Unetanneh Tokef, Unethanneh Toqeph, Un'taneh Tokef, or Unesanneh Tokef (ונתנה תוקף) ("Let us speak of the awesomeness ") is a piyyut that has been a part of the Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur liturgy in some traditions of rabbinical Judaism for centuries. It introduces the Kedusha of Musaf for these days. It is chanted while the Torah ark is open and the congregants are standing. The ArtScroll machzor calls it "one of the most stirring compositions in the entire liturgy of the Days of Awe."
Contents
Traditional retelling
Recorded in the 13th century commentary Or Zarua, by Rabbi Isaac ben Moses of Vienna (died ca. 1270), who attributes the writing to Rabbi Ephraim of Bonn (a compiler of Jewish martyrologies, died ca. 1200).
Ben Moses claimed that Unetanneh Tokef was composed by an 11th-century sage named Rabbi Amnon of Mainz (or Mayence, in Germany) – who, apart from this one story, is utterly unknown to history. As a friend of the (otherwise unnamed) Archbishop of Mainz (or, perhaps, the otherwise unnamed Governor), Rabbi Amnon was pressured to convert to Catholicism. As a delaying tactic, he requested three days to consider the offer; immediately he regretted intensely giving even the pretense that he could possibly accept a foreign religion. After spending the three days in prayer, he refused to come to the archbishop as promised, and, when he was forcibly brought to the archbishop's palace, he begged that his tongue be cut out to atone for his sin. Instead, the archbishop ordered his hands and legs amputated — limb by limb — as punishment for not obeying his word to return after three days and for refusing to convert. At each amputation, Rabbi Amnon was again given the opportunity to convert, which he refused. He was sent home, with his severed extremities, on a knight's shield.
This event occurred shortly before Rosh Hashanah. On that holiday, as he lay dying, Rabbi Amnon asked to be carried into the synagogue, where he recited the original composition of Unetanneh Tokef with his last breath (the story contains an ambiguous phrase that some commentators interpreted as saying that he did not merely die but that his body miraculously vanished). Three days later, he appeared in a dream to Rabbi Kalonymus ben Meshullam (died 1096), one of the great scholars and liturgists of Mainz, and begged him to transcribe the prayer and to see that it was included in the text of the High Holiday services. Thus, the legend concludes, Unetanneh Tokef became a part of the standard liturgy.
Modern scholarship
Modern scholarship has demonstrated that the prayer is in fact considerably older than it was traditionally believed, with fragments found in the Cairo Geniza dating to the 8th Century.
While medieval history testifies amply to the intense persecution of Jews by Christians at the time of the Crusades, there are difficulties with the legend that it was composed by Amnon. Not least of these is its portrayal of Amnon as an illustrious Torah giant, while Jewish history of that period provides no record of a 'Rav Amnon of Mainz' at all. It seems unlikely that a person of such tremendous stature would be remembered only in a single legend. Scholars have long known that there is no historical foundation for the story of Rabbi Amnon and that this story may have been inspired or derived from the Christian legend associated with Saint Emmeram of Regensburg. Moreover, the discovery of the Unetaneh Tokef prayer within the earliest strata of the Cairo Geniza materials, dating well before the 11th century, makes it almost impossible that the prayer could have been composed as the legend claims.
Additionally, some scholars see parallels with non-Jewish hymnology, suggesting that elements of the prayer stemmed from other sources. It is possible that the Rabbi Amnon story was entirely invented, not necessarily by the author of Or Zarua, to legitimize a piyyut of doubtful origin or simply to satisfy popular curiosity about the background of such an impressive liturgical work. Indications of this are the absence of evidence of the existence of a Rabbi Amnon, the fact that the name Amnon is a variant of the Hebrew word for "faithful", the extravagance of the story, the conspicuous inclusion of Kalonymus, and evidences that this piyyut or something very similar was already in use before the time ascribed. Additionally, both the language and style are different from the other poems of Kalonymus.
Yaakov Spiegel has argued that the prayer was written by Yannai in the sixth century. Authorship from Israel is supported by internal evidence, such as the concluding three-part remedy of 'repentance, prayer, and charity', which is found in exact permutation in Genesis Rabbah (composed in Israel), yet not in Babylonian sources (e.g., Talmud Bavli cites a four-part remedy). Stylistically, the prayer indicates its composition in the land of Israel during the Byzantine period (namely 330–638).
Position in the prayer service
In the Ashkenazic ritual, Unetanneh Tokef is inserted during the Mussaf service, when the chazzan repeats the Amidah, as a Silluk (parting poem) just before intoning the kedusha. In the Sephardic ritual, Unetanneh Tokef is usually omitted, as Sephardic Jews do not recite piyyutim during the Amidah. Nevertheless, because of the importance of this prayer, many Sephardic congregations (mainly Moroccan) recite it immediately prior to the commencement of the Mussaf service. The congregation stands up to chant it and the Torah Ark is opened. It is one of the few piyyutim that is recited on both days of Rosh Hashanah and on Yom Kippur in the Polish tradition whereas it's only said on Rosh Hashanah by Sephardim and German Ashkenazim who have another silluk for Yom Kippur: "Mi Ya'arokh Eilekho". In Reform practice, it was taken from the recitation of the Amidah and presented as an independent item in both the Minhah and Yizkor services, early Reform practice had the line about the angels trembling deleted but this has been restored in more recent Reform prayerbooks.