Sabbaths, and Sabbaths that fell on holidays; these poems speak not only about the Sabbath, but also about the specific themes of the given holiday. The twentieth-century scholar
Ezra Fleischer
collected, from Ashkenazic manuscripts, no fewer than eighteen such poems, by various poets, for occasions throughout the year, such as: a Sabbath that falls on
Rosh Chodesh
, or
Hanukkah
, or
Rosh Hashana
, or
Shabbat Na?amu
; and lifecycle events, such as a Sabbath on which a
wedding
or
circumcision
is being celebrated in the community.
[7]
In all of these, every line ends with the rhyming syllable "-hu", just as in “Yom Shabbat Zakhor”.
References
[
edit
]
- ^
Ezra Fleischer,
Hebrew Liturgical Poetry in the Middle Ages
(Hebrew:
Shirat Ha-qodesh Ha-‘ivrit Bime Ha-benayim
), Keter Publishing House: Jerusalem, 1975. P. 467.
- ^
Ezra Fleischer, "Poetic Embellishments of the Prayer ‘Magen Avot’ " (
Hebrew
:
?????? ???? ?????? ??? ????
;
Tarbi?
45 (1976-7), issue 1-2), p. 90.
- ^
Fleischer, "Poetic Embellishments", p. 92.
- ^
Fleischer, "Poetic Embellishments", p. 94.
- ^
See Wolf Heidenheim, ed.,
Ma?zor for the Festival of Shavu‘ot
(Hebrew: ????? ??? ???????), Rodelheim 1831; folio 77a; available online at:
http://hebrewbooks.org/pdfpager.aspx?req=43202&st=&pgnum=218
.
- ^
Fleischer, "Poetic Embellishments", 95 f.
- ^
Fleischer, Poetic Embellishments, pp. 97-104