Hakafot and Their Downside: On “Your miracles that are with us every day,” and on a few other matters (Column 174)
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With God’s help
The Circuits and Their Collapse: On Your Miracles That Are with Us Every Day, and on a Few Other Matters
This column is dedicated to all law-abiding citizens and guardians of the walls, who stand every morning in disciplined fashion with their lulavs like an impregnable wall in a circle in the synagogue, with self-sacrifice, unwilling to breach a fence lest a serpent bite them (LSBH). May my lot be with them…
Ah, and also to my friend Haim Voldomirsky of Lod, in memory of the experiences we shared on this subject.
Every morning during the festival of Sukkot we all get stuck in a festive circle around the platform in the synagogue. We stand packed together and bow with room to spare. We gaze in wonder at the Torah scrolls, which apparently long for us to finish circling already and release them from this embarrassing predicament, but to no avail. We all stand in a circle with our lulavs in hand, looking here and there, our eyes yearning, and seeing that there is no one. Even if we pour out our speech before the Examiner of hearts, asking Him to save us from every cruel decree, and even if ‘I trust in these and in the merit of the three Patriarchs’—what then? It does not help. We are still stuck.
One of the fascinating phenomena is that although the average speed of progress is 0 (at times there are backward retreats out of fear of those shoving in from the side), the circuits nevertheless end at some point. So who said miracles occurred only in the Temple (the Ark did not take up space; they stood crowded together yet bowed with room to spare)? But I, as a sober rationalist, am always looking for the offenders who create this miracle for us. It seems to me that the credit belongs to those who despair and return to their places without completing the circuit, thereby widening the line and allowing some progress for all of us toward the longed-for end. And then I said to myself how great are the words of the Sages, who said (Keritot 6b):
Every fast that does not include sinners of Israel is no fast, for galbanum has a foul odor and yet Scripture counted it among the spices of the incense.
It is a good thing I was not in the Temple, an insolent scoffer like me, otherwise I fear we would have had to rewrite a number of Mishnayot. Even the fall of the walls of Jericho and the splitting of the sea have already earned from me several rationalistic explanations while I stood in this verdant circle of flowerpots.
To tell the truth, lately I spare myself the criminality and simply do not leave my place from the outset. It is far more comfortable to stand still and read something (although I still hold the lulav. One must keep up appearances…), than to get stuck in a claustrophobic circle with lulav and etrog in hand like a flowerpot, and cry out to the Holy One, blessed be He, to save us, for the sake of His truth, greatness, glory, and kindness, from this idiotic circle.
We all also know the busybodies endowed with initiative and virtues who, even if they are not officially appointed synagogue wardens, take the law into their own hands and try creative solutions. Exactly like those assertive types who get out of their cars, police-style, and untangle knots in the road. Bless them for it, but this too is usually to no avail. Every year I wonder when the master will come and solve this optimization problem for us. How does one make a circuit in the synagogue by monotonic walking, even if slowly, and finish it in a time equal to the circumference of the circle divided by the speed of progress? (As is known, when you divide by zero you run into problems.) Still, have pity on the Torah scrolls and on the schoolchildren who have not sinned. Save us, we pray, for the sake of Your truth; save us.
So what does one do? How does one solve the problem legally, without injuring the tender souls of the wardens and the other citizens who grumble, with a measure of justice and self-righteousness, about those who pass on the right and on the left?
An Initial Insight
Well, I say to myself, there is nothing like the wisdom of crowds and long years of collective experience (that, after all, is what Chinese medicine is based on, and as is known it always works. See column 38). We have all seen more than once various solutions that try to confront the elephant in the room, almost all of them based on the counterintuitive insight that increasing the length of the route actually improves the situation (because then one can at least advance at a relatively constant pace). But usually even that does not significantly improve matters. For example, this morning I saw in our synagogue a narrow route but with a broad circumference and radius, cut through—apparently by the highway authority—with self-sacrificing devotion under fire between the benches before prayers, for the benefit of those making the circuit, as described in the following figure:
Figure 1. The thick black lines are the benches. The square in the middle is the platform. The route shown was cut between benches that were originally adjacent.
