THE NEW-HEBREW PIYUT
Kalirian and Spanish Piyutim (Poems).--Jannai.--Kalir.
Arabic to a large extent replaced Hebrew as the literary language of the
Jews, but Hebrew continued the language of prayer. As a mere literary
form, Rabbinic Hebrew retained a strong hold on the Jews; as a vehicle
of devotional feeling, Hebrew reigned supreme. The earliest additions to
the fixed liturgy of the Synagogue were prose-poems. They were
"Occasional Prayers" composed by the precentor for a special occasion.
An appropriate melody or chant accompanied the new hymn, and if the poem
and melody met the popular taste, both won a permanent place in the
local liturgy. The hymns were unrhymed and unmetrical, but they may have
been written in the form of alphabetical acrostics, such as appear in
the 119th and a few other Psalms.
It is not impossible that metre and rhyme grew naturally from the
Biblical Hebrew. Rhyme is unknown in the Bible, but the assonances which
occur may easily run into rhymes. Musical form is certainly present in
Hebrew poetry, though strict metres are foreign to it. As an historical
fact, however, Hebrew rhymed verse can be traced on the one side to
Syriac, on the other to Arabic influences. In the latter case the
influence was external only. Early Arabic poetry treats of war and love,
but the first Jewish rhymsters sang of peace and duty. The Arab wrote
for the camp, the Jew for the synagogue.
Two distinct types of verse, or _Piyut_ (i.e. Poetry), arose within the
Jewish circle: the ingenious and the natural. In the former, the style
is rugged and involved; a profusion of rare words and obscure allusions
meets and troubles the reader; the verse lacks all beauty of form, yet
is alive with intense spiritual force. This style is often termed
Kalirian, from the name of its best representative. The Kalirian Piyut
in the end spread chiefly to France, England, Burgundy, Lorraine,
Germany, Bohemia, Poland, Italy, Greece, and Palestine. The other type
of new-Hebrew Piyut, the Spanish, rises to higher beauties of form. It
is not free from the Kalirian faults, but it has them in a less
pronounced degree. The Spanish Piyut, in the hands of one or two
masters, becomes true poetry, poetry in form as well as in idea. The
Spanish style prevailed in Castile, Andalusia, Catalonia, Aragon,
Majorca, Provence, and in countries where Arabic influence was
strongest.
Kalir was the most popular writer of the earlier type of new-Hebrew
poetry, but he was not its creator. An older contemporary of his, from
whom he derived both his diction and his method of treating poetic
subjects, was Jannai. Though we know that Jannai was a prolific writer,
only seven short examples of his verse remain. One of these is the
popular hymn, "It was at Midnight," which is still recited by "German"
Jews at the home-service on the first eve of Passover. It recounts in
order the deliverances which, according to the Midrash, were wrought for
Israel at midnight, from Abraham's victory over the four kings to the
wakefulness of Ahasuerus, the crisis of the Book of Esther. In the last
stanza is a prayer for future redemption:
Bring nigh the hour which is nor day nor night!
Most High! make known that thine is day, and
thine the night!
Make clear as day the darkness of our night!
As of old at midnight.
This form of versification, with a running refrain, afterwards became
very popular with Jewish poets. Jannai also displays the harsh
alliterations, the learned allusions to Midrash and Talmud, which were
carried to extremes by Kalir.
It is strange that it is impossible to fix with any certainty the date
at which Jannai and Kalir lived. Kalir may belong to the eighth or to
the ninth century. It is equally hard to decide as to his birth-place.
Rival theories hold that he was born in Palestine and in Sardinia. His
name has been derived from Cagliari in Sardinia and from the Latin
_calyrum_, a cake. Honey-cakes were given to Jewish children on their
first introduction to school, and the nickname "Kaliri," or "Boy of the
Cake," may have arisen from his youthful precocity. But all this is mere
guess-work.
It is more certain that the poet was also the singer of his own verses.
His earliest audiences were probably scholars, and this may have tempted
Kalir to indulge in the recondite learning which vitiates his hymns. At
his worst, Kalir is very bad indeed; his style is then a jumble of
words, his meaning obscure and even unintelligible. He uses a maze of
alphabetical acrostics, line by line he wreathes into his compositions
the words of successive Bible texts. Yet even at his worst he is
ingenious and vigorous. Such phrases as "to hawk it as a hawk upon a
sparrow" are at least bold and effective. Ibn Ezra later on lamented
that Kalir had treated the Hebrew language like an unfenced city. But if
the poet too freely admitted strange and ugly words, he added many of
considerable force and beauty. Kalir rightly felt that if Hebrew was to
remain a living tongue, it was absurd to restrict the language to the
vocabulary of the Bible. Hence he invented many new verbs from nouns.
But his inventiveness was less marked than his learning. "With the
permission of God, I will speak in riddles," says Kalir in opening the
prayer for dew. The riddles are mainly clever allusions to the Midrash.
It has been pointed out that these allusions are often tasteless and
obscure. But they are more often beautiful and inspiring. No Hebrew
poet in the Middle Ages was illiterate, for the poetic instinct was fed
on the fancies of the Midrash. This accounts for their lack of freshness
and originality. The poet was a scholar, and he was also a teacher. Much
of Kalir's work is didactic; it teaches the traditional explanations of
the Bible and the ritual laws for Sabbath and festivals; it provides a
convenient summary of the six hundred and thirteen precepts into which
the duties of the Law were arranged. But over and above all this the
genius of Kalir soars to poetic heights. So much has been said of
Kalir's obscurity that one quotation must, in fairness be given of Kalir
at his simplest and best. The passage is taken from a hymn sung on the
seventh day of Tabernacles, the day of the great Hosannas:
O give ear to the prayer of those who long for thy
salvation,
Rejoicing before thee with the willows of the brook,
And save us now!
O redeem the vineyard which thou hast planted,
And sweep thence the strangers, and save us now!
O regard the covenant which thou hast sealed in us!
O remember for us the father who knew thee,
To whom thou, too, didst make known thy love,
And save us now!
O deal wondrously with the pure in heart
That thy providence may be seen of men, and save us now!
O lift up Zion's sunken gates from the earth,
Exalt the spot to which our eyes all turn,
And save us now!
Such hymns won for Kalir popularity, which, however, is now much on the
wane.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
KALIR AND JANNAI.
Graetz.--III, 4.
Translations of Poems in Editions of the Prayer-Book, and _J.Q.R._,
VII, p. 460; IX, p. 291.
L.N. Dembitz,--_Jewish Services_, p. 222 _seq._