Zungenrede: Ist es eine Sünde im Judentum?

Judaism's place in this conversation is historically subtle. Normative prayer is textual — the liturgy's fixed words are the vehicle — and prophecy, the tradition's revelatory speech, is formally closed: 'from the day the Temple was destroyed, prophecy was taken from the prophets and given to imbeciles and children' (Bava Batra 12a) — the sages' wry way of saying the age of revelation has ended, leaving bat kol (echoes) and dreams as diminished channels. And yet the tradition contains ecstatic speech at its edges: the early prophets' bands who 'prophesied' in music-induced states (1 Samuel 10 and 19 — Saul's messengers seized by the spirit), the Merkavah mystics' ascent literature, the Kabbalistic masters' recorded wordless songs, and the Hasidic niggun — the melody without words, sung to reach where language cannot, which is the closest Jewish practice comes to glossolalia and is entirely sanctioned. The halakhic frame: private mystical experience is neither commanded nor forbidden (the sages' rule: one who is engaged in prayer beyond the fixed forms may add in his own words — the middle blessing of the Amidah is the locus — so spontaneous prayer speech is legitimate). Claims of new binding prophecy are not. A Jew encountering tongues in a Christian setting would recognize the phenomenology while declining the theological claim.