Although of course this is not an optimal arrangement, since they could have moved all the benches inward and made a longer route around the entire perimeter of the synagogue, it nevertheless awakens hope in an aching heart. I confess, to my shame, that I immediately said to myself, ‘Let me turn aside and see this great sight’ (Exod. 3:3). When I turned aside and saw it, my heart rejoiced and exulted: this time we will strike Murphy hip and thigh. That’s it, today will already be better. But no. He laughs best who laughs last. You surely will not be surprised to hear that we stood in a circle, and everything was as usual. Murphy’s laughter is still echoing bitterly in my ears.
And what of collective experience? Indeed, while I stand there rooted with my lulav in hand, I wonder how, after more than two thousand years of circuits, we have not become wise enough to find a solution to this universal problem. This further undermines my trust (already qualified in any case) in the wisdom of crowds and accumulated collective experience (see also: Chinese medicine). Einstein already said that only a fool thinks that if he repeats again and again a solution that did not work the first time, in the end it will work. I wonder where that idiot is when he is needed in the synagogue. He could have been a magnificent beadle or synagogue warden, and instead he wastes his time in Princeton (see here and column 121). Well, in a place where there are no men I shall try to be a man, and according to the measure of my meager talent, to fill the place of that great and precious gentleman.
Praying with the Lawbreakers: On Circuits and Overtaking
Of course there are always those who cut corners and make a shorter circuit (close to the platform, cutting across to the other side of the standing circle), then enter in the middle, get stuck with all the rest of us farther along the route, and thus jam the circle and themselves even more (unless they are not averse to violent shoving in order to extricate themselves from the straits, and literally fulfill the verse ‘Answer me with expansiveness, O Lord’ [Ps. 118:5]). I must say that if above I dwelt on the phenomenon of offenders who abandon the lines (or those who go one better and do not enter them at all), then to their credit it must be said that they are at least offenders only in matters between man and God. They do not circle the platform and thereby fulfill in their own bodies the verse that cries out, ‘Do not go around’—and that is all. But here we are dealing with offenses between one person and another, for those who leave and return and shove their way back in injure their fellows, who are planted like stakes by the river. For such offenses Yom Kippur (the next one, the one a year from now) does not atone until one appeases his fellow. Perhaps even Hoshana Rabbah will not atone for them. And go and consider who exactly it could be that would be appeased by those breakers of the law and pardon their iniquity! Since Rabbi died and humility ceased, that righteous man has not yet been born.
As I stand with my lulav firmly grasped in my hand and reflect on former things (so who said there are no advantages to standing bored for a long time, once you have long since finished ‘Save us, we pray, for the sake of Your truth’ and the rest of the hymns of Hoshana Rabbah, Shavuot, and all the days of Passover), this phenomenon stirred in me an analogy to what happens on the roads. There too one always sees those who bypass the traffic jam in the right-turn lane and pass all of us, the keepers of law and order who are planted like gardens by the river, with cheerful and jubilant honking. All the guardians of the walls are naturally furious at those lawbreakers, but I, heretic that I am, always think to myself that here there is actually a case where one benefits and the other loses nothing. I, being law-abiding, stand planted in the ground in my lane, as though in a chest, a box, and a tower, while they pass and ride by me on winged camels and do not delay me, and even relieve the pressure in our lane. So what is bad about that? Apparently only this: that things are better and more comfortable for them than for us (and after all I am not of Balaam’s disciples—those with an evil eye and an inflated soul).
Except that these hooligan lawbreakers generally do not really intend to turn right. In the end those ruffians shove their way back into my lane, a few cars ahead of me (if possible, then right into the very gap that opened in front of me because I forgot to move forward and close up while I was staring at them to the right in envy, trying to master my anger and rehearse the talmudic category of ‘this one benefits while the other loses nothing’). But here the benefit causes a loss, because these passings jam the line even more, and then it becomes a case of ‘this one benefits and that one loses,’ which is forbidden according to everyone. As stated, this is what happens in the synagogue as well. There too the lawbreakers return and re-enter the main circle, in the manner of something detached and later reattached, and thus they jam us all until we are all struck, as one man, root-fast in the holy soil of the synagogue like the fixed ground itself, and leaves, buds, and flowers emerge from our bellies.
A First Idea
And so we have a first idea. Those lawbreakers and men of initiative who decide to defy the authorities (= the wardens) and make the circuit on a shortened route should kindly do so in a complete inner circle, without shoving their way back into the circle of the guardians of the walls (like those who pass in the right lane and in the end actually do turn, in which case one benefits and the other loses nothing, as above). The picture is as follows:
Figure 2. A solution of multiple parallel routes.
