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There can be no distinctions in rank. The public offices are . . . equally accessible to all who are competent."

The further history of the Prussian Jews is identical with that of the Jews of Germany. See GERMANY.

SELMA STERN-TÄUBLER.

Lit.: See the literature to BRANDENBURG and BERLIN; also, Dohm, Christian Wilhelm von, Über die bürgerliche Verbesserung der Juden (1781); Friedländer, David, Aktenstücke die Reform der jüdischen Kolonien in preussischen Staaten betreffend (1793); Rönne and Simon, Die früheren und gegenwärtigen Verhältnisse der Juden in den sämtlichen Landesteilen des preussischen Staates (1843); Auerbach, L., Das Judentum und seine Bekenner in Preussen (1890); Freund, Ismar, Die Emanzipation der Juden in Preussen (1912); Kollenscher, M., Die Rechtsverhältnisse der Juden in Preussen; Stern-Täubler, Selma, Der preussische Staat und die Juden (1925); idem, “Die Behördenorganisation Friedrich Wilhelm I und die Juden,” Zeitschrift für Geschichte der Juden in Deutschland, vol. 7 (1937) 4-13; idem, “Die geistigen Strömungen des 18. Jahrhunderts und das Judenproblem," ibid., 71-76; idem, “Die Juden in der Handelspolitik Friedrich Wilhelm I von Preussen," ibid., vol. 5 (1934) 207-15.

2. Communal Affairs (Up to 1933). The first modern ordinance relative to a community of Jews in Prussia is the Great Elector's edict of May 21, 1671, regulating the settlement of the fifty families of Jews who had been driven out of Vienna. This did not deal with them as a community, but as individual families; it granted them free exercise of their religion, the right of meeting for prayer, such officers as a ritual slaughterer and a schoolteacher, and the possession of a burial-ground. In later years, however, the state, regarding the Jews as somewhat harmful, yet an undoubted source of revenue, resolved to make use of their communal organization for the purposes of taxation. It therefore entered into the already existent religious community and gave it a political nature; it granted it a constitution of its own, all for the purpose of making it assume the collection of the Jewish taxes demanded by the state.

This development began with the ordinance and regulation of 1700, and was continued by the laws of the subsequent period, especially the edict of 1714, the regulation of 1730, and the "general Jewish regulation" of 1750. The principal features of the organization thus created for the Jews were the following:

(a) The Jews of every city were grouped into communities, and every Jew resident in a place was a member of its community.

(b) The community had the right to tax its members. (c) The tasks allotted to the community were partly religious and partly political.

The regulation of 1750 made the number of the duties of the community so comprehensive that the latter even had to be responsible for every theft committed by a Jew; if the thief was not discovered or was unable to make restitution, the community had to replace the stolen property. The community was also obliged to see to it that the debts of deceased members of the community to the public treasury or to Christians were paid by the parents or heirs of the deceased.

The rabbi and the elders were the officials of the community. Their election as well as their functions were regulated by the state, and the latter reserved to itself the right to confirm the selection. The regulation of 1750 decreed that a college of thirty-two men should be formed out of the three classes into which Jewry was divided for the assessment of taxes, namely, the wealthy, the middle-class, and the poor Jews, and that the rabbi should be elected by this college. The elders were elected as follows: Seven men

were chosen by lot from the three classes, and these bound themselves by oath to elect no one "who was not capable of representing the community." This college of seven chose also "the learned judges, the administrators of the poor, and the treasurers." The number of elders was six, and their term was three years; a reelection at the end of their term was permitted only for special reasons. Wherever possible, two relatives were not to be elected to offices at the same time.

The only way in which the state interfered with religious worship was to forbid any private religious services besides the community synagogues, unless special permission had been obtained. An exception was made in winter for the aged and sick, and for children under twelve.

The elders, rabbi and vice-rabbi had certain powers of punishment in case of certain transgressions of the religious law, and the rabbi and vice-rabbi had jurisdiction in cases of disputes between Jew and Jew in matters of civil law.

The edict of 1812 made the Jews natives and citizens of the state instead of strangers and wards and thus gave them full equality. This act destroyed the legal basis for the maintenance of their separate autonomy. On the other hand, this law did not make any regulations with reference to the Jewish communities, since it limited itself to the regulation of civic conditions. The result was uncertainty and lack of clearness as regards the management of the communities by the state authorities, which gradually led to an intolerable state of affairs.

