Liturgy and Law: Approaches to Halakhic Material in Yannai’s Kedushta’ot

The article considers how Yannai, a liturgical poet of ca. 6th c. CE Byzantine Palestine, integrates legal material into his poems (qedushta’ot). The first and longer part of the article focuses on Yannai’s use of rabbinic sources, and in particular, the ways in which he situates the Mishnah in relationship to Scripture. The second part of the article focuses on Yannai’s approaches to Pentateuchal readings that center on law.