Needless to say, in such a situation there is indeed lawbreaking, but it would be a case in which one benefits and the other is actually better off, which according to everyone is permitted and even desirable (with the wardens’ and the law’s pardon, of course). We would all profit from it, because in effect two parallel circuit routes have been created here. That certainly improves the situation. Note well: there is nothing here but an application of the wisdom of crowds mentioned above, namely that lengthening the route improves the speed of progress.
Its Generalization
Another proposal along these lines is a generalization of the criminal insight above. Simply create a series of concentric circles of circuits. We should clear the entire area of the synagogue, build circles of circuit one inside another (preferably with separation ribbons like those in an airport line), and thus we will all walk in parallel as one person, when the circuits are made not in a one-dimensional circle but in a rotating two-dimensional disk. As is known, the number of people who fit on the circumference of a circle is proportional to R (the radius), whereas the number of people who fit into the disk is proportional to R^2. And, as is known to the initiated, for every R>2 the disk contains more people.[1]
This is, of course, a further generalization of the idea of lengthening the route. A circle with a larger circumference offers larger spaces between people and thereby allows continuous motion. Changing the dimension from length to area allows larger spaces (the area per person increases significantly). One must, however, note that the only relevant spaces are those in the direction of progress, and therefore the circles should be packed as tightly as possible, so that people almost touch one another from the side, while the distances between people in the direction of progress are made as large as possible. We are speaking of circuits carried out in a series of concentric bands, each a cubit wide, over the entire area of the synagogue, as described in the following figure:
Figure 3. A two-dimensional generalization – moving from length to area.
Of course, emptying the synagogue of benches is no simple task, and the wardens do not always have the strength to do this every day of the intermediate festival days, especially since on an ordinary day there is only one circuit (and as remembered, although it occurs at speed 0, a miracle takes place and even it eventually ends. See above for a rational explanation of that great miracle). And since I still had leisure while ‘standing in the house of the Lord by night’ (Ps. 134:1)—by midnight the circuit still had not ended—I thought to myself that perhaps one could find a solution without clearing the synagogue. And thus the following idea came about.
A One-Dimensional Path (embedded) in a Two-Dimensional Area
As is known, our mathematical cousins amuse themselves by embedding one-dimensional paths inside a two-dimensional area. It is impossible to identify the two completely, for otherwise the path would have area and would not be a one-dimensional object. So how does one nevertheless do this? One defines a one-dimensional path that covers an area as follows: the path will be defined as covering the area (densely) if, near every point you choose in the area, at a distance as small as you wish, there passes at least one point that belongs to the one-dimensional path. Can this fruitful idea help us solve the problem of the circuits?
While my hands held the four species that came to win favor, and I was raising a prayer on high that the Lord illuminate my eyes in this grave issue, an idea arose in my mind. One can cut through a passage as the legislators among the people did in our synagogue this very morning, and also leave all the benches in the synagogue, yet build a path embedded in the area of the synagogue as defined above. What needs to be done is as in the following figure:
Figure 4. The one-dimensional path densely embedded in the area of the synagogue.
This is, of course, a schematic drawing, but I assume the principle is clear. One must build a one-dimensional path that covers the area of the synagogue as densely as possible without removing the benches.
Möbius Strip
From here onward, although I was privileged and the full verse ‘I made you myriad as the plants of the field’ (Ezek. 16:7) was fulfilled in me, and I and the plants in my hands had become one, the heat left its mark on me. But I am firmly convinced that the following proposal has at least no small intellectual value.
As is known, our mathematical cousins also amuse themselves with yet other absurd and fantastical ideas, such as constructing a strip that has only one side. And behold, the perfectly wise sage, Rabbi August Ferdinand Möbius, long may he live, conceived in his thoughts (apparently he too was stuck deep in the circuits in the Great Synagogue of Leipzig) how to build such a strip, and ever since it has been called by his name: Möbius strip. Take one of the lulav leaves you are holding in your hand, fold it with a half-turn around itself, and glue its ends to one another. What you have obtained is a strip with only one side:[2]
Figure 5. Möbius strip.
If you begin to walk along the strip from a certain point, very soon you will find yourself on its ‘other side’.
