Since Amnon died in the name of Kedushat hashem (“the sanctification of the Name”), the Hebrew term for martyrdom, due to his refusal to apostatize by converting to Christianity, Unetaneh Tokef became associated with Kedushah and his own martyrdom. Amnon is credited with instituting (תיקן, tiqein) not composing it. Amnon recited Unetaneh Tokef as he was dying. Ephraim of Bonn, which chronicled the Second Crusade of 1146, and tells how R. Moshe of Vienna (1189–1250) cites Sefer Zekhirah of R. Given that Unetaneh Tokef has ostensibly nothing to do with Kedushah, its placement here may be due to the likely apocryphal story of martyrdom of an alleged R. The Silluq gains its meaning from our ascension to the place of God and the angels in this prayer. Unetaneh Tokef serves as a Silluq “Ascent,” a poem that introduces the Kedushah “Holiness” blessing. In trepidation, we gingerly advance from strophe to strophe. The result is a guarded recitation never knowing what to expect. This style of writing involves a process of defamiliarization, forcing the reader to slow down and reread in order to figure out the flow of the strophe (“poetic line”). The frustration of anticipation necessitates a rereading that has to reconstruct the contrast between the ephemeral nature of humanity and the eternal nature of divinity. Similar is the contrasting use of the conjunctive vav, usually meaning “and,” joining together strophes, but sometimes used to mean “but,” unyoking the parallelism. Sometimes it deploys parallelism for emphasis and explication other times for yoking together disparate elements. The various uses of parallelism characterize the poetic dexterity of Unetaneh Tokef and its uncanny capacity to jolt. Indeed, the sounds shape the meaning of the poem. Structuring the poem according to its rhyme scheme highlights the correlation between meaning and rhyme, showing the reinforcing convergence of sound and sense. The layout is isosyllabic in other words, it uses the same number of syllables for each hemistich. As is obvious from the layout, the multiple rhyming units form the constructive device of the poem. Rhyme structures the material by yoking strophes together lest they be wrongly associated with what precedes or succeeds. Unetaneh Tokef combines graphic images and stark expressions packaged in deceptively simple rhyme schemes. Yose, in particular, Unetaneh Tokef packages its message in vivid poetry to alert us to the majesty of divine kingship, the imminence of divine judgment, and the salvific power of repentance. Īs the Rosh Hashanah liturgy in general and the piyyutim of Yose b. Yose of the fifth century, Yannai of the sixth century, and Eleazar Ha-Qallir of the seventh century. In its economy of words, simplicity of rhyme, and lucidity of expression, as well as in its themes, Unetaneh Tokef was composed in the classic poetic style of the Byzantine period before the Islamic conquest of the land of Israel, evoking the period’s three outstanding representatives: Yose b. Just as Lekhah dodi provides the imagery for transforming Shabbat into a rendezvous between God and Israel, so Unetaneh Tokef provides the imagery for transforming Rosh Hashanah into a trial between God and humanity. Both poems capture the spirit of the day. Unetaneh Tokef is to Rosh Hashanah what Lekhah dodi is to Shabbat.
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