Concepts of Scripture in the Synagogue Service 29the parashah and the haft arah represented the most concentrated presence
of scripture in the service, the genres of homily and piyyut extended the
footprint of the weekly lectionary beyond the boundaries of the recitation
itself into liturgical and pedagogical discourses as well.
Notes- Th e combined factors of restricted literacy, scarcity of texts, and limited un-
derstanding of Hebrew would have signifi cantly limited the number of Jews who
encountered biblical texts, in their original language, through reading. While edu-
cated men would have had the necessary literacy, Hebrew fl uency, and access to
allow them to read biblical texts, most women and many men would not. - Josephus, Against Apion, 2.2.17; Acts 15:21.
- M. Meg. 3:4 – 4:10.
- For a detailed description of the development of the ritual, see Ismar Elbo-
gen, Jewish Liturgy: A Comprehensive History, trans. R. Scheindlin (Philadelphia:
Jewish Publication Society, 1993), 129 – 64. - T. Meg. 3:10 mandates an alternative system in which each reading, includ-
ing the weekday readings, picks up where the previous one left off. - In late antiquity, there were two systems for reading the Torah. In the system
that was dominant in Palestine, the entire Torah was read over the course of about
three and a half years. In Babylonia, the entire Torah was recited in the course of a
single year. Some contemporary, non-Orthodox communities have revived a varia-
tion of this tradition. - For a more detailed history of the development of the lectionary cycle, see
Elbogen, Jewish Liturgy, 129 – 51. - By the time the Mishnah was redacted, the Jewish temples in Jerusalem had
been destroyed. Th e destruction of the Second Temple in 70 CE marked the end of
the sacrifi cial cult and also made obsolete most of the laws of purity that constitute
much of Leviticus. In addition, the other legal material in the Torah was largely
obsolete because rabbinic law primarily follows the Mishnah and the Talmuds, not
the biblical sources. - Th e blessing that immediately precedes the recitation of the shema in the
statutory liturgy and the rabbinic interpretations of the Song of Songs contained in
Song of Songs Rabbah provide examples of this tendency. - For a more detailed discussion of these strategies, see Elsie Stern, From Re-
buke to Consolation : Exegesis and Th eology in the Liturgical Anthology of the Ninth
of Av Season (Providence, RI: Brown Judaic Studies, 2004), 24 – 28. For analyses of
the way these strategies function in any given week of the lectionary, see Michael
Fishbane, Th e JPS Bible Commentary: Haft arot (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication
Society, 2002).