Now think about this (and I have no doubt that this is what brought the aforementioned August to this wondrous idea): what happens if we make the circuits along a Möbius strip? Seemingly we have solved all the problems. We have an infinite length of one-dimensional route and we will place the platform in the middle. The sharp ones among you are surely asking themselves how an infinite number of people could fit on that strip or ring. One should know that when one walks along the ring, on the next turn one does not return to the same place, but shifts a bit to the side (the distance of the shift depends on how many twists you made when you created the ring). So true, it is not an infinite length, but it is a very great length. First of all, it is double the length of the ring, since the two sides continue one another. Beyond that, taking the shift into account, the route becomes much longer still. This is really parallel to the solution of the embedded one-dimensional route proposed above, only in a much more elegant form.
My unequivocal conclusion is that a synagogue built in Möbius architecture can completely solve the problem of the circuits in most practical cases. And this is the startup proposed here: Möbius and Sons, Circuit Engineering Services (founded 2018).
Admittedly, the problem of the platform remains, but one can of course embed the Möbius strip in ordinary Euclidean space and place the platform in the center, or alternatively make a Klein synagogue (a Klein bottle is a compact surface with only one side, the three-dimensional analogue of a Möbius strip embedded in four-dimensional space), with the platform inside the bottle. Here is the drawing, for anyone who for some reason did not figure this out on his own:[3]
Figure 6. Klein bottle.
I assume Felix Klein hit on the idea when he was stuck in the central synagogue in Göttingen.
Precedents
As is known, I advocate second-order legal ruling, and therefore I looked for precedents for this bold legal idea. A review of the relevant literature revealed that the Dutch artist M.C. Escher had already thought about circuits on a Möbius strip. Here (Responsa Me-Asher Shemenah Lahmo, sec. Ant) he describes the ants in the Great Synagogue of Bern in Holland (note the lulavs in their hands. True, for some reason they have no binding, no little basket. But as is well known, we rule in practice that a lulav does not require binding):[4]
Figure 7. Circuits in the Great Synagogue of Bern in Holland (of course they were carried out with the synagogue’s own ants; there is no concern, Heaven forbid, of admixture).
If so, this solution too is firmly anchored in the sources of Jewish law.
A Legal-Topological Problem
The only problem that remains with this marvelous solution is the following legal-mathematical question: does one who walks on a Möbius ring or a Klein bottle around the platform, in three- or four-dimensional space, count as making a circuit around the platform at all? If the ring has no two sides, then the platform is perhaps not in the center of the circuit at all, but outside it. And some have raised the concern that perhaps this circuit does not accumulate phase at all, and therefore topologically there is no circuit here whatsoever, and it is as though it did not exist. For the time being, this requires further study regarding all those towering authorities who ruled in practice that in pressing circumstances one may make circuits in a Möbius or Klein synagogue. May the Lord enlighten my eyes and show us wonders from His Torah.
Are not my words like fire (Jer. 23:29),
that fellow whose lulav you seek.
Driven like a rock into holy ground,
praying to God yet not delivered.
Writing and signing in tears,
and left without even a trace of wonder.
Savior of His people in time of trouble and distress,
priests, priests of the house of Zadok.
Known as Mikhi,
resident of the holy community of Lod and its environs, may it be rebuilt and established speedily in our days, amen.
1.
Footnotes
- The 2 is measured in cubits, of course, since we hold that a person occupies a cubit (see Sukkah 7b–8a. The Talmud there is apparently speaking of Bar Kokhba’s fighters, who, as my excavations at Herodium have revealed, were dwarfs; but in our case we are dealing with standing and not sitting, and the Rabbis made no distinction). My assumption (for the same reason, of course) is that the width of each such circle is a cubit. We are speaking of concentric bands a cubit wide.
- The image is taken from __Wikipedia__, s.v. ‘Möbius strip’.
- And again, the image is from __Wikipedia__, s.v. ‘Klein bottle’.
- The image is from here. The entire blog is worth reading. It definitely helps in building Möbius and Klein synagogues and in carrying out the circuits efficiently. There is even a proposal there for virtual circuits in a computer game.
Discussion
Happy festival. I enjoyed all the amusing atmosphere around the matter. But why belittle the ancient custom of the circuits themselves, dating back to the Geonic period?! One could really also give up going to synagogue, which is itself accompanied by nightmares and a waste of precious sleep time. “Who asked this of you, to trample…”?
