Re: Maoz Tzur & Shavuot (part II)

[I. Oppenheim <i.oppenheim...>]

On Thu, 3 Jan 2002 SamWeiss (at) bellatlantic(dot)net wrote:

> ... It seems to me that the practice of the
> congregation would more likely be determined by the contents of a book,
> rather than vice versa.  So the ultimate arbiter of much liturgical
> practice could very well have been the book publishers.

I am afraid that in the times that the liturgical customs developed,
most jews did not have the luxury of owning their own machzor.
And even those that had, probably had one in manuscript. The machzor
of the famous community of Carpentras, for example, was only printed
during the 18th century. As we know that the most important piyutim
were already written by Elazar Kallir, in probably the 6th century,
according to some even earlier, a lot could have happened in those
centuries in between. Probably more than the printers an publishers
alone, can account for.

Irwin Oppenheim

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