During the period of exile, Hebrew became primarily a liturgical language as subsequent generations born in exile switched to Aramaic. On the one hand, this was a great blessing, as dead languages don’t evolve as rapidly as living languages, so that Hebrew remained much more accessible and the text was preserved for future generations — […]
The Eighteen Blessings
The Amidah, or The Eighteen Blessings, was the core of the Synagogue liturgy and was to be recited three times each day, four times on the Sabbath and five times on high holy days. There were several variant Amidahs based on local traditions and a system of rules in place for adding new material to […]