Oh, this is wonderful. How did I not think of that?!
Still, one must consider whether the circuits are a law regarding the action or the result. There is no act of circling by the person here. Seemingly, one could rotate the Torah scrolls around their own axis (like the earth and the sun).
You remind me of a proposal by a good friend of mine, who thought to solve most dishwashing problems by creating a table whose top has plate-shaped indentations in which one eats. The outer shell of the table moves on a conveyor belt that rotates it around its top, and when the indentations reach the bottom they are washed by streams of water. No buying plates, no clearing plates, no washing dishes and drying them, and of course… no quarrels. And a redeemer shall come to Zion.
By the way, I just thought that part of the licensing given by the fire department to synagogues should examine the space available there for circuits: the number of people permitted to pray should be the maximum length of the circuit path (in meters), and vice versa (the space should allow a path whose length equals the number of people).
And what about “and you shall rejoice in your festival”? That was said even before the Geonim, no? Who asked this of you, to trample the commandment of rejoicing on the festival?
[By the way, where in my words here was there any belittling of the custom of the circuits?]
But did they not circle Jericho seven times even though the Ark carries its carriers? Learn from this that circling by external force is still called circling. 😉
You are right. Rejoicing has its place, and I am part of it too. I even forwarded it to friends. It’s just that here and there there were words that seemed aimed also at the custom itself, and if I was mistaken, the blame for my error rests with me.
Before you discuss how to circle in the synagogue, go and learn from the practice of Israel in the Temple: “When the first Festival day of the Festival fell on Shabbat, they would bring their lulavs to the Temple Mount, and the attendants would receive them from them and arrange them on the bench, and the elders would place theirs in the chamber, and they would teach them to say: whoever gets my lulav in his hand, it is his as a gift. The next day they would rise early and come, and the attendants would throw them before them, and they would snatch them and strike one another. And when the court saw that they had come to danger, they enacted that each person should take it in his own home.”
And especially since the whole matter is a remembrance of the Temple, as Maimonides explained: “Each and every day they would circle the altar with their lulavs in their hands once, and say: Please, Lord, save now; please, Lord, make us prosper now. And on the seventh day they circle the altar seven times. And Israel have already adopted the custom in all places to place a platform in the middle of the synagogue and circle it each day in the manner that they would circle the altar, as a remembrance of the Temple.”
Is the solution here too that the court should enact circling the table in the living room?
And this still requires consideration, for there Jericho is fixed and established, and we have no way to rotate it around its axis. But in our case, I can ask those holding the scroll to turn around their own axis, and that should suffice. With the money left over from not buying the conveyor belt, one could buy a more splendid etrog.
Wonderful. Still, one must consider whether a collision is in fact a danger at all, and perhaps danger is more severe than colliding. Shall we act merely because we draw analogies?!
Happy are you, Israel, for words of Torah bring out your finest logic (perhaps kinship with a poor and needy people).
The main custom is circling the bimah, not circling the Torah scrolls, and that is harder to rotate, though not impossible.
That’s what bothers you? What about putting leather cubes on the head, or waving plants, or growing sidecurls, eating dry matzot for seven days, etc. etc.
What troubles the rabbi and the other commenters have….
Where I live and in my synagogue, actually there is the opposite problem. There aren’t enough worshippers, and the cantor rushes back to his place, and if not for me and my brother creating a traffic jam / slowing traffic / speed bump…., the cantor would be back in his place already by the letter samekh.
True, that’s only by me. In the larger synagogue in the neighborhood, indeed for the first time this year a mini-jam was created. But there too we reached the end of the circuit after we had completed between three quarters and four fifths of the route.
So here’s a solution for the rabbi: just move here, and a redeemer shall come to Zion (though then new problems will arise that will provide the rabbi with amusing columns such as this). Happy holiday.
As is known, the problem is one of synchronization. After all, there is room for everyone on the line encircling the bimah, and there is no blockage; rather, the moment one person orders his feet to move, his friend daydreams, and so on and so forth—when one rises, another falls, etc. etc.,
and thus traffic jams are created for no reason at all: there is no accident, Heaven forbid, no pothole in the road, everything is ready, except that the drivers are not synchronized with one another—when one accelerates, another stops, etc.
