PREFACE During the Eleventh and Twelfth Centuries, Jewish Poets in Islamic Spain Took Hebrew Devotional Verse in New and Strikin

PREFACE

During the eleventh and twelfth centuries, Jewish poets in Islamic Spain took Hebrew devotional verse in new and striking directions. Remarkably accomplished in the secular sciences as well as in classical Jewish scholarship, these polymath authors infused the ancient, native Jewish tradition of synagogue poetry, or piyyut, with con- templative themes drawn from the Arabic philosophical canon. They also composed philosophically-informed prose works of their own, including Bible commentaries, ethical tracts, and metaphysical trea- tises—most of them in Judeo-Arabic. Reading their piyyut in light of their speculative writing reveals the impact of the Andalusians’ intellectual and cultural life on their sacred verse. Their poetry reflects a conviction that Greco-Arabic philosophy meshed comfortably with— and even enhanced—traditional Jewish approaches to prayer and spirituality. By exploring the two genres in tandem, and by probing the philosophical motifs in their religious verse, the careful reader uncovers new and, at times, unorthodox layers of meaning. The idea of the soul occupied a place of paramount importance in this new type of synagogue poetry, which drew on Neoplatonic philosophy. Though composed for insertion into the fixed liturgy, and anchored in traditional Jewish texts, Andalusian piyyut also incor- porated elements of the poets’ distinctly medieval world-view, lend- ing a more contemporary understanding to the classical prayers it served to preface. Where pre-Spanish piyyut was exclusively con- cerned with the collectivity and its historical relationship with God, the new poems reflect an unprecedented awareness of the individ- ual, his spiritual quest, and his eschatological expectations. Yet, even their most daring innovations are couched in language familiar to the worshiper, and are successfully naturalized in their literary set- ting. Exquisitely crafted, these piyyutim conform to the esthetic ideals of Golden Age Hebrew poetry. Their discriminating figurative language, subtle symbolism, clever ambiguities, and skillful biblical (and even rabbinic) allusions could indirectly suggest novel interpretations of received ideas in a way that few prose works could. This study focuses on four outstanding members of the Andalusian school whose speculative writing elucidates their poems on the soul:

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Solomon Ibn Gabirol, Moses Ibn Ezra, Abraham Ibn Ezra, and Judah Halevi. It examines the literary and artistic qualities of their works while using poetry as a source for intellectual history. Chapter 1 introduces the poetry in its broader intellectual and literary historical context, surveying Andalusian Jewish cultural creativity in all of its richness, and identifying the varied literary sources on the soul that were available to the poets. Chapter 2 analyzes Ibn Gabirol’s treatment of the soul in Keter Malkhut, a grand hymn that incorpo- rates philosophical ideas to paint a comprehensive picture of God, man, and the universe. Because Ibn Gabirol was the first of the Andalusians to integrate a philosophical understanding of the soul into his devotional poetry, and because Keter Malkhut aspires to a sys- tematic exposition of cosmological and metaphysical ideas, it fur- nishes an important key to understanding the piyyutim discussed in subsequent chapters. Chapters 3, 4, 6, and 8 are each devoted to the analysis of a representative poem by one of our four main authors. Brief citations of other poems are adduced for comparative purposes, confirming the Andalusian school’s preoccupation with the topic of the soul. The organization of these chapters by poet is not meant to imply a historical progression, for these authors all shared the same poetic ideals and fundamental philosophical beliefs. It is rather a means to examining each poet’s verse against the background of his own speculative writings and of the literary school as a whole. Chapters 5 and 7 are thematic studies that attempt to make sense of a particular philosophical motif recurring throughout the Andalusian corpus. My interest in the symbolism of adornment, the topic of Chapter 5, grew out of a close reading of Moses Ibn Ezra’s “Nafshi ivvitikha ba-laylah,” the poem discussed in Chapter 4. Chapter 7 is devoted to the idea that self-knowledge can lead to knowledge of God, a motif that occurs in a series of poems, including Abraham Ibn Ezra’s “Imrat ye idah le-ya id ya atah,” the subject of Chapter 6. The two final chapters of the book explore the reception of the Andalusian poem on the soul in other literary circles. Chapter 9 investigates Judah Al arizi’s creative adaptation of the earlier mod- els, and Chapter 10 surveys the appropriation and transformation of the genre by Hebrew poets in widely dispersed geographical centers and cultural environments, over several centuries. This extensive and remarkably varied “afterlife” reflects the abiding fascination and appeal of the Andalusians’ signal achievement. Translating medieval Hebrew poetry poses several challenges. One

