Chapters On Jewish Literature Part 6

Wondrous are thy works, O Lord of hosts, And their greatness holds my soul in thrall.

Thine the glory is, the power divine, Thine the majesty, the kingdom thine, Thou supreme, exalted over all.

Thou art One, the first great cause of all; Thou art One, and none can penetrate, Not even the wise in heart, the mystery Of thy unfathomable Unity; Thou art One, the infinitely great.

But man can perceive that the power of G.o.d makes him great to pardon. If he see it not now, he will hereafter.

Thou art light: pure souls shall thee behold, Save when mists of evil intervene.

Thou art light, that, in this world concealed, In the world to come shall be revealed; In the mount of G.o.d it shall be seen.

And so the poet in one of the final hymns of the "Royal Crown," filled with a sense of his own unworthiness, hopefully abandons himself to G.o.d:

My G.o.d, I know that those who plead To thee for grace and mercy need All their good works should go before, And wait for them at heaven's high door.

But no good deeds have I to bring, No righteousness for offering.

No service for my Lord and King.

Yet hide not thou thy face from me, Nor cast me out afar from thee; But when thou bidd'st my life to cease, O may'st thou lead me forth in peace Unto the world to come, to dwell Among thy pious ones, who tell Thy glories inexhaustible.

There let my portion be with those Who to eternal life arose; There purify my heart aright, In thy light to behold the light.

Raise me from deepest depths to share Heaven's endless joys of praise and prayer, That I may evermore declare: Though thou wast angered, Lord, I will give thanks to thee, For past is now thy wrath, and thou dost comfort me.

Ibn Gebirol stood a little outside and a good deal above the circle of the Jewish poets who made this era so brilliant. Many of them are now forgotten; they had their day of popularity in Toledo, Cordova, Seville, and Granada, but their poems have not survived.

In the very year of Ibn Gebirol's death Moses Ibn Ezra was born. Of his life little is certain, but it is known that he was still alive in 1138. He is called the "poet of penitence," and a gloomy turn was given to his thought by an unhappy love attachment in his youth. A few stanzas of one of his poems run thus:

Sleepless, upon my bed the hours I number, And, rising, seek the house of G.o.d, while slumber Lies heavy on men's eyes, and dreams enc.u.mber Their souls in visions of the night.

In sin and folly pa.s.sed my early years, Wherefore I am ashamed, and life's arrears Now strive to pay, the while my tears Have been my food by day and night.

Short is man's life, and full of care and sorrow, This way and that he turns some ease to borrow, Like to a flower he blooms, and on the morrow Is gone--a vision of the night.

How does the weight of sin my soul oppress, Because G.o.d's law too often I transgress; I mourn and sigh, with tears of bitterness My bed I water all the night.

My youth wanes like a shadow that's cast, Swifter than eagle's wings my years fly fast, And I remember not my gladness past, Either by day or yet by night.

Proclaim we then a fast, a holy day, Make pure our hearts from sin, G.o.d's will obey, And unto him, with humbled spirit pray Unceasingly, by day and night.

May we yet hear his words: "Thou art my own, My grace is thine, the shelter of my throne, For I am thy Redeemer, I alone; Endure but patiently this night!"

But his hymns, many of which won a permanent place in the prayer-book, are not always sad. Often they are warm with hope, and there is a lilt about them which is almost gay. His chief secular poem, "The Topaz"

(_Tarshish_), is in ten parts, and contains 1210 lines. It is written on an Arabic model: it contains no rhymes, but is metrical, and the same word, with entirely different meanings, occurs at the end of several lines. It needs a good deal of imagination to appreciate Moses Ibn Ezra, and this is perhaps what Charizi meant when he called him "the poet's poet."

Another Ibn Ezra, Abraham, one of the greatest Jews of the Middle Ages, was born in Toledo before 1100. He pa.s.sed a hard life, but he laughed at his fate. He said of himself:

If I sold shrouds, No one would die.

If I sold lamps, Then, in the sky, The sun, for spite, Would shine by night.

Several of Abraham Ibn Ezra's hymns are instinct with the spirit of resignation. Here is one of them:

I hope for the salvation of the Lord, In him I trust, when fears my being thrill, Come life, come death, according to his word, He is my portion still.

Hence, doubting heart! I will the Lord extol With gladness, for in him is my desire, Which, as with fatness, satisfies my soul, That doth to heaven aspire.

All that is hidden shall mine eyes behold, And the great Lord of all be known to me, Him will I serve, his am I as of old; I ask not to be free.

Sweet is ev'n sorrow coming in his name, Nor will I seek its purpose to explore, His praise will I continually proclaim, And bless him evermore.

Ibn Ezra wandered over many lands, and even visited London, where he stayed in 1158. Ibn Ezra was famed, not only for his poetry, but also for his brilliant wit and many-sided learning. As a mathematician, as a poet, as an expounder of Scriptures, he won a high place in Jewish annals. In his commentaries he rejected the current digressive and allegorical methods, and steered a middle course between free research on the one hand, and blind adherence to tradition on the other. Ibn Ezra was the first to maintain that the Book of Isaiah contains the work of two prophets--a view now almost universal. He never for a moment doubted, however, that the Bible was in every part inspired and in every part the word of G.o.d. But he was also the father of the "Higher Criticism." Ibn Ezra's pioneer work in spreading scientific methods of study in France was shared by Joseph Kimchi, who settled in Narbonne in the middle of the twelfth century. His sons, Moses and David, were afterwards famous as grammarians and interpreters of the Scriptures.

David Kimchi (1160-1235) by his lucidity and thoroughness established for his grammar, "Perfection" (_Michlol_), and his dictionary, "Book of Roots," complete supremacy in the field of exegesis. He was the favorite authority of the Christian students of Hebrew at the time of the Reformation, and the English Authorized Version of 1611 owed much to him.

At this point, however, we must retrace our steps, and cast a glance at Hebrew literature in France at a period earlier than the era of Ibn Ezra.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

TRANSLATIONS OF SPANISH-HEBREW POEMS:

Emma Lazarus.--_Poems_ (Boston, 1889).

Mrs. H. Lucas.--_The Jewish Year_ (New York, 1898), and in Editions of the Prayer-Books. See also (Abrahams) _J.Q.R._, XI, p. 64.

IBN GEBIROL.

Graetz.--III, 9.

D. Rosin.--_The Ethics of Solomon Ibn Gebirol_, 7. _J.Q.R._, III, p. 159.

MOSES IBN EZRA.

Graetz.--III, p. 319 [326].

ABRAHAM IBN EZRA.

Graetz.--III, p. 366 [375].

Abraham Ibn Ezra's Commentary on Isaiah (tr. by M. Friedlander, 1873).

M. Friedlander.--_Essays on Ibn Ezra_ (London, 1877). See also _Transactions of the Jewish Historical Society of England_, Vol. II, p. 47, and J. Jacobs, _Jews of Angevin England_, p. 29 _seq._

KIMCHI FAMILY.

Graetz.--III, p. 392 [404].