Dictionary

dayan en · NOUN

Etymology

Borrowed from Hebrew דיין.

Meanings

1. A rabbinic judge.
   • There is a famous story about Rabbi Yisrael Salanter who ate on the Bimah in Vilna at the end of the Yom Kippur morning service in 1848 during a cholera epidemic, together with two other Dayyanim, to persuade the congregation to eat during the epidemic. 2024, David Golinkin, “Does Jewish Law Require Yeshivah Students To Be Drafted At Age 18?”, in Responsa in a Moment, volume 4, page 66:
   • A medieval hymn composed by the Dayyan ("Judge") Daniel b. Yehudah of fourteenth-century Rome, recited in the daily morning Preliminary Service, and by some, at the close of the Arvit and Musaf services on Shabbat and festivals. 1996, Macy Nulman, The Encyclopedia of Jewish Prayer, page 375:

Forms