Book Review: Selected Poems of Jehudah Halevi (JPS), tr. Nina Salaman

[lethargic_man]

Last time I was at my rabbi's, I saw on his bookshelf the book Selected Poems of Jehudah Halevi. I thought, oh, I should read that, let's see how many I recognise; so I asked to borrow it. The answer turned out to be one and a couple of fragments, pretty much, which surprised me. I thought I'd find piyyutim or zemiros written by him that I knew, but though there were plenty of both that he wrote, along with secular poetry, none were any that I knew; which means that they've fallen out of use today—though it's possible that the Reform movement have revived some: liv, kerrypolka?

Here's the one poem of his I knew:

My heart is in the East, and I in the uttermost West My food has no taste. How can it be sweet? How can I fulfil my pledges and my vows, When Zion is in the power of Edom, and I in the fetters of Arabia? It will be nothing to me to leave all the goodness of Spain So rich will it be to see the dust of the ruined sanctuary.

לִבִּי בְמִזְרָח וְאָנֹכִי בְּסוֹף מַעֲרָב אֵיךְ אֶטְעֲמָה אֵת אֲשֶׁר אֹכַל וְאֵיךְ יֶעֱרָב אֵיכָה אֲשַׁלֵּם נְדָרַי וָאֱסָרַי, בְּעוֹד צִיּוֹן בְּחֶבֶל אֱדוֹם וַאֲנִי בְּכֶבֶל עֲרָב יֵקַל בְּעֵינַי עֲזֹב כָּל טוּב סְפָרַד, כְּמוֹ יֵקַר בְּעֵינַי רְאוֹת עַפְרוֹת דְּבִיר נֶחֱרָב

In 1141 he set out to fulfil this wish and travel from Spain, leaving behind his daughter and grandson, to the Land of Israel, and the poems reflect his itinerary: We find, in succession (the titles are the translator's, some of them quite different from the original), "My Dream", "Equipped for Flight", "For the Sake of the House of our God: The singer's reply to one who reproved him for his longing to go to the Land of Israel", "When My Soul Longed: The beginning of his journey", then "On the Sea I", "On the Sea II", "On the Sea III", all the way up to "On the Sea VIII" before we finally reach "On the Nile", "Refusal to Tarry in Egypt", "In the Paths of the Ark", etc, then "On Eagles' Wings: On the way from Egypt to Zion" (he went via Tyre and Damascus, though the poems do not reflect this). Then... nothing. According to tradition he was run down and killed by an Arab horseman as he stood before the ruins of Jerusalem, singing his great Ode to Zion.

This poem contains one of the two fragments of his verse I already knew. To quote in context:

I with the jackal's wail have mourned for thee long, But dreaming of thine own restored anew I am a harp to sound for thee thy song.

לִבְכוֹת עֱנוּתֵךְ אֲנִי תַנִים וְעֵת אֶחֶלֹם שִׁיבַת שְׁבוּתֵיךְ אֲנִי כִנּוֹר לְשִׁירָיִךְ

אֲנִי כִנּוֹר לְשִׁירָיִךְ was of course referenced, as הֲלוֹא לְכֹל שִׁירָיִךְ אֲנִי כִנּוֹר ("Am I not a harp for all your songs?"), by Naomi Shemer in her song יְרוּשָלַיִם שֶׁל זָהָב. I rather like this, as Yehudah Halevi's poems are themselves riddled with Biblical quotations; I like the idea of a stack of texts, each layer connected to the adjacent ones with quotations.

The other fragment I recognised was in the poem "Beautiful of Elevation", which begins:

Ps. 48:3	Beautiful of elevation! Joy of the World!    City of the Great King!	קִרְיָה לְמֶלֶךְ רָב	יְפֵה נוֹף מְשׂוֹשׂ תֵּבֵל
Ps. 84:3.	For thee my soul is longing from the limits of the west.	מִפַּאֲתֵי מַעְרָב	לְךָ נִכְסְפָה נַפְשִׁי

פַּאֲתֵי מַעְרָב was referenced, reversed, by Naphtali Herz Imber, in the Hatikva, the Zionist (and later Israeli national) anthem, as וּלְפַאֲתֵי מִזְרָח "to the ends of the east".

One other thing about Yehuda Halevi's style that I liked was his frequent playing with words, through multiple meanings of the same word:

Thou waftest me on swallow's [dror] wings, and proclaimest liberty [dror] for me; Like pure [dror] myrrh from the bundle of spices thou art chosen [cf. Cant. 1:13].

כַּנְפֵי דְרוֹר תָּנִיף וְתִקְרָא־לִי דְרוֹר וּכְמָר־דְרוֹר מִן־הַצְּרוֹר לָקוּח

...or metathesis (reversing letters in a word, in this case to gain a different meaning):

But beat out [rəqa`] the deep, and tear [qəra`] the heart of the seas

וּרְקַע תְּהוֹם וּקְרַע לֵבָב יָמִים

...or simply playing with similar-sounding words:

And when the deep groaneth and roareth beneath me [və`et tehom təhom taḥtai vətinhom]

וְעֵת תֵּהֹם תְהוֹם תַּחְתַּי וְתִנְהֹם

Or:

And the Hittites come down to the stronghold [Vəhaḥittim nəḥittim bamṣuda]

וְהַחִתִם נְחִתִּים בַּמְצוּדָה

Now I've read this, I'm wondering whether I should also read the great prose work of his, the כתאב אלכ׳זרי, better known by its Hebrew title The Kuzari.