Piyyut

A piyyuṭ (plural piyyuṭim, Hebrew: פִּיּוּטִים / פיוטים, פִּיּוּט / פיוט pronounced [piˈjut, pijuˈtim]; from Koinē Greek: ποιητής, romanized: poiētḗs, lit.

Another beloved piyyuṭ is Yigdal ("May God be Hallowed"), which is based upon the Thirteen Principles of Faith set forth by Maimonides.

Important scholars of piyyuṭ today include Shulamit Elizur and Joseph Yahalom, both at Hebrew University.

The earliest piyyuṭim date from late antiquity, the Talmudic (c. 70 – c. 500 CE)[citation needed] and Geonic periods (c. 600 – c. 1040).

[1] They were "overwhelmingly from the Land of Israel or its neighbor Syria, because only there was the Hebrew language sufficiently cultivated that it could be managed with stylistic correctness, and only there could it be made to speak so expressively.

The piyyuṭim were usually composed by a talented rabbinic poet, and depending on the piyyuṭ’s reception by the community determined whether it would pass the test of time.

Looking at the composers of the piyyuṭim, one can see which family names were part of the Middle Eastern community and which hakhamim were prominent and well established.

Al-Samawal al-Maghribi, a Jewish convert to Islam in the twelfth century, wrote that the Persians prohibited Jews from holding prayer services.

The Kabbalistic school of Isaac Luria and his followers, which used an adapted Sephardic liturgy, disapproved of the Spanish piyyuṭim, regarding them as spiritually inauthentic, and invoked the Geonic strictures to have them either eliminated from the service or moved away from the core parts of it.

Their disapproval did not extend to piyyuṭim of the early Palestinian school, which they regarded as an authentic part of the Talmudic-rabbinic tradition.