JUDAIZATION 267stood them? But thepiyyutwas not simply read: it was performed, probably
almost always sung, sometimes with choral accompaniment, as part of the
larger performance that constituted the synagogue service as a whole.^70 We
must not forget that the synagogue service was, among other things, entertain-
ment,^71 a commodity always hard to come by in antiquity, and all the more
so in the fifth and sixth centuries, when rhetorical, theatrical, and athletic
performances were no longer available, and even horse racing was coming
under increasing attack .Thepiyyutand the sermon (and there is no reason
to see them as mutually exclusive), as well as their Christian counterparts,
were the functional equivalents of the sophistic performance, and we have no
more grounds for thinking that thepiyyutwas generally fully understood than
that most of Libanius’s audience grasped the dense webs of classical allusion
that constitute his speeches.
The real reception of thepiyyutmust have been complex .There must have
been in every large Jewish settlement, and more so in places like Tiberias,
with its long tradition of rabbinic study, small numbers of highly learned men
who really could grasp the allusions of a poet like Yannai; for such people,
indeed, the enigmatic character of the songs must have provided much of the
pleasure to be derived from them .Perhaps Fleischer was right to suppose that
thepiyyutoriginated in synagogues connected with rabbinic academies .If we
may trust Jerome, and the implications of rabbinic literature, Jewish primary
education in late antiquity consisted in part of memorization of the Bible.^72
People with such an education constituted a larger part of thepiyyut’saudi-
ence, and such people, provided they remembered something of what they
had learned, may have understood some of the poetry, especially the simpler
sections analyzed by Elitzur .But probably most of the audience had little or
no education and only a poor grasp of Hebrew, which was no longer spoken.^73
Such people may naturally have had little control over the employment of a
payyetanin their synagogue, but to the extent that they considered the payye-
tanic performance more than merely tolerable, they may have regarded the
musical elements of the performance as primary, or have responded, no less
than their wealthier and more educated fellow congregants, to the atmosphere
of numinous mystification surrounding thepiyyut, which was an important
aspect of its performance .We should, however, acknowledge the important
(^70) Fleischer,Shirat Haqodesh, pp .134–36 .Fleischer notes that the evidence for extensive use
of choirs begins with Qiliri, probably at the very end of our period.
(^71) Cf .Fleischer,Shirat Haqodesh, p .51 .Note also the account, from a medieval genizah
document, cited by Rabinowitz,Liturgical Poems, p .74, mentioned here for the sake of illustra-
tion: one Yom Kippur, a cantor from Damascus performed apiyyutcomposed by the great philos-
opher and poet Ibn Gabirol in such a stirring manner that when he finished the crowd shouted,
“Encore! Encore!” The cantor, according to his own account, was then inspired by God to impro-
vise additional stanzas—this at a time when liturgical improvisation was no longer practiced.
(^72) See S .Krauss, “The Jews in the Works of the Church Fathers,”JQR6 (1894): 231–33.
(^73) See S .Schwartz, “Language, Power, and Identity,” pp .12–9.