JUDAIZATION 243to act also as translator: “just as the Torah was given through an intermediary,
so it must also be read through an intermediary.” This is why, also, the rabbis
were less concerned (not to say unconcerned) about the text’s comprehensibil-
ity than about the correct performance of the rite .When Rabbi Simeon, the
safar(i.e., probably schoolteacher but also general religious functionary) of
Tarbenet, was asked by the villagers to read half verses of the Torah in the
synagogue, rather than full verses, in order to help the children understand,
he refused, with the approval of the rabbis, and so was dismissed (Y .Megillah
4:5, 75b, and see above).
This story once again reminds us not to be too quick to assume that rabbinic
practices were universally followed .Even in this Talmudic tale, the villagers
are obviously not committed to the rabbinic practice of Torah reading, and
we have no way of knowing how the Torah reading was performed where
targumwas not practiced .But in synagogues with fixed shrines, raised plat-
forms in front of them, and chancel screens, we can be fairly certain that it
wasperformed.
We may also note here, while reserving detailed discussion for later, one of
the most striking characteristics of the novel liturgical poetry of the sixth cen-
tury, thepiyyut .In the liturgically central part of the payyetanic performance,
theqerovah(i.e., the versified version of thetefillahoramidah)—complex
and allusive manipulation of the week’s Torah lection has replaced all other
concerns .To put it differently, in theqerovahthe Torah reading has en-
croached on and almost overwhelmed the rest of the liturgy.
The Emergence of a Jewish Iconography^8
Every ancient synagogue that has come to light, provided its remains are suf-
ficiently extensive, was more or less elaborately decorated, whether primarily
on its facade or within.^9 The fragments of painted plaster that have been found
in some excavations remind us that though they do not survive, in some syna-
gogues walls and ceilings, not just pavements, may have been decorated .The
famous painted synagogue of Dura Europos may thus have had counterparts
in Palestine .Though some of the surviving decoration resists even the most
elementary interpretive efforts (what are we to make of Odysseus on the floor
(^8) This section appears in a slightly different version as “On the Program and Reception of the
Synagogues Mosaics,” in L .Levine and Z .Weiss, eds .,From Dura to Sepphoris: Studies in Jewish
Art and Society in Late Antiquity(JRA suppl .40, 2000) pp .165–81; for a different approach, see
Levine,Ancient Synagogue, pp .561–79.
(^9) For a full survey, see Hachlili,Ancient Jewish Art, pp .234–365; as a collection of material
and formalistic observations, this work is unsurpassed .In her interpretations, though, she follows
the Avi-Yonah school.