One of the approaching visions of the End of Days, in the form of the autonomous vehicle such as Mobileye, is a solution to the problem of traffic jams created by congestion. After all, all the cars will be connected to one system that will manage and synchronize them; all will stop and accelerate together as needed, etc.
By that same token, with God’s help, on the night after Simchat Torah, the company ‘MakifAI,’ specializing in autonomous-foot procession solutions, begins recruiting investors.
Those interested in investing in the promising startup,
may contact me,
contact details may be obtained
from the rabbi known as Michi,
of the holy community of Lod, may it be rebuilt and established, and its environs.
With wishes for a happy holiday and a peaceful Sabbath,
Yaakov M.
of the holy community of Jerusalem, may it be rebuilt and established.
I don’t know what the ultimate solution is, but the article did help pass the long time of the circuits this morning. Thanks.
In computer science they always reach the conclusion that generalizing to log N levels is asymptotically optimal.
Together with the three logs of the water libation (order of magnitude N), all the more so..
With God’s help, night after Simchat Torah 5779
The problem of traffic jams during the circuits in the great synagogue of Lod explained to me the piyyut recited after the circuits: ‘As You saved a mighty people in Lod, when You went forth to save Your people, so save us now.’
The root of the problem of the sharp-minded people of Lod stems from their proximity to the international airport, where they are accustomed to reaching the goal by a “leap of the road.” Within a few short hours, one traveling by plane covers distances of hundreds and thousands of kilometers in order to reach his destination at jet speed.
The circuits accustom their participants to slow walking full of delays, so as to adapt themselves to the public, which is gradually trying to pave the way by which all will complete the route, each person at his own pace.
Even the individual finds himself hobbling “heel to toe within the celebrating throng,” in the words of the psalmist (42): “For I would pass along with the throng, I would lead them to the house of God, with the voice of joy and thanksgiving, a celebrating multitude.”
Thus the individual cleaves to the trait of his Creator, who walks patiently to save His people, grappling with His people in all their dilemmas and life-stations. He is with them in moments of difficulty and crisis, and with them at peaks of joy and deliverance—sharing the burden with His people and helping them, at their pace, advance toward “the desired end.”
With blessing, S.Z. Levinger
The practical solution to the need for many people to circle the bimah at one and the same time lies in the ability to create circles upon circles around the center, some closer and some farther. Thus each person finds his place and completes his circuit route together with the community.
The circling of the community and its individuals around the reading table and the Torah scrolls is a metaphor for the life of a Jew.
The circular motion arises from the union of two tendencies: the aspiration to move forward together, along with the pull toward the central point—bringing about circular motion around the central point.
The believing person walks, like every person, on his own unique path toward self-realization. But as one who believes in Torah, he aspires for it to be the center around which his life flows. The Torah guides him, and it sets for him the “boundaries of the arena.”
Some live lives more closely attached to Torah study, and some live lives that lead them to develop the worlds of action and life. When both alike are careful that, as they expand the circle of their lives, they continue to see the Torah as the “central point” of their lives—then all of them, each in his own circle, create an ever-expanding envelope, through which the circles of the Torah’s influence likewise expand more and more.
As each person builds the circle of his life around the Torah, in coordination and correspondence with his fellows, who also build the circles of their lives around the Torah—there grows around the “Torah core” a great and powerful “envelope,” which brings into practice all the ideals that God planted in His Torah, and the joy of the Torah radiates beyond the boundaries of time and place.
With blessing, S.Z. Levinger
In paragraph 5, line 3:
… then all of them, each in his own circle…
The truth is that this very year I arrived at the same conclusions (albeit with less contempt…) and simply stood in place, as the rabbi did. I also shortened the wearisome verbiage and did not say “Please save, for the sake of Your truth, please save; please save…” You chase after yourself like that and do not focus on the content. Instead, from now on say: “Please save, for the sake of Your truth, for the sake of Your creatures, etc.”
With God’s help, Isru Chag of Sukkot 5779
To M.Sh.G. – greetings,
In contrast to the Selichot of the Ashkenazim, about which “people” complain that their language is convoluted and that they are said under time pressure, making it hard for the speaker to understand and focus—in the hoshaanot recited during the circuits, the words are short and simple, and the recitation during the circuits is unhurried, so there is nothing to complain about. Anyone can reflect and focus. Whoever has understanding can grasp the depth of the concept 🙂
With blessing, S.Z. Levinger
The hoshaanot piyyutim recited during the circuits are very ancient, and it is possible that some of them were recited already in Temple times, when they circled the altar. Their literary genre is “litany,” a song recited during a procession, which by nature needs to be short, simple, and rhythmic. The cantor says a short segment and the congregation responds with a short fixed response. For example: the cantor says, “Please save, for the sake of Your truth,” and the congregation answers, “Hoshaana,” and so on.