In the early 1820's, however, the view became more and more prevalent that Judaism in Prussia belonged to the class of tolerated religious organizations, and that therefore the community had the status of a private organization. It therefore had claim only to the free exercise of religion, and the state concerned itself with its affairs solely when the police interest warranted it. It did not promote or regulate the formation of communities, but left it entirely to the discretion of the individual whether he wished to be a member or not. This viewpoint menaced the very existence of the communities. Despite the principle of non-interference, the state required the communities to maintain certain institutions, as for instance a cemetery, since Jewish oaths had to be sworn there, and a synagogue, since Jewish marriages had to be performed there. These institutions called for heavy expenditures on the part of the community, and if it could not be sure of its revenues by reason of the right of individuals to withdraw or to refuse to pay their taxes, the community could not plan new institutions, and even feared lest it might not be able to support its old ones.

The provisional ordinance issued for the Grand Duchy of Posen in 1833 was the first step taken to improve this condition. It once more made the synagogal communities of the province corporate organizations with corporate rights. Compulsory membership in the community took the place of voluntary adherence. The administration of property affairs was put under the control of the state authorities, and it was the task of the corporation to see that provision was made for the instruction of all children of school age.

For the rest of Prussia the law of 1847 made a reorganization on practically the same principles. The communities were raised to the sphere of public law, received the rights of corporation and of taxation, and membership was again made compulsory. The most essential principles in this regulation were as follows: (a) Every Jew had to be a member of a synagogal community.

(b) Synagogal districts were to be formed; their formation and alteration were effected by the government with the cooperation of the parties concerned.

(c) The synagogal communities were corporate bodies with the right of taxing their members.

(d) The officers of the synagogal communities were: 1. the executive committee, which consisted of not less than three nor more than seven members, who received no salary for their services; 2. the assembly of representatives, which consisted of not less than nine and not more than twentyone members.

(e) The state reserved for itself a far-reaching right of control and participation in a number of legal acts. However, this cooperation was never extended to religious worship.

(f) The communities had extensive autonomy, especially in reference to the regulation of taxes, organization and religious worship. However, community statutes required the sanction of the state.

(g) Foreigners required the sanction of the state for appointment as rabbis and synagogal officials.

The principle of compulsory membership in the community was subsequently rendered ineffective by the secession law of 1876, permitting any Jew to retire from the Jewish community out of religious considerations, without renouncing Judaism. Later legislation in 1918 and 1920 even facilitated this possibility of secession.

The Weimar Constitution of 1919 laid down certain regulations in Article 137 which were of considerable importance for synagogal communities. They provided that every religious association should order and administer its affairs independently without the interference of the state or the civil authorities.

ISMAR FREUND.

PRYLUCKI, NOAH, Yiddish writer and communal leader, b. Berdichev, Russia, 1882. His early activities were divided between Zionism and socialism, both of which were illegal in Czarist Russia. For his left-wing activities he was expelled from the University of Warsaw in 1905. Subsequently he completed his course in St. Petersburg and started to practice law in Warsaw (1910).

Prylucki had begun to write in both Yiddish and Hebrew in 1900. Soon after his arrival in Warsaw in 1910 he founded Der Moment, a Yiddish daily, with which he remained affiliated until the German occupation in 1939 forced him to flee from Warsaw to Vilna. His devotion, after 1910, turned entirely to Yiddish, and he was an unfailing partisan of that language.

When a city council was elected in Warsaw (1916) for the first time, under German auspices, Prylucki was chosen as a representative of the Jewish Popular Party, the Folkisten. The party, under Prylucki's leadership, demanded that Yiddish be the language of instruction in Jewish schools, and made a special appeal for the support of Jewish workers and small retailers. In addition to publicizing the aims of the party in the Moment, Prylucki was the co-editor of the party periodical, Dos Folk. In 1918 he was elected to the provisional state council, in 1919 to the constituent assembly, and in 1922 to the Sejm. At Geneva, in 1925, Prylucki delivered the opening address of the Congress of National Minorities, speaking in Yiddish. His political activity grew less marked after 1926, following a split in his party. He was not reelected to the Sejm in 1928.

