Origins of Hebrew Liturgical Rhetoric and Poetics: Magic, Midrash and Merkavah Mysticism

This book follows the origins of the Kedushta, a sequence of poems that leads up to the epitome of Jewish prayer, the Kedusha or Sanctus. It tracks back the earliest forms of prayer in late antiquity and by doing so defines the main characteristics of this genre, both from the standpoint of Rhetoric and poetics. This genre draws from Midrash and Mysticism- adjacent literary forms that influence liturgical poetry.

How has such an enigmatic and complex liturgical genre survived the twists an...