Maoz Tsour

" Ma' OZ Tsour" (Hebrew: מעוזצור, Rocher powerful) is a liturgical poem ( Piyyout ) Jewish. Written in Hebrew, he is usually sung at the time of the festival of Hanoukka, after the lighting of the candles. Although originally intended for the hearths, it entered the use synagogal since the nineteenth century at least. Of its six stanzas, people know generally only the first.

It is of everyday usage at the anglophone Jews to sing of it a not-literal translation, the Rock off Old of Marcus Jastrow and Gustav Gottheil, based on that in German of Leopold Stein (1810-1882). This use is unknown at the French-speaking Jews.

The anthem is named according to its the first two words in Hebrew, which mean " Rock of puissance" , employed like epithet name or of God.

According to Zunz (" Literaturgesch . " p. 580), Maoz Tsour would have been written in the middle of the thirteenth century, at the time of the Croisades.
Les first letters of the first five stanzas form in Acrostiche a name, probably that of the type-setter, Mordekhaï (מרדכי). It could be gir of Mordecaï Ben Isaac ha-Levi, the author of the piyyout for the table of Shabbat " Mah Yafit ", even of the scientist evoked by the Tossefot of Nidda 36a. According to the message of the final stanza, it could be a question of Mordecaï whose father-in-law undergoes martyrdom with Mainz in 1096.

Another acrostic is found in the first letters of the words opening the last stanza. As in the case of many piyyoutim , they congratulent the poet by the word hazaq (meaning " to be fort").

The first stanza and the last are written at the present, the others with the past. In these intermediate stanzas, the poem recalls the many occasions during which the Jewish communities were saved people oppressors which surrounded them in the chronological order. The second stanza evokes the Exodus of Egypt, the third the end of the Babylonian captivity, the fourth the miracle of Pourim, and the fifth the victory of Hasmonéens, period in which Hanoucca.
Dans the first stanza fits is expressed the hope of the rebuilding of the Temple and the defeat of the enemies, evoked in canine terms ( menabe' a' H , barking).
La final stanza calls with a rising against the enemies of the Juif people. Within sight of the fitting of the poem, some think that the " term; Admon" , meaning " the rouge" , although being able to be included/understood like a metaphor of Édom, evoked more precisely the emperor Friedrich Barbarossa ( Frederic Barberousse ). This stanza was obliterated many printed versions of the poem, undoubtedly by fear of Christian reprisals.

In its book VeHigadeta Lebanekha (" And you will say to your enfants"), Mikhal Gour-Arie explains why " Ma' OZ Tsour" is sung in Hanoucca rather than with Pourim or Pessa' H, also evoked in the poem because:

For Pessa' H, we read in the Haggada: " To each generation, some rise to destroy us, but the Saint, blessed is it, saves us of their mains." To Pourim, after the reading of the Meguila, we say the blessing " Blessed would be You… Who defend our cause,… and drew up itself against those which were drawn up against us…." It is not need to say the " Ma' OZ Tsour" , except in Hanoucca .

Accordingly, the " Ma' OZ Tsour" fact office of ritual relation of the facts, Jews not regarding the Books of the Stiffs as " canoniques".

Melody

piyyut , next preceding the Shema 'in the Morning Service off the (first) Sabbath in the eight days off the Feast off Dedication. Curiously enough, " Shene Zetim" alone is now sometimes sung to has melody which two centuries ago was associated rather with " Ma' OZ tzur." To lath has Jewish-sounding air in the minor mode, and is found in Benedetto Marcello' S " Estro Poetico Armonico, " however " Parafrasi Sopra Li Salmi" (Venice, 1724), quoted ace has melody off the German Jews, and utilized by Marcello ace the topic for his " Psalm XV." This air has been transcribed by Cantor Birnbaum off Königsberg in the " Israelitische Wochenschrift" (1878, No 51)

Present The melody for the Hanukkah hymn has been identified by Birnbaum ace year adaptation from the old German folk song " So Weiss ich eins, dass mich erfreut, das pluemlein auff preiter heyde, " given in Böhme' S " Altdeutsches Liederbuch" (No 635); it was widely spread among German Jews ace early ace 1450. By year interesting coincidence, this folk-melody was also the first utilized by Luther for his German chorals. He set it to his " Nun freut euch lieben Christen gmein" (comp. Julian, " Dictionary off Hymnology, " S. v. " Sing praise to God who reigns above"). It is familiar among English-speaking people ace the tune for has translation by F off. E. Cox the hymn " Sei lob und ehr dem höchsten gut, " by J.J. Schütz (1640-1730). Ace such it is called " Erk" (after the German hymnologist), and, with harmony by Bach, appears ace No 283 off " Hymns, Ancient and Modern" (London, 1875). The earliest transcription off the Jewish form off the tune is due to Isaac Nathan, who set it, very clumsily indeed, to the poem " One Jordan' S Banks" in Byron' S " Hebrew Melodies" (London, 1815). Later transcriptions cuts been numerous, and the air finds has off place in every collection Jewish melodies. Delicate It was modified to the form now favored by English Jews by the liturgical taste off Mombach, to whom is due the modulation to the dominating in the repetition off the first strain, shown in the transcription above. -->

Modern source of inspiration

This piyyout inspired the singer and compositrice Israélien Naomi Shemer its " Shiv'hei Ma'oz" (" Praises of Forteresse"), which was played by the orchestra Pikoud Darom in 1969. Naomi Shemer bound in this song the Jewish anthem to the military positions which had been attacked with the épooque one, at the time of the War of attrition with the Egypt.

References

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Maoz Tsour

Contents

Melody

Modern source of inspiration

References