A knowledge of Yiddish philology and folklore made Prylucki's contributions to Yiddish literature particularly valuable. Among his works were a collection of Yiddish

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First page of the Book of Psalms. From Daniel Bomberg's second edition of the Bible (Venice, 1524-25) folksongs, Yiddishe Folkslieder (1911-13); several volumes of Zammelbicher far Yiddishe Folklore, Filologie un Kulturgeshichte; Der Yiddishe Konsonantismus (1917); Zum Yiddishen Vokalismus (1920); Yiddish Teater (2 vols., 1921); In Poilen (1921); Dos Gevet, dialogues on language and culture (1923); and Dialektologishe Forarbeten (1937). A collection of his speeches in the Warsaw Council was published in 1922. Prylucki was also the editor of Teater Velt and Der Yunger Geist. After the German occupation of Vilna in 1941 Prylucki was not heard from; in 1943 his whereabouts were still unknown.

Lit.: Reisen, Z., Lexikon fun der Yiddisher Literatur, Presse un Filologie, vol. 2 (1930), cols. 954-66.

PSALMS, the first, longest and principal book of the Hagiographa (Kethubim), or third division of the Bible. It consists of 150 religious poems of varying length and themes, written by unknown authors at different times. It therefore differs from other books of the Bible in that it is not a narrative or a series of writings attributed to a single prophet or sage, but a collection of the works of countless individual writers. The book contains the entire range of human thought on matters religious, couched in the form of adoration, confession, praise, benediction and supplication. It is the most quotable of all the books of the Bible, and its turns of expression and poetic utterances have become part of the literature of all Western peoples.

The Hebrew title of the book is Tehillim (often abbreviated to Tillim or the Aramaic form Tillin), which is the plural of the word tehillah, "song of praise." The English title comes from the Greek psalmos, a translation of the Hebrew mizmor, meaning a poem sung to the accompaniment of stringed instruments. An alternate Greek title of the book, psalterion (Septuagint, Codex Alexandrinos), gives another title for the book, the Psalter.

The exact number of the Psalms is uncertain. Both the Hebrew and the Septuagint list 150 psalms, but the Greek has several differences (Ps. 9 to 10 and 114 to 115 are combined; Ps. 116 and 147 are divided, and a Ps. 151 is ap

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The vicissitudes of David, described pended). Rabbinic commentary reflects yet a different division (Yer. Sab. 15c finds only 147 psalms; Ber. 9b combines Ps. 1 and 2). Some of the Psalms are repeated within the book (14 53; 40:14-18 = 70; 57:8-12 and 60:7-14= 108); some are clearly composite and thus divisible (18, 19, 22, 24, 89, 144; at least one is divided into two psalms, 42 and 43); psalms found elsewhere in the Bible might well be added to the Psalter (Ex. 15; I Sam. 2; Isa. 12; 38:9-20; Lam. 1 to 5; Jonah 2; Hab. 3). The Psalms range in length from two verses (Ps. 117) to 176 verses (Ps. 119). The poetic form of the Psalms is widely varied; nine psalms are alphabetic acrostics (9 to 10, 25, 34, 37, 111, 112, 119, 145); fourteen have refrains (for example, Ps. 42 and 43) bearing some relation to the cryptic musical notations in the superscriptions. After I and II Chronicles, Psalms has the largest number of verses among the Biblical books.

Psalms is divided into five books: I. chaps. 1 to 41; II. chaps. 42 to 72; III. chaps. 73 to 89; IV. chaps. 90 to 106; V. chaps. 107 to 150; the first four concluding with special doxologies (41:13; 72:18-20; 89:52; 106:48). These divisions into books are connected with the growth and arrangement of the Psalms. The captions or titles of the individual psalms, scholars agree, bear little relation to the assigned authors, are of later origin than the Psalms themselves, precede the Septuagint (150-100 B.C.E.), and seem to designate certain psalm categories. The following terms may be noted as psalm designations: a. shir, a song (thirty times; Ps. 120 to 134 adds "of ascents," Ps. 45 adds "of loves"); b. mizmor, a religious psalm (fifty-seven times, thirteen with shir); c. maskil-instructive or meditative ode (thirteen times, once with shir, tefillah, and mizmor); d. michtam, something highly valued (six times); e. tefillah, prayer (five times); f. tehillah, praise (once); g. shiggayon (in the plural in Hab. 3:1), perhaps a dithyramb (once). These captions, while not always justified by the contents, indicate how the poems were distinguished by the final redactor. Maskil and michtam may refer to some forgotten liturgy. If so, they are in a category with certain works of intended use, like "to teach" in Ps. 60, "to remind" in Ps. 38 and 70, "for thanksgiving" in Ps. 100, "for singing" in Ps. 88, "for the dedication of the House" in Ps. 30; and "for the Sabbath" in Ps. 92. The Septuagint adds rubrics assigning Ps. 24, 48, 94 and 95 to the first, second, third, fourth and sixth days of the week. Lamena

