Yanai (Payetan)

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Yannai (

payyetan who lived in the late fifth-early sixth century in the Galilee in Israel (Byzantine-Palestina Syria). Sometimes referred to as the "father of piyyut," his poetry marks the beginning of the Classical Period of piyyut that ranged from the fifth-eighth centuries.[1] He was the first poet of piyyut to sign his name in an acrostic, to use end-rhyme, and to write for weekly services (not just for the High Holidays and particular festivals). According to Laura Lieber, the liturgical form most associated with Yannai is the qedushta, which embellishes the first 3 blessing of the Amidah (a part of the Jewish prayer service).[2]

Although Yannai was renowned and influential during his time (he influenced the poet

Cairo Genizah. Medieval rabbi Ephraim of Bonn records a story in which Yannai became jealous of the great success of his student Eleazar ben Kalir, and killed him by hiding a scorpion in his sandal, and for this reason Yannai's piyyutim are not recited in prayers.[3] However, Ephraim himself cast doubt on the reliability of the story.[4]
Modern scholarship does not accept the historicity of the story, due to both chronological considerations, and the fact that Yannai was praised by many later figures.

In terms of textual editions, in the early twentieth century, Mahzor Yannai and Menahem Zulay's "Liturgical Poems of Yannai" were published. Z.M. Rabinowitz's critical edition of Yannai has become the foundation for contemporary studies of the text. Recently, Laura Lieber's critical translation and study of Yannai's poems has opened Yannai's poems up for study to scholars working more broadly on ancient Judaism, Christian liturgy, late antiquity, and early Byzantine history.[2]

It is speculated that he may have composed the famous

Unettaneh Tokef prayer. In 1938, Zulay published poems of Yannai collected from Geniza fragments.[5]

The following are a few example of his piyyutim:

Yannai, like his predecessor

Kalir
, who is said to have been Yannai's pupil.

References

  1. ^ For an examination of the complexities in dating piyyut, see: Laura Lieber, “‘You Have Skirted This Hill Long Enough’: The Tension between Rhetoric and History in a Byzantine Piyyut,” Hebrew Union College Annual 80 (2009): 63–114.
  2. ^ a b Laura Lieber, Yannai on Genesis: An Invitation to Piyyut (Cincinnati: Hebrew Union College Press, 2010)
  3. ^ Adina Hoffman & Peter Cole, Sacred Trash : the lost and found world of the Cairo Geniza, Page 103.
  4. Shadal
    , Mevo leMachzor Bnei Roma
  5. ^ Zulay, Menahem; Piyyute Yannai: Liturgical Poems of Yannai / Collected from Geniza-Manuscripts and Other Sources (Publications of the Research I Berlin Shocken 1938

 This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Gotthard Deutsch; H. Brody (1901–1906). "Yannai". In Singer, Isidore; et al. (eds.). The Jewish Encyclopedia. New York: Funk & Wagnalls. Its bibliography:

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