Rabbi Elazar haKalir רבי אלעזר הקליר

A rare case: a man read aloud by a whole community twice a year, of whom there is nothing to say. Even the century is disputed. Some rishonim held that the Kalir was a tanna, Rabbi Elazar son of Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai; modern study places him in the Land of Israel of the sixth or seventh century, by his language and the build of his verse. We give both opinions and do not decide.

How he writes. With difficulty. He compresses a midrash into a word, wrenches the grammar, invents roots, runs an acrostic through the alphabet and through his own name at once. Ibn Ezra scolded him for exactly this: a prayer should be understood by the one praying. But the communities that sang him understood more than it seems—they knew the midrash he alludes to.

What is left of him. Piyutim for every festival and fast, for the special Sabbaths, for rain and for dew. The prayers for dew and for rain, said on Passover and on Shemini Atzeret, are his. And in the laments of the Ninth of Av he holds half the book.