Review of Lieber, Yannai on Genesis

BOOK REVIEW:

Laura S. Lieber. Yannai on Genesis: An Invitation to Piyyut. Cincinnati: Hebrew Union College Press, 2010. 500 pp. $59.50 (cloth), ISBN 978-0-87820-464-9.

Reviewed by Debra Blank (Brandeis University)
Published on H-Judaic (April, 2011)
Commissioned by Jason Kalman

Required Reading for All of Us
Once in a while, not often enough, a book comes out that represents a tectonic shift in its field as well as others. This volume is such a book, and after six months of perusing it, I remain impressed by the author’s erudition, creativity, and contribution not only to piyyut studies, but also to Jewish, Hebrew, and Byzantine studies in general.

The study of piyyut is enjoying a boom, thanks mostly to the increasing accessibility of Genizah material. This has in turn vastly deepened our understanding of liturgical history, synagogue life, and the wider Byzantine Jewish culture. However, familiarity with piyyut has not spread much beyond a niche of cognoscenti, because the secondary literature has been mostly written in Hebrew and the poems are usually regarded as impenetrable. Popular association of piyyutim with lengthy, boring synagogue services probably exacerbates the disinterest. Thus undergraduate and MA Jewish studies students and their instructors (in the North American world at least), not to mention clergy and laity, remain largely ignorant of this literary and liturgical phenomenon and its implications.

The fact that piyyutim tend toward the abstruse is no defense for this ignorance, because mystical texts are no less so, and that field is enjoying great popularity, aided by a large English-language library. In fact, once past the hurdles of Hebrew language and formulaic allusions, many piyyutim are readily accessible for the learned layperson or student. People just need to be shown how these poems work.

In only one example of its refreshing quality, Laura S. Lieber’s book forthrightly acknowledges and explains the ignorance of piyyut. Then she argues for its relevance to a broad swath of other fields, including literature, Byzantine worship (not just Jewish), and ritual studies--to name only a few. As such, this book is a long-needed English-language introduction to piyyut and should be required reading for introductory courses in Jewish studies, graduate students, Jewish clergy and educators, and Judaica academics, as well as the cognoscenti.

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