After the simple and ancient circuit piyyutim come piyyutim whose language is more complex, such as “As You saved a mighty people in Lod, Your people,” recited each day after the circuits, and the set of piyyutim for Hoshaana Rabbah by Rabbi אלעזר הקליר, from “Make us for a name and for praise” to “The artisan of your salvation comes… bringing tidings and saying.”
So too the ancient Eretz-Israel Selichot piyyutim, preserved in the order of Selichot of the Sephardim, are marked by their simplicity and rhythm. See, for example, “Men of faith have perished, those who come with the power of deed,” or “Answer us, our Father, answer us; answer us, our Creator, answer us” (which has been preserved among the Ashkenazim). They too have their origin in the public fast assemblies in the town square mentioned in the Mishnah in tractate Ta’anit.
Among the Sephardim, the ancient and simple Selichot piyyutim were preserved, whereas the Ashkenazim adopted the Italian Selichot piyyutim, whose language is difficult and complex. With the hoshaanot, the opposite process occurred. The Ashkenazim preserved the ancient and simple piyyutim, whereas the Sephardim brought out the hoshaanot piyyutim of Rav Saadia Gaon and Rabbi Yosef Ibn Abitur, whose language is more complex.
Paragraph 4, line 1:
Also the ancient Eretz-Israel Selichot piyyutim, which were preserved…
Paragraph 5, line 1:
… the Sephardim adopted the piyyutim…
Even simpler than simple: “Please save, in four oaths,” “those who knock out the worth of supplications,” “three hours.”
With God’s help, 23 Tishrei 5779
To Yishai – greetings,
Indeed, the language of the piyyut “Hoshaana, God of deliverances” is more difficult than the other hoshaana piyyutim, and so too the piyyut “Hoshaana, for the sake of the steadfast one cast into the blade of fire” (recited on Hoshaana Rabbah in the seventh circuit).
In the Western Ashkenazi rite, on the first two festival days they recited “I shall arrange my plea” and “God of deliverances,” in the manner of the Ashkenazim, who were fond on festival days of piyyutim with difficult language. The ancient and simple hoshaana “For the sake of Your truth” dropped out entirely from this rite, and “Foundation Stone” was pushed off to the intermediate days.
By contrast, in the Eastern Ashkenazi rite they remained faithful to the simple piyyutim of the first days—“For the sake of Your truth” and “Foundation Stone”—but found a place for “I shall arrange my plea” and “God of deliverances” in the intermediate days. By contrast, on Hoshaana Rabbah, “I shall arrange my plea” and “God of deliverances” were not included; rather, the ancient piyyutim were preserved. Hence, apparently, the complexity in the order of hoshaanot in the Eastern Ashkenazi rite, which is the accepted one today.
At the moment Goldschmidt’s machzor is not at hand for me, “Alas, my lord, and he is borrowed” 🙂 and, with God’s help, “there is yet a vision for the appointed time” next week.
With blessing, S.Z. Levinger
About the simplicity that characterizes the hoshaana piyyutim, Dr. Yosef Heinemann wrote in his book Prayer in the Period of the Tannaim and Amoraim, Jerusalem 1964, pp. 88ff. A summary of his words is brought in Rabbi Yissachar Jacobson’s book Netiv Binah – Studies in the Prayer Book, vol. 5, pp. 232ff.
