Customer Reviews

Entering the High Holidays: A Complete Guide to the History, Prayers, and Themes

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This book provides a summary to the the liturgy, and services, of the High Holy Days. Hammer gives historical information for the prayers, and services, that take place on these sacred days. This is book is a mature, serious approach to the Days of Awe. This by no means it is unapproachable. It is quite readable. Readers who want a deeper understanding of the origins of the prayers, and services, will enjoy this book. People will learn about what the days hold in terms of what the liturgy holds for the worshipper and how the prayers came to exist in their current form. The first three chapters set the stage for this period by describing the development, meanings and preparing for the holidays. Following chapters take up each service in turn.

Rabbi Hammer has organized a passagway that takes you through the prayer texts of the Yamim Noraim. This is a must use for either Adult Ed knowledgeable Jews or those looking for meaning and engagement in the classic religious texts. He brings understanding, and a historical context to otherwise obscure piyutim (poems) and rabbinicly organized prayers. It can be used alongside the Machzor( (prayerbook) as the service unfolds or as a preparation for the spiritual journey of the most important ten days of the year for the jews.

This book was certainly useful for what it is - a rather dry laundry list of High Holy day prayers and explanations of same. If you have the prayerbook next to you while reading Hammer's book, you can get a brief explanation of each prayer and its context from the latter- certainly a worthwhile task. But I don't think you would get much out of this learned but less-than-lively book otherwise, and I also think Max Arzt's Justice and Mercy (which Hammer, to his credit, cites) covered the same material in much more detail some decades ago.