in the superscriptions to the Psalms

tzeah, "for the director," occurs fifty-five times, perhaps applying to previous Psalms. There are twenty-six cases of additional words presumed to refer to some form of musical reading.

The name of an author, assigned by tradition to a psalm, is found in 101 cases. Seventy-three bear the name of David (3 to 9, 11 to 32, 34 to 41, 51 to 65, 68 to 70, 86, 101, 103, 108 to 110, 122, 124, 131, 133, 138 to 145; see Il Chron. 29:30; Sirach 47:9; II Macc. 2:13). Asaph's name appears in the superscriptions of twelve (50, 73 to 83), and Korah in eleven (42, 44 to 49, 84 to 85, 87 to 88), Solomon in two, and Moses (90), Ethan (89), and Heman (88) in one each. Forty-nine remain unidentified, although of this number the Septuagint assigns twelve to David (43, 67, 91, 93 to 99, 137 with Jeremiah), four to Haggai and Zechariah (138 with David, 146 to 148), and one to the Sons of Joarib (71). The Talmud (B.B. 14b) assigns two of the anonymous group to Adam (92, 139) one each to Melchizedek (110) and to Abraham (89). The Hebrew le, "to," may not mean "by" but merely "is associated with," although tradition took the sign to mean authorship. The authorship and the time of composition of each individual psalm must be determined from its contents. But in this matter there is the widest disagreement among Bible scholars. Some consider more of the Psalms as preExilic. They hold the mention of the kingship of David (for example, 122:5) as a poetic fiction, since the Hasmoneans considered themselves David's heirs. In fact, there is no compelling evidence of the pre-Exilic origin of any psalms. Pre-Exilic literature knows neither Davidic nor other psalms. The David songs (II Sam. 1:19-27; 3:33-34; see Amos 6:5) are not of a religious type. II Sam. 22, which corresponds to Ps. 18, is clearly not Davidic; and even the so-called "last words" (II Sam. 23:1-7) are quite questionable. The myth of David as the singer of psalms arose at the time of the pious Chronicler, who projected back upon the carly Israelite worthies the religious attitudes and achievements of his own day. It must be remembered, however, that certain public and private hymns existed before post-Exilic times (see Amos 5:23; Ps. 137:3-4). On the basis of the similarity between cultic songs, hymns, and atonement psalms of ancient Egypt and Babylonia with those of Psalms, a few scholars have maintained the preExilic composition of several psalms, particularly a few of

the so-called "Royal Psalms." The oldest, clearly datable psalm is 137, which reflects the beginning of the Babylonian Exile. Among the latest psalms (44, 74, 79, 83, 118, 149) are those which clearly point to the period of the Maccabean struggle (170-160 B.C.E.). Such terms, however, as hasidim, tzaddikim, paritz (17:4), and ligeyonim (123:4), which are occasionally taken to refer to Zealots, Sadducees, Pharisees, and Roman legions of Maccabean times, probably do not reflect so late a period. The bulk of the Psalms indicates a Palestinian setting of the time of Ezra and following, giving an important place to Temple, sacrifice, teaching of Torah, living by its laws, and to ethical monotheism within a religious, rather than a political, community.

The assembling of the five books of the Psalms, which correspond to the Pentateuch, could clearly not have taken place at one time, as is evident from the repetition of sevcral psalms (see above). Thus Book I must have been collected by one individual, Books II and III by another, and Books IV and V by yet a third. The name of the Deity in Books II and III has almost throughout (Ps. 42 to 83) been changed to Elohim (elsewhere it is Yahveh), leading to redundant repetition of the divine name (45:8; 50:7, and other passages). Books I and II were a unit when Book III was added (72:20 is clearly a colophon to Books I and II). The division of the first three must have been the work of their editor. Similarly, the later editor who added Books IV and V left his mark in the five-fold pattern which Psalms follows.

