in the last couple of videos we spent a lot of time talking about how jews were acted upon by
larger forces the state and the church and so on but i don't want to give you the impression
that they're just you know passively accepting whatever is coming to them from the outside
the jews are also very creative at this period in time as well and so let's just take a few
minutes to see one area where their creativity is especially prominent and that is in the
institution of the synagogue here's an interesting looking map of the synagogues in the ancient world
specifically looking at the first and the second century if you have a look at the legend there
on the left you can see that the blue dots refer to literary references to old synagogues and the
the green circles are papyri and then you've got inscriptions like stone inscriptions and
finally the stars are archaeological evidence of these synagogues now they're not including here
these synagogues in israel of course there are quite a few in the land of israel itself but the
main concentrations are in the uh the nile delta in egypt uh you've also got quite a few in asia
minor the italian peninsula a few of them up on the black sea littoral which is really interesting
and then one that we'll look at in a little bit more detail in a second dura europos which is way
over here on the right a fascinating synagogue and so synagogues are extremely important institution
for jews especially after the temple is destroyed in the first century especially when they're a
minority living away from large jewish population centers the synagogue is their locus for formal
communal ritual activity specifically religious worship and they had to like kind of articulate
that what exactly does religious worship look like when you don't have the ritual sacrifice
associated with the temple synagogues did predate the destruction of the temple so in other words
jews seem to want to create these institutions where they could get together
for communal prayer there's a lot of fascinating discussion in the mishnah and in the talmud in the
midrash that describes the evolution of the prayer service and what connects to what and the you know
references to the patriarchs and fascinating kinds of things like that but we should understand that
the synagogue the word itself by the way is greek meaning place of gathering is effectively a jewish
community center a jcc for a minority population and it would fulfill all kinds of different
functions not just religious but it would be a place of gathering for discussing communal
affairs for adjudicating disputes you know all kinds of things um the basics of the service
that is familiar to synagogue goers today took centuries to evolve and if you look at the prayer
book that's really a an archaeological textual representation of the wanderings of the jews
and diaspora as well with core elements that go back to israel and then other elements and other
prayers that were added in many different iterations throughout their long history
one of the things that i find especially fascinating is that women are remarkably well
represented in the sources that we have professor tal ilan wrote a really interesting article in the
cambridge history of judaism volume four uh have a look in the uh in the notes and i'll give you a
reference to that in that of the synagogues where we know there are lists of donors you know like
this is something in contemporary synagogues as well you'll have like a plaque here and a plaque
there and you'll have a plaque on top of a plaque everyone who gives anything to the synagogue is
recognized in some kind of public way so looking at these ancient inscriptions that have survived
one third of the names of donors to the synagogue or women in some cases they're mentioned in
leadership positions as well so that's a really fascinating statistic and i wish we knew more
about that but maybe we'll get back to it later on in this series at any rate the synagogue is
forming as a major locus of jewish activity and innovations are replicated across europe and
let's look at two of them in particular here is a beautiful wall painting from dura europos that
remarkable synagogue was so well preserved this is actually a representation of elements in the
story of the book of esther you can see there's mordechai on the left on a horse he's being walked
along by amman i think it's fascinating at any rate um the kind of things that that are going
on in the synagogue at this time they're they're still trying to work out for example public torah
reading is obviously something very important uh even the prophet ezra had mandated the
reading of the torah on a regular basis but how exactly is that done how exactly is it broken up
one of the major distinctions that we have at this time is that israel tended to prefer a triennial
torah reading meaning that the first five books of moses were completed only once every three years
which meant there was a much shorter amount of time actually dedicated to reenadora
whereas in the diaspora an annual reading which is pretty much the norm nowadays uh was preferred and
this made for a lot of interesting gaps in the prayer service how long was the prayer service
what other things would people say or do in the prayer service and so on
and one of the most fascinating elements related to this is the institution of the uh i guess the
modern term would be drasha or sermon it's not the term that was used in the ancient period but
it finds its textual expression in the creation of agadic midrash so we spoke about midrash
a while back in this series midrash are basically kind of like poetic teachings on biblical passages
some of which have halachic ramifications meaning they are used to determine behavior
uh in a concrete and kind of legal sense uh and there's much more that is egotic in
nature meaning that is homiletical that you know does not necessarily have to be taken
absolutely literally but should certainly be taken very seriously it's not uncommon to have midrashic
interpretations as the torah itself is reputed to have 70 different interpretations meaning
an infinite number of interpretations maybe not infinite but a lot of them anyways the
agatic midrash or legendary midrash can go in many different directions even contradictory directions
and the collections of these midrashim which are tied to their utility in the synagogue service is
especially pronounced at this period of time this is when we begin to see the textual versions of
books like genesis rabba for example boris rabba which is now widely studied as a source of these
kinds of midrashic teachings again the oral tradition that supports these midrashim is
much older than late antiquity but they begin to coalesce in a written format around this time
we also see the promulgation of targum targum literally means translation
and this is the rendering of the text into a foreign language most specifically most
commonly aramaic because particularly in the eastern mediterranean the jewish populations
are speaking aramaic and having the torah read in hebrew although it's a closely related language
they don't have a precise understanding of what's going on so it was very common to have the torah
reader actually read the text in hebrew and have a mature gaman a translator standing next to him
it would be a hymn repeating it in aramaic translation this is still practiced by the way
in the yemenite custom so the the several targumim were composed perhaps the most famous is that of
uncles which is traditionally printed in the uh the standard editions of the torah the homash
but there are several other targumi especially of other parts of the bible
that were circulating and were widely used at this time but it gives you a sense of how the synagogue
is evolving what do we do in the synagogue what do we say when do we say it how long does it take
what do we add and so on one last detail and i know i'm going through this very quickly i wish
i could spend more time on this the development of something called piot which is probably best
translated as liturgical poetry this era sees an effervescence of an attempt to um you know kind of
encapsulate the prayer uh specifically the fixed prayers that we we have already had
pre-existingness periods such as the shmona esre the amida to restate them in poetic language
as an artistic endeavor something that would appeal to the literary and aesthetic sensibilities
of the synagogue goers or as amplifications of prayer like longer discourses on events that
are described with very sparse language in the biblical text but expanded upon in an imaginary
and artistic manner this is a fascinating period where we have more and more of these
paitanim of these poets creating liturgical innovations that many of which are preserved
even to this present day the institution of pete of course would reach its apotheosis
i love that word in the uh gaonic period which is uh several hundred years distant but this is
the period of time in the initial development of the the synagogue ritual as we understand it today
that becomes a very important part of that process uh the image by the way that we're
looking at is a mosaic very common motif in uh synagogue art from the beit alpha synagogue that
was discovered in northern israel okay that's just a very quick look at some of the creativity
that's going on in the jewish population at this time i hope you found it interesting and
we're going to go to spain in the next series of lectures thank you very much for watching