Background
Eleazar ben Killir was born circa 570. The place of his birth is unknown.
El'azar Kalir; Qalir; HaKalir
Eleazar ben Killir was born circa 570. The place of his birth is unknown.
Eleazar ben Killir is said to have been the disciple of another 6th-century composer of piyut, Yannai who, according to a certain legend, grew jealous of Eleazar's superior knowledge and caused his death by inserting into his shoe a scorpion whose sting proved to be fatal. Samuel David Luzzatto argues that if Yannai was a murderer then there is no way Yannai's piyutim would be so popular.
The age in which Eleazar ben Killir lived is unknown. Some (basing the view on Saadiah's Sefer ha-galuy) place him as early as the 6tb century, others regard him as belonging to the 10th century. Kalir's style is powerful but involved; he may be described as a Hebrew Browning. While some of his hymns have been lost, more than 200 of them have been embodied in the Mahzorim, i. e. , prayer-books for the cycle of the festivals. Some beautiful renderings of Kalir's poems may be found in the volumes of Davis & Adler's edition of the German Festival Prayers entitled Service of the Synagogue.
The "Kallir style" had a profound influence on the poets who succeeded him in Eretz Yisra'el and in the Near E. He made radical innovations in diction and style, while employing the full range of post-biblical Hebrew.
