'ET SHA'ARE RAẒON ():

By: Cyrus Adler, Francis L. Cohen

A long poem on the binding of Isaac upon the altar ('AḲedah), written by Judah ben Samuel ibn Abbas, a twelfth-century rabbi of Fez, for chanting before the sounding of the shofar, and so utilized in the Sephardic liturgy of the New-Year. It is associated there with a very old Morisco chant, which is characteristic of its origin in the southern cities of Spain, and which well exhibits the general mechanism of the older chants, and the tonal construction of the intonations traditional in the Sephardic congregations. Particularly is this the case in the prominence of the third and fifth degrees of the scale, and in the combination and repetition of brief phrases in sentences of different lengths.

A. F. L. C.'ET SHA'ARE RAẒON