The reason for the collection was the practical object of creating a prayer-book and hymnal for Temple, synagogue and home (see Sirach 39:5). The last objective was probably the original one, if Book I be regarded as the oldest section, for it contains principally individual prayers. Since another primary objective was to collect prayers to accompany the Levitical singing, Books IV and V must also be regarded as early psalm material.

Before the Hebrew original of Sirach (about 190 B.C.E.) was known, the earliest known reference to Psalms was in I Macc. 7:16-17, quoting Ps. 79:2 verbatim. Sirach proves the existence of a Book of Psalms at the close of the 3rd cent. (see Strack, Sirach-Ausgabe, and Kautzsch, Übersetzung, on Sirach 47:5 = Ps. 148:14; Sirach 47:11 = Ps. 103:19, and other passages), citing, among others, some of the late Psalms. It is thus likely that II Chron. 29:30, "the words of David, and of Asaph the seer," refers to our Psalm book, at least to one containing Books II and III. It is, therefore, quite likely that a book of psalms with the general framework of our present book existed long before Maccabean times and that the Maccabean psalms are merely late interpolations. Duhm with good argument places the final redaction of the book of Psalms just before the start of Roman domination in 63 B.C.E., because at this time arose the similar Psalms of Solomon, which was excluded from the canon.

By contents, the Psalms may be grouped in a variety of ways, such as atonement psalms (for example, 51); nature psalms (for example, 104), king psalms (for example, 21, 72), historical psalms (78), and the like. Many scholars, such as Gunkel, Mowinkel, and Oesterley, developed elaborate categories of classification based on content as well as form, but these schemes raise more problems than they solve. We shall consider two broad and generally inclusive categories, namely, the liturgic and the individual psalms.

The liturgic psalms were sung or recited in processions to the sanctuary (118), at the Temple gates (24, part 2, verses 7 to 10), during the sacrificial offering, and later in the synagogue. They include hymns, supplications, and atonement prayers, as well as didactic stories of historical content. The didactic psalms were frequently sermonic (95, part 2), forerunners of the medieval Piyut (119). In a sense these psalms took the place of the prophets and preachers of a former day. This accounts for the frequent change of tone within a psalm. The transition from hymn to supplica

tion or admonition could readily be made by means of music and cult procedure. These psalms do not arise out of the spontaneous, artistic, and religious creativity of their authors. The poets are functionaries of the cultus, whose object is to have the community join in the songs responsively (129). Because these liturgies were for popular use, they are simple and traditional in thought, and repetitious in form. It was the repetitive cultic forms, mingled with the thought of individual creative genius, which formed the normative Judaism of the Greek and Roman periods. These psalms reflect a view of Israel's religion based on an ethical and universal monotheism. The liturgic psalms also contain such striking formulations of these popular thoughts and figures, that they have been drawn upon in the homilies of all Biblical faiths from that day to this. Their religious vitality is greater than that of the festal liturgies which later took their places. The close alliance of the nation with its God, which is powerfully portrayed by patriotic Psalmists, belongs among the most worthy of Israel's religious concepts.

