{"id":89438,"date":"2021-02-26T09:23:16","date_gmt":"2021-02-26T07:23:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/?p=89438"},"modified":"2021-02-27T23:59:25","modified_gmt":"2021-02-27T21:59:25","slug":"the-longest-psalm-and-its-contexts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/the-longest-psalm-and-its-contexts\/","title":{"rendered":"The Longest Psalm And Its Contexts"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"entry-content\"><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[281],"tags":[],"acf":{"old_id":"89438","type":"no","iframe":"","writer":77758,"related_cahpter":"686","type_929":"2","show_author_image":false,"old_create_date":"","old_url":"","post_main_content":{"description":"Pedagogy, both affective and effective\r\n\r\n","content":"<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">We\u2019ve arrived at the longest poem in the Psalter. Psalm 119 contains 176 short staccato-like verses. The poem lacks flow and movement (see Ps 113, above). It does, however, contain two organizing principles: its theme and its structure. Each tells the history of this majestic poem.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The poem\u2019s theme sets it apart from most psalms, which focus on the relationship between the poet and God. The poet praises God, fears God\u2019s punishing wrath, asks God for mercy, and seeks solace in God\u2019s presence. Psalm 119, by contrast, does not praise God. Instead, it praises God\u2019s laws and precepts. Nearly every line contains the word \u201cTorah,\u201d or its synonyms. This poem, which contains no identifying title, was likely composed in a world where individuals approached God through the study of texts and not by directly encountering Him \u2013 a world similar to ours. In other words, Psalm 119 might be among the latest poems in the Psalter, written after the Exile (586 BCE), when text-production and text-study became the defining anchor of Jewish experience. Instead of encountering God in the desert, we manifest Him before us through carefully reading and analyzing Scripture.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Psalm 119 also contains a unique structure: an eight-fold acrostic, which Bavli Berakhot 4b characterizes as <\/span><em><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">timnaya apei<\/span><\/em><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, <\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201ceight-faced.\u201d Acrostic poems often follow the letters of the alphabet, with each line of poetry beginning with a new letter. Early examples appear in Lamentations and Psalm 145, among other places. Classical piyyutim, such as those by Yannai and Qillir, were famous for stretching this poetic device to its limits.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">At its core, however, acrostic poems were pedagogical. They were easy to memorize. Ancient educators used such poems in teaching children to read and recognize the alphabet. Psalm 34 best highlights the educational valence of acrostic poetry. The otherwise alphabetic poem concludes with a pey verse. Why? F. W. Dobbs-Allsopp, a scholar of biblical poetry, suggests that the answer appears when we combine the letters at the beginning, middle and end of the poem: <\/span><em><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">aleph<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">lamed<\/span><\/em><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><em>,<\/em> and <\/span><em><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">pey<\/span><\/em><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">. This spells <\/span><em><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">alp<\/span><\/em><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, which translates as \u201cinstruction\u201d (like, ulpan). It is likely that Psalm 119 was also used for educating the youth of ancient Israel. The poem itself, after all, praises teaching and learning. What better way to socialize children to love and live by God\u2019s Torah than by having them learn and memorize the alphabet through a poem that praises Torah study. Like other activities of habit formation, repetition, in this case of Psalms, is both affective and effective.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","image":{"ID":52081,"id":52081,"title":"dt30-torah+study","filename":"dt30-torahstudy.jpg","filesize":0,"url":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/dt30-torahstudy.jpg","link":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/not-in-heaven-but-in-ourselves\/dt30-torahstudy\/","alt":"","author":"7","description":"","caption":"","name":"dt30-torahstudy","status":"inherit","uploaded_to":52080,"date":"2019-03-25 22:17:18","modified":"2022-03-09 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