Eleazar ben Killir

Eleazar beRabbi Qallir (; ), also known as Eleazar HaKalir, was a Byzantine Jewish poet whose Hebrew-language liturgical verses or piyyuṭim are sung during significant religious services, especially in the Nusach Ashkenaz rite, as well as in the Italian Nusach and well as the Romaniote rite. In particular, he wrote hymns for the Three Pilgrimage Festivals, for special Shabbats, for weekdays of festive character, and the fast days.

Biography Tripartite Mahzor, ca. 1322, British Library, piyyut יפתח ארץ לישע by Qallir. The mahzor emphasizes some of the poetic patterns, such as the fourfold alphabetical acrostic, the incipits which form Deuteronomy 28:12 and Isaiah 55:10, and the word מים ending every first and third verse. Although his poems have had a prominent place in printed ritual and he is known to have lived somewhere in the Near East, documentation regarding details of his life has been lost to history, including the exact year and circumstances of his birth and death. He is said to have been the disciple of another 6th-century composer of piyyuṭim, Yannai, who, according to a certain legend, grew jealous of Eleazar's superior knowledge and caused his death by inserting into his shoe a scorpion whose sting proved to be fatal.

In the acrostics of his hymns he usually signs his father's name, Qallir, but three times he writes Qillir. Eleazar's name, home, and time have been the subject of many discussions in modern Jewish literature. Italy, Lower Mesopotamia, and Palestine have been claimed by different scholars as his native land. Some legends concerning his career have been handed down. and reports that the poet obtained his name from a cake inscribed with Biblical verses that was given him to eat as a talisman for wisdom when he began to go to school. His scholarship having been attributed later to that talisman, he was called "Eleazar the Cake." While such a custom is known to have existed among Jews and Syriac Christians, others claim that the explanation put forward by ben Jehiel is not acceptable since Qallir is not the name of the poet but that of his father. or Edessa in Syria (F. Perles). and with Cagliari (Civitas Portus), in Italy. although Tosafot and Asher ben Jehiel or with Eleazar ben Simeon He has been confounded with another poet named Eleazar ben Jacob, and a book by the title of Kevod Adonai was ascribed to him by Moses Botarel. in the Sefer Yetzirah commentary of Saadia Gaon, and in his "Agron", as well as in the writings of Jacob Qirqisani.

Modern research points to the probability that he and his teacher were Palestinian Jews. Since Yannai is known to have been one of the halakhic authorities of Anan ben David, the alleged founder of Karaite Judaism, he must therefore have lived a considerable time earlier than Anan. Qallir's time may thus be fixed with some probability as the first half of the 7th century. that he ascended to heaven and there learned from the angels the secret of writing alphabetical hymns. On a piyyuṭ found in the Mahzor Vitry and ascribed by Henrik Bródy to Qallir, see Max Weisz.

Poetic style

The "Kallir style" had a profound influence on the poets who succeeded him in Palestine and the Near East. He made radical innovations in diction and style while employing the full range of Mishnaic Hebrew. It may be that the stories of Yannai growing jealous of him are based in fact because the patterns of rhyme, acrostic, repetition, and refrain in his piyyuṭim are much more complex than those of his master.

His use of neologisms and other oddities has earned him a reputation as an enigmatic writer, to the point where some have criticized him for being obscure and having a corruptive influence on Hebrew. He was, however, capable of writing in simple and direct language, as poems like his Epithalamium demonstrate.

Joseph Solomon Delmedigo warns the student against Qallir's writings because "he has cut up the Hebrew language in an arbitrary way".

Qallir was the first to embellish the entire liturgy with a series of hymns whose essential element was the aggadah. He drew his material from the Talmud, and from midrashic compilations, some of which latter are now probably lost, a criticism which centuries later influenced the maskilim in their disparagement of Qallir ).

Works

While some of his hymns have been lost, more than 200 of them appear in various machzors. Twenty-odd of the kinnot of Tisha B'Av were composed by him too.

Elazar HaQallir was responsible for writing several long piyyutim, known as kerovot, which are recited as part of the repetition of the Amidah on holidays. For example, the piyyut VaYe'ehav Omen is the kerovah for Purim. The tradition of reciting kerovot was followed in the Land of Israel during the Byzantine period, and continues in many Ashkenazi communities to this day.

Although most of Qallir's work remains unpublished, Shulamit Elizur has published four volumes of his poetry for Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur, Sukkot and Shemini Atzeret, respectively, and continues to work on his work.

Translations Translations of some of his hymns into German are found in Leopold Zunz, in Sachs's edition of the siddur, and in Gustav Karpeles' Zionsharfe and by Jenny Marmorstein. The works that are recited in the Italian Nusach were translated into Italian by Menachem Emanuel Hartom. In the 19th century some were rendered into English by Nina Davis and by Mrs Henry Lucas, other English translations of his work can be found in Abraham Rosenfeld's Tisha B'av Compendium, the various volumes of Service of the Synagogue (the "Routledge" mahzor) and Artscroll.

Commemoration In Tel Aviv, Elazar HaKalir street near the city hall is named after him. Likewise, in the Jerusalem neighbourhood of Sha'arei Hesed, a street is named after him.