The individual psalms are, however, the real glory of the book of Psalms. In them are combined an ability for the creation of artistic forms and a pious devotion, a quality which is not found before or after this period. Unknown poets without pride of authorship, exiled priests and princes, the poverty-stricken, the wise and educated portray out of the poetic muse their longing for God or their beloved Temple, their religiously colored exaltation of nature, their relation to friend and foe, their consciousness of sin, philosophic doubts, and physical needs, and their freedom from all these during the aspiration of the soul toward God. They depict graphically their thankfulness for His help, and laud the contrite, humble, devoted, holy life in the certainty of God's nearness. These thoughts are expressed in artistic style, although not always in the most cogent or the most poetic forms. They present almost universally, however, original expressions and stirring simple pictures of life. Also, religious concepts of universal significance are found frequently throughout these Psalms. There are observations on the unworthiness of sacrifices and the worthiness of inner purity, on God in nature and nations, on His supreme power and wisdom, eternity and omnipresence, goodness and righteousness, and on His world dominion and supremacy over other national gods. The Psalmist deals, too, with the weakness and strength of men, and with the hope of God's kingdom with its earthly center in Zion. How the individual outlooks of the Psalms correspond with those of the present day and to what extent the Psalms borrowed from older or foreign poetic forms are secondary. Above temporary considerations stands the spirit of the Psalmist as a powerful and eternal expression of the religious viewpoint, making Psalms the most universally read and loved of all Scriptural writings. From early times to the present, the deep worth of these Psalms has been felt; long after the liturgic psalms had fallen into disuse, the individual psalms were used as communal hymns, the first person singular becoming collective, and additions to the Psalms fitting them for public use in the synagogue. This latter fact accounts for some of the textual corruptions. The extensive use and repeated copying of the beloved popular book led to deliberate and unintentional distortions, as the abovementioned parallel sections indicate. The Psalms still remain, however, living witness to the "life" in God, which, long before Christianity, was the vital, pulsating soul of Judaism.

Great has been the influence of the Psalms on the last two millennia of man's thought and worship. Jewry in

the Middle Ages sought the miracle of prayer in reciting psalms. In the course of the week, either before or after the divine service, the entire book of Psalms was read responsively by cantor and congregation, becoming for each Jew a spiritual treasure-trove. In every situation of life, sickness or health, salvation from danger or building a house, on occasions of travel, birth, celebration, or death-morning, noon, or night-appropriate psalms were read, quite apart from their extensive use in the divine service. Mendelssohn's transiation of the Bible, which opened European culture to Jewry, gave Psalms first consideration after the Torah was completed. To Christianity, Psalms is the most beloved of the Biblical books, because in it Christian theologians have found not only references to Jesus, but a source-book of early Christian and Protestant principles. Its use in the hymnology and liturgy of the church is equalled only by that of the synagogue. The book of Psalms, which has been called "the hymn-book of the Second Temple," has become the universal heritage of mankind, an eternal fount of inspiration for the God-aspiring of all creeds and all ages. ADOLPH J. FEINBERG. Lit.: Gunkel, H., Ausgewählte Psalmen, 4th ed. (1917); Budde, K., Die schönsten Psalmen (1915); Peters, J. P., The Psalms as Liturgies (1922); Wutz, F., Die Psalmen textkritisch untersucht (1925); Welch, A. C., The Psalter in Life, Worship and History (1926); Gunkel, H., and Begrich, J., Einleitung in die Psalmen (2 vols., 1928 and 1933); Montgomery, J. A., "Recent Developments in the Study of the Psalter," Anglican Theological Review, vol. 16 (1934) 185-98; Weiser, A., Die Psalmen ausgewählt, übersetzt und erklärt (1935; 2nd ed., 1939); Oesterley, W. O. E., A Fresh Approach to the Psalms (1937); idem, The Psalms, Translated with Textcritical and Exegetical Notes (1939); Buttenwieser, Moses, The Psalms, Chronologically Treated with a New Translation (1938); Duhm, B., Psalmen (1899); Mowinkel, S., Psalmenstudien (192124); Freehof, S. B., The Book of Psalms (1938).

PSALMS, LITURGICAL. The Psalms were originally written as hymns for devotion, either by individuals or by the community. It was natural, therefore, that some of them should be taken into the liturgy both of the Temple and of the synagogue. According to one of the oldest passages in the Mishnah (Tamid 7:4), the Levites in the Temple sang a psalm for each day of the week: on Sunday, Ps. 24 ("The earth is the Lord's, and the fulness thereof”); on Monday, Ps. 48 ("Great is the Lord, and highly to be praised"); on Tuesday, Ps. 82 ("God standeth in the congregation of God"); on Wednesday, Ps. 94 ("O Lord, Thou God to whom vengeance belongeth"); on Thursday, Ps. 81 ("Sing aloud unto God our strength"); on Friday, Ps. 93 ("The Lord reigneth; He is clothed in majesty"); on the Sabbath, Ps. 92 ("It is a good thing to give thanks unto the Lord"). In the Hebrew Bible only the last of these contains a superscription that indicates this use of the Psalm (mizmor shir leyom hashabbath, "A Psalm, a Song. For the Sabbath day"); the Septuagint, however, indicates the appropriate days for all except those for Tuesday and Thursday, and as this translation was no later than 100 B.C.E., the usage must be very old. After the destruction of the Temple, the custom of reciting these Psalms in daily sequence was transferred to the synagogue.