Adena Tanenbaum - 9789047404088 Downloaded from Brill.com09/28/2021 12:15:28AM via free access preface xiii grapples with the often incompatible demands of fidelity: to the sense, form, tone, register, and impact of the poem. Clear, unadorned prose translations may convey the meaning of the original as faithfully as possible, but cannot hope to capture its carefully crafted shape, tex- ture, or cadences. Verse translations can parallel the effect of the regular rhyme schemes and meters, clever wordplays, and dense intertextualities of the Hebrew, but inevitably take liberties with the wording. I have tried to steer a middle course. My first priority has been to adhere as closely as possible to the original without becom- ing slavishly literal. But to suggest something of the form as well, I have opted for verse translations that make use of rhythm, allitera- tion, assonance, and internal rhyme instead of meter and end-rhyme. Unless otherwise indicated, all translations of poems are my own. With few exceptions, medieval Hebrew poems have no titles; the convention is to refer to their incipits, or opening verses. Translations of biblical verses are drawn mostly from The Jewish Publication Society’s Tanakh: A New Translation of The Holy Scriptures (Philadelphia, 1985), although on occasion I have used the Authorized Version, and at times have modified both of these to reflect, or set off, a poet’s reading of a particular passage. For citations of rabbinic lit- erature I have used the Soncino Press translations of the Babylonian Talmud (London, 1935–52) and Midrash Rabbah (London, 1939). Where secondary sources in Hebrew have existing English titles I have used them; otherwise the Hebrew title is given in translitera- tion. Hebrew names have generally been given in their Latin forms ( Judah, rather than Yehudah), and hyphens and macrons have been omitted from Jewish family names, even if Arabic in origin (Al arizi, rather than al- ar z ). I have, however, retained certain forms as they appear in bibliographic references. It is my pleasure to acknowledge those individuals and institutions from whose advice and support I have benefited. My teachers, Isadore Twersky, of blessed memory, and Bernard Septimus, a”jlby, generously shared their extraordinary erudition and patiently guided the doctoral research out of which this monograph grew. The project owes its inspiration to Professor Septimus, who introduced me to the exceptional world of Andalusian Hebrew poetry when I was a freshman in college, piquing my curiosity for many years to come. His inci- sive textual analyses have been a model of scholarship, and I have followed his readings of several poems in this book. Warm thanks are due to Wolfhart Heinrichs for sharing his profound knowledge

Adena Tanenbaum - 9789047404088 Downloaded from Brill.com09/28/2021 12:15:28AM via free access xiv preface of Arabic poetry and poetics, and to Haggai Ben-Shammai for elu- cidating Saadya’s theory of the soul and for his ongoing interest in this project. I am grateful to Raymond P. Scheindlin for critiquing early versions of Chapters 3 and 4 and for offering valuable advice on the art of translation. Special thanks go to Fritz W. Zimmermann, whose Oxford seminars in Arabic philosophical texts I was fortunate to attend. I am indebted to Lenn Evan Goodman, who read a pre- liminary version of this project with tremendous care, offering inci- sive criticisms and judicious suggestions, both stylistic and substantive. Thanks are also due to Paul Fenton, Series Editor of Études sur le Judaïsme Médiéval, and to Marcella Mulder, Assistant Editor at Brill Academic Publishers for her courteous and professional assistance. Portions of several chapters of this book have appeared in pre- liminary form as independent articles. A small amount of the material in Chapter 2 first appeared in “Nine Spheres or Ten? A Medieval Gloss on Moses Ibn Ezra’s ‘Be-Shem El Asher Amar,’” Journal of Jewish Studies 47 (1996): 294–310. I have adapted Chapter 5 from “The Adornment of the Soul: A Philosophical Motif in Andalusian Piyyut,” Hebrew Union College Annual 66 (1995): 223–238. An early, unrevised version of Chapter 6 appeared as “Beholding the Splendor of the Creator: Philosophical Conceptions of the Soul in the Poetry of Abraham Ibn Ezra,” in Abraham Ibn Ezra and His Age (Abraham Ibn Ezra Y Su Tiempo), ed. F.D. Esteban (Madrid, 1990), 335–344. I am grateful to the editors of these publications for their permission to use this material. An initial stage of my research benefited from the generosity of the Memorial Foundation for Jewish Culture and the National Founda- tion for Jewish Culture, and the final stage was graciously supported by the Department of Near Eastern Languages and Cultures and the Melton Center for Jewish Studies at The Ohio State University. For their intellectual camaraderie and encouragement, I would like to thank the fellows of the Oxford Centre for Hebrew and Jewish Studies, the faculty of the Hebrew Department at University College London, and my colleagues at the Ohio State University. Thanks are also due to the staffs of the Oriental Reading Room of the Bodleian Library, Oxford and the Institute for Microfilmed Hebrew Manuscripts at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and to the inde- fatigable Yossi Galron of the Jewish Studies Library at The Ohio State University.

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For their continued support, interest, and encouragement, I am profoundly grateful to my mother, Helga Weiss; my sister and brother, Susie and Michael Tanenbaum; and my in-laws, Simon and Yakira Frank. Words are inadequate to express my boundless gratitude to my husband, Daniel Frank, who has so generously given of his time and shared his erudition at every stage of this project. This book is dedicated to him in love as a small token of my thanks.

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