About the lecturer
This biography has been slightly updated at the request of Professor Simonson's heirs. The original can be seen via the "View page images" link in the table of contents at right.
Professor Solomon Simonson was Distinguished Professor of Communications and the Arts at Touro College, where he served also as Vice-President of Academic Affairs and Provost from 1981 until his passing in 1991. He received his Ph.D. from Northwestern University in 1943, and rabbinical ordination in 1941 from the Hebrew Theological College in Chicago, where he was Professor of Homiletics.
Among his many published writings are two definitive statements on analysis of sacred texts – The Idea of Interpretation in Hebrew Thought, in the Journal of the History of Ideas, and Four Modes of Interpretation in Columbia University's Review of Religion. His most recent book, To The Earthmen: Reflections at Sunset, a volume of poetry and prayers for peace, appeared in 1989.
Dr. Simonson helped to establish houses of worship in four different parts of the country, serving them as spiritual leader, and striving to infuse in them the mode of "praying with kavanah and singing with hislahavut" – the spirit carried over in this series of lectures.
Unless otherwise indicated, the chanting of all the liturgical passages was recorded for this series by Rabbi Abner H. Groff, of Congregation Beth-El of Flatbush. Rabbi Groff was a protegé of the late renowned cantor Jacob Koussevitsky.
This course was sponsored by:
Selected Bibliography
To fully appreciate this course, particularly when listening to it on audio-cassettes, it is important to have at hand a Siddur, a Bible, and especially the Book of Psalms. There are numerous editions of the Siddur in both the Ashkenazi and Sephardi traditions.
The following are the most commonly-used standard Siddurim:
Works related to prayer
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