Two other passages in the Mishnah (Suk. 5:4; Mid. 2:5) speak of the fifteen steps in the Temple on which the Levites sang songs, and say that they correspond to the fifteen Songs of Ascents (Ps. 120 to 134). This may indicate that these Psalms were actually sung in the Temple on the occasion of the annual pilgrimage festivals, to which they refer. Ps. 118, with its references to entering "the gate of the Lord" (verse 20) and forming a procession up to the horns of the altar (verse 27), was probably composed for the liturgy of the Temple; it is possibly a Passover hymn, as are the

other Psalms (Ps. 113 to 117) which with it constitute the Hallel. Other Psalms are mentioned in the Talmud as being part of the Temple service for the New Moon, Rosh Hashanah, Sukkoth, and other festivals.

The Psalms at an early period became a part of private devotion. Ps. 145 (“I will extol Thee, my God, O King") was so highly regarded that one passage declares that he who recites this Psalm daily (another reading says, thrice daily) is certain of a share in the world to come (Ber. 4b). Kaufmann Kohler has suggested that this is due to the fact that the verses, "The eyes of all wait for Thee, and Thou givest them their food in due season. Thou openest Thy hand, and satisfiest every living thing with favor" (verses 15 and 16), could serve as a grace after meals. Together with Ps. 84:5 and 144:15 it constitutes the Ashre prayer. Ps. 145 to 150 were sometimes called Hallel, because of their note of thanksgiving, and it is to them that Jose ben Halafta referred when he said, “May my lot be of those who finish the Hallel every day" (Sab. 118b), which indicates that the recitation of these Psalms daily was the practice of pious individuals.

From the Temple service and private devotion the Psalms found their way into the liturgy for public worship. The older prayers are independent compositions, though their language is influenced by the Psalms. It became customary, however, to insert Psalms into the prayers recited in preparation for the liturgy proper (which begins with the Barechu, "Praise ye the Lord to Whom all praise is due"), and into other parts of the service. This process lasted over many centuries, until the close of the Middle Ages, and hence the various rituals do not agree as to the Psalms which they include.

The first Psalm passages in the morning service are known as Pesuke Dezimra (Passages of Song; it is derived from Sab. 118b). They are introduced by the doxology Baruch Sheamar ("Blessed be He Who spoke"). This is followed by I Chron. 16:8-36 (equivalent to Ps. 105:1-15; 96:1-13; 106:1, 47, 48) and a selection of verses from various Psalms, beginning with Ps. 99:5 ("Exalt ye the Lord our God, and prostrate yourselves at His footstool"). The first of the Psalms recited as a whole in this section of the prayers is, on ordinary days, Ps. 100 ("Shout unto the Lord, all the earth"); on Sabbaths, holidays and Hoshana Rabbah it is replaced by a series consisting of Ps. 19 ("The heavens declare the glory of God”), 34 (“I will bless the Lord at all times"), 90 ("Lord, Thou hast been our dwelling-place in all generations"), 91 (“O thou that dwellest in the covert of the Most High"), 135 ("Hallelujah. Praise ye the name of the Lord"), 136 (the Great Hallel), 33 ("Rejoice in the Lord, O ye righteous"), 92 (the Sabbath Psalm) and 93 ("The Lord reigneth; He is clothed in majesty”).

The section continues with a series of individual verses, mainly from the Psalms. Then comes the Ashre and Ps. 146 to 150. The above arrangement is that of the Ashkenazim; the Sephardim have a somewhat different selection of Psalms, and still other Psalms and Psalm verses have been inserted under Cabalistic influence.

The evening service for weekdays begins with Ps. 134 ("Behold, bless ye the Lord, all ye servants of the Lord"). The introduction of the Sabbath is much more elaborate, the Pesuke Dezimra consisting of Ps. 95 ("O come, let us sing unto the Lord"), 96 (“O sing unto the Lord a new song"), 97 ("The Lord reigneth; let the earth rejoice"), 98 ("O sing unto the

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