Book of the Laws: On the Babylonian Talmud, Tractate Berakhot

Isaac al-Fāsī comments here on a line in the Talmud that suggests that prayer should be done in a state of reverent fear and trembling. He collects various passages—from elsewhere in the Talmud and from a ruling of Hayya Ga’on—that consider the question of the general permissibility of song and music, distinguishing between instrumental and vocal, liturgical and nonliturgical.