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Professor Reuven Kimelman analyzes Unetane Tokef in this article in The Experience of Jewish Liturgy: Studies Dedicated to Menachem Schmelzer.
The significance of U-n’taneh Tokef is not simply a function of its liturgical position. As a good poem, the meaning of U-n’taneh Tokef jells out of the interaction of its thematics and poetics. Its specific agenda emerges through its masterful manipulation of language and imagery, part of which is its striking universalism. Its universalistic vision lines up, as noted, with much of the Rosh ha-Shanah liturgy, as do the piyutim of Yose b. Yoscf. U-n’taneh Tokef presents Rosh ha-Shanah as a day of divine kingship and judgment for all. The kingship theme derives from the creation of the world,“ the judgment theme from the creation of humanity.“ U-n’taneh Tokef adopts the midrashic position that maintains
that Rosh ha-Shanah commemorates Adam’s birthday as well as his day of judgment and pardon[.]
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One of the founding members of the UTJ, Reuven Kimelman is a professor of classical rabbinic literature at Brandeis University, specializing in the history and meaning of Jewish liturgy.
Prior, Professor Kimelman was Joseph Shier Distinguished Professor of Jewish Studies at the University of Toronto, and Five College Professor of Judaic Studies at Amherst College.
He also has taught courses at numerous other educational institutions, including: Mt. Holyoke Smith, Trinity and Williams Colleges, as well as the Jewish Theological Seminary of America, Yeshiva University and Hebrew University in Jerusalem.
A recognized scholar of Talmud, Midrash and liturgy, Professor Kimelman has written on the interaction between Judaism and Christianity in antiquity and modernity. His interest further expands to the thematic connections between Greek and Biblical literature from Homer to Plato and from Genesis to Matthew. In the field of Jewish ethics, his focus is on the ethics of war, statecraft, conflict, and genocide.
Professor Kimelman is a prolific writer whose works have been published in scholarly and popular journals. He is author of the Hebrew work, The Mystical Meaning of “Lekhah Dodi’ and ‘Kabbalat Shabbat’ (Hebrew University Press) and the forthcoming, “The Rhetoric of Jewish Prayer: A Historical and Literary Commentary on the Prayerbook.”
He also has authored two audio course books:
He also wrote the introduction to Abraham Joshua Heschel’s The Mystical Element in Judaism. A list of Professor Kimelman's courses and publications can be found here.
Professional Kimelman lectures frequently at academic conferences, synagogues and national Jewish organizations. He has served as scholar in-residence for many groups, including the former UJA Young Leadership Cabinet, the Wexner Heritage Foundation, and the General Assembly of the Jewish Federations of North America.