Kinot קינות
The laments of the Ninth of Av, read sitting on the floor. A book that grew with the disasters: to the lament for the Temple were added laments for the crusades and for the burnt Talmud.
On the night of the Ninth of Av, Lamentations is read, and in the morning the kinot: several dozen laments in a row, sitting low, without shoes. It is the only service of the year arranged so as to be hard to listen to.
Layers. The oldest is about the destruction of both Temples, and most of those laments were written by Elazar haKalir. The second layer is Ashkenaz at the end of the eleventh century: the communities of Mainz, Worms and Speyer, cut down in the path of the First Crusade, are named in the kinot one by one. The third is Shaali Serufah, the lament of the Maharam of Rothenburg for the burning of twenty-four cartloads of Talmud in Paris; he wrote it with the fire in sight.
And a late layer. In modern times laments for the Holocaust began to be added, and this caused an argument: some said the book ought to grow, others that the new is not mixed with the old. Communities differ, and both sides stand on the same ground: the disaster falls on the same day.
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Rishonim
- The Kinot of the Ninth of Av — the make-up of the book: layers from the Kalir to Ashkenaz
- The Maharam of Rothenburg, Shaali Serufah — the lament for the burning of the Talmud in Paris, which entered the kinot
Basis: documents and evidence.