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Summaries 33*

demonstrate that God did not depart from the values of divine justice, as
they understood them as the result of Mutazilite influence. They exonerated
David from acting contrary to the commandment by arguing that those who
were impaled participated in the killing of the Gibeonites, despite the fact
that, according to a simple reading of the story, some of them had not been
bom at the time the Gibeonites were killed, and others were extremely young.
Japheth’s desire to exonerate David from all sins is particularly striking. He
explains that David’s decision not to hand over Mefiboshet was not an act of
mercy, as plainly stated in the text; rather, it was a legal action, as Mefiboshet
had not taken part in the killing of the Gibeonites. Regarding the violation
of the prohibition of leaving the dead unburied, Japheth argues that since
impalement is not hanging, there was no obligation to bury the impaled. An
examination of Sa‘adiah Gaon’s intepretation of the story of the impalement
shows us that he was closer to the Karaite interpretation than to that of Our
Sages, as he was also influenced by Mutazilite values.

Genizah Fragments of the Grace after
Meals with Zimun
According to the Ancient Palestinian Order of Service

Uri Ehrlich and Avi Shmidman

It has long been known that according to the Palestinian rite, the zimun
prior to the grace after meals commenced with the words “let us bless for
the food.” In contrast, in the Babylonian rite, the words “for the food”
were deliberately avoided. Nevertheless, until now, virtually no attestations
of the Palestinian formulation had ever been published from actual liturgical
manuscripts containing the statutory text of the grace after meals. In this study,