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In ancient Israel, the lack of winter rains was not only seen as an economic crisis, but also as a warning from God. Whenever the rainy season passed without rainfall, the sages proclaimed a public fast. Part 2 of the Mishnaic tractate Tacanit treatise deals in detail with the rituals that the patriarch, the president of the tribunal, the clergy and the members of the congregation were required to perform. The external ceremonies, such as the sprinkling of ashes on the ark, included various blessings which pointed to the real purpose of fasting: to set the heart back on the right path. The days of fasting, therefore, provide an opportunity to fulfil the prerequisites for conversion: confession and repentance of sins. The chapter also mentions the days on which fasting is expressly forbidden and those who are exempt from fasting in the strict sense. Lastly, because it was a matter of the repentance of the community, the sages also took care to ensure that thus traders did not fall into the sin of greed, and tried to exclude any attempts of abuse in business.

This is a Hungarian translation of the tractate Chagigah from the Babylonian Talmud. The Talmud emerged from the Mishnah. Our translation is based on Koren Talmud Bavli, The Noé Edition, Moed Katan, Hagiga (commentary by Rabbi Adin Even-Israel Steinsaltz), a Hebrew/ English Edition published by Koren Publisher, in Jerusalem (2014). In contrast to its name, this tractate’s central theme is the sacrifices brought for the festival days. One of those sacrifices is the peace offering of joy. The Jewish believer is endorsed to be joyful before his God when he appears before Him in his sanctuary.

The congregations of the Reformed Church District of Királyhágómellék and Transylvania replaced the older hymnbooks twenty years ago. The replacement of 1921 hymnbook, previously used in the Partium region, and of the 1923 hymnbook used in Transylvania, opened a new chapter in the church singing practice. When comparing the origin and style layer of the songs in the two hymnbooks, the difference is striking, especially with respect to the 19th century melodies and the amount of 18–19th century ad notam songs in the 1921 hymnbook. From a structural point of view, the Hungarian Reformed Hymnbook focuses mostly on the hymns of the Reformation era and the German choral melodies, quantitatively closely followed by the Anglo-Saxon and Romantic hymns. The other valuable medieval, baroque and 20th century hymns are present in a merely symbolic proportion. During a hymnbook revision, it is not enough to drop rarely used or undervalued hymns. Rather, hymns with weakened influence need to be replaced. This is how we should approach our new hymnbook published nearly a quarter of a century ago. Its substantially new material should be regarded as a “profit” that needs to be discovered repeatedly and adopted in our worship services.

For centuries, our hymnbooks bring to the fore not only the issue of musical literacy but also tradition. The Reformed church singing in Transylvania and the Partium was determined by traditions rather than by the sheet music itself. From the beginning of the 19th century the Transylvanian hymnbooks were created under the influence of the spirit of the time. A typical example of this is the hymnbook edited under the influence of theological rationalism in 1837. The hymnbook, edited by Seprődi János in 1908, only partially corrected the melody deterioration while the edition of 1923 further preserved the sorting of cut and leveled melodies, which lacked psalms and old Hungarian songs. If we compare the 1837 hymnbook with the one published in 1921 in Debrecen, which also provides balanced melodies, we can see that melodies enriched with melisma remain in practice in Transylvania and this tradition is still preserved in many places to this day.

The history of men’s church choir in the Reformed Church of Cehu Silvaniei (Szilágycseh) dates back to more than a hundred years. Since its inception, it has taken a well-organised form, which like the presbyteries had its own management and financial fund. The men’s choir plays an exemplary role for singing culture in maintaining continuity, maintaining a repertoire of vocals preserved and passed on for decades, and in enhancing the quality of church and funeral services.