Prayer in Israel is not only a personal and occasional expression of man's relationship with his God, but a complete way of life, organized around a set of daily prayers, on weekdays, on Shabbat and on holidays. But many questions hover around the genesis of this system: When was it designed? At what stages? What is the relationship between its different parts and between its different ways - blessing, reading and prayer? What is the difference between public prayer and individual prayer? Extensive literature has already been written on the history of the prayer, but since the main design of the prayer emerged from the Talmudic literature - Tanna'im and Amora'im - it is essential to place the study of the prayer on the basis of a detailed analysis of the Talmudic material, according to the ways of updated Talmudic science. From this a reliable picture of the prayer in Israel may be drawn from within the literature of the Sages. This essay seeks to present basic chapters from this task.

The book Mah Nishtannah: The Passover Night in the Sages' Discourse seeks to provide novel answers, based upon up-to-date methods of scholarly Talmud analysis, to ancient questions raised by the Seder Night, a night at the focus of Jewish culture from time immemorial. The book analyzes the focal points of this night – the Passover meal and its commandments on one hand, and the foundation of the Haggadah and the development of its design and history of its structure on the other.

Table of Contents: David Henshke - Directing Prayer toward the Holy Place : the Plain Meaning of the Mishnah and Its Echoes in Talmudic Literature Baruch J. Schwartz - R. Judah Heḥasid’s Commentary on Genesis 48:20 Shalem Yahalom - Tosafot Sens: Editions and Characteristics Yaron Ben-Naeh - An Unknown Sabbatean Document Gideon Freudenthal - Salomon Maimon's Development from Kabbalah to Philosophical Rationalism

This book examines the Rabbinic perception of the biblical commandment of pilgrimage-related joy - “You shall rejoice on your festival” - from the Second Temple through the tannaitic-amoraic period. Close analysis of the sources discloses an edifice of early tannaitic halakhah concerning the festivals and pinpoints the development of its underlying conceptual-exegetical approach from early teachings to its present form.