“The special features of this pattern of hoshaanot are these…
A. All of them have a fixed format… after the opening/request word ‘Please save,’ there come no more than two or three words of address or justification and the like, and after them again the word ‘Please save’…
B. In all of them the author uses the following stylistic means, and only these, in all or some of them: (1) a simple alphabetical acrostic… (2) all have a rhythm built on an equal number of words in each line; (3) most of them have rhyme of the simplest kind… (4) they contain none of the phenomena characteristic of piyyut language: no obscure expressions, hints, or epithets, as are found in piyyut! Likewise there are no changes in grammatical forms. (5) The structure of the piyyut as a whole is extremely simple. It is nothing but the same short verse repeated many times. Even within the verse itself only one idea is expressed; moreover, the main content of each verse is really expressed by the very request word ‘Please save’… and the changing words are only addresses or reasons for accepting the request…
… all of them belong to the genre of ‘litany’ (the frequent and unchanging response), that is, prayer made up of link after link of short petitions resembling one another, at the end of each of which comes an unchanging response from the congregation…
Judaism has something like this pattern already in Scripture: in those psalms in which every line ends with a stereotyped response, such as ‘for His mercy endures forever’…
The recitation of Hallel in its origin was a kind of ‘litany,’ when the people answered after every verse ‘Hallelujah’… It may be assumed that this form of congregational participation by frequent stereotyped response originated in the Temple.”
***
Further on, Rabbi Jacobson explains the hoshaana piyyutim. I will bring here some of his explanations for difficult expressions in “God of deliverances”: “in four oaths” — these are the four oaths by which the Holy One, blessed be He, swore to Israel that He would redeem them; “three hours” — these are the three times that Gog and Magog will attempt to conquer Jerusalem, as mentioned in Yalkut Shimoni on Zechariah 12. “And for the rest of the explanation, go and learn.”
With blessing, S.Z. Levinger
We need to arrange a regular column for you; what you do does not fall into the category of “comments,” and even if it does, it’s hard to believe anyone devotes the time to read it all, and people skim it as though it were Ashkenazi Selichot… In any case, the incessant repetition of the words “Please save” close to fifty or sixty times in each section takes me out of concentration, in my opinion, similar to saying “For the sin” on Yom Kippur, where my rabbis admitted to me that after the third or fourth time people focus much less on it.
Hello,
I can’t restrain myself; I simply must share a very short video in connection with the column you recently wrote about the circling circuits…
Thanks for the wonderful site!
I saw your new post and I’m really surprised. Every year during the circuits I’m reminded of your doctorate story with Yuval Gefen, so how did you not refer to it?
What creates the jam is the discretization of the people: no one can walk because the one in front of him is standing. Exactly like the conductivity of electrons in a ring, which goes down because no one can jump to the next site when it is occupied.
The solution is synchronization: the gabbai should bang on the bimah and everyone should take one step forward, so everyone advances simultaneously and a redeemer shall come to Zion.
Happy festival,
Indeed. And this requires consideration for the proponents of the collectivist approach, who see the public as one collective entity. According to them, the public can make circuits even if the individuals are stuck, and this is obvious.
By the way, practically speaking I assume you understand that a knock before every step would not really help unless there is a gap of one step between person and person (and even then I doubt it from the second knock onward). When people are standing densely packed, the knock is of no avail.
Now I am thinking of another mechanism that would not require transport. If the route were marked with squares the size of a single person, one could stand densely packed provided that one empty square remains in front of the cantor (the additional room in Hilbert’s infinite hotel). For n people, the route must have length n+1. With each knock the cantor steps into the next square and after him everyone else, like dominoes. Then another knock, and more dominoes.
By the way, a more economical proposal has already been raised on the site: a conveyor belt of length n that rotates and everyone stands on it (which works even when people are standing completely densely packed). But I wondered whether here the law concerns the one who circles or the one being circled (for to the same extent one could simply make a Copernican revolution and tell the people holding the scroll to rotate around their own axis), and this requires further study.
By the way, there is another effect, namely a shock wave created by high density near the cantor. Many people figure that if they stick to the cantor they can’t miss out, so at the beginning of the circuits there is high density right after the cantor, and then a wave is produced that travels backward (against the direction of the circuit).
Boundary conditions of an infinite potential barrier.
With God’s help, 3rd day of the intermediate days of Sukkot 5780
The fact is that during the circuits of Simchat Torah there is no problem of “traffic jams.” Perhaps the reason is that here there are no individuals who must walk one after another, which creates a feeling of impatience and issues of “who’s first”?
On Simchat Torah, a united community is formed, all of whose individuals hold on to one another and unite into a dancing circle in which “there is no earlier and later.” The joy and dancing and feeling of togetherness create the “synchronization.” Perhaps the same should be done in the hoshaanot circuits as well?
With wishes for a happy festival, S.Z.
One large circle of people standing on a circular conveyor belt and not walking at all is enough. That way the rotation speed depends solely on the computer settings, and there are no stops at all (: