Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: June 4, 2025
But the mystic's explanation of the phenomenon of the existence of Judaism also failed to satisfy their yearnings. What they sought was a warrant in reason itself justifying the permanence of Judaism and its future. The arguments set forth by Maimonides and Jehudah Halevi contained no appeal for the modern soul.
Hafiz describes a girl's cheeks as roses within a net of violets, the net referring to the beard. Jehudah Halevi uses this selfsame image, and Moses ibn Ezra and the rest also employ manly figures of speech in portraying beautiful women. All this goes to show how much, besides rhyme and versification, medieval Hebrew love poetry owed to Arabic models.
I have not," adds the author of the Shebet Jehudah, "seen this story in writing, but I have heard it related." We have the authority of Dr. Ploss for the statement that among the Slavs witches produce considerable disquiet in families, into which, folk say, they penetrate in the disguise of hens or butterflies. They steal the hearts of children in order to eat them.
For the translator can only render the substance, and the substance is often more conventional than the nuances of form, the happy turns and subtleties, which evaporate in the process of translation, leaving only the conventional sediment behind. This is true even of Jehudah Halevi, though in him we hear a genuinely original note.
Thy mother called thee Jehudah, because she gave praise to God at thy birth, and so shall thy brethren praise thee, and they all will call themselves by thy name. And as thou didst confess thy sin openly, so also thy descendants, Achan, David, and Manasseh, will make public avowal of their sins, and the Lord will hear their prayer.
"There is no word of Christianity in these, mother, nor do they satisfy the soul. Wisely sang Jehudah Halevi, 'Go not near the Grecian wisdom." "Didst thou sit near her at the mass?" inquired Miriam. He turned his candid gaze towards her. "She did not go," he said. Miriam made a sudden movement to the door. "Now that thou art safe, Joseph, I have naught further to do here. God keep thee."
Then a heavenly voice was heard to say, "Rabbi Eliezer ben Durdaiya has been appointed to the life of the world to come." But Rabbi Jehudah I., the Patriarch, wept and said, "There are those who acquire the world to come in years upon years; there are those who acquire it in an hour."
But now it appeared that she had one more than her due share, and she called him Jehudah, "thanks unto God." She was thus the first since the creation of the world to give thanks to God, and her example was followed by David and Daniel, the descendants of her son Judah. When Rachel saw that her sister had borne Jacob four sons, she envied Leah.
But I cannot honestly assert that I needed the space for other aspects of my subject. I have elsewhere fully described the Wedding Odes which Jehudah Halevi provided so abundantly, and which were long a regular feature of every Jewish marriage. But, after the brilliant Spanish period, Hebrew love songs lose their right to high literary rank. Satires on woman's wiles replace praises of her charms.
The heart was the best part of man, the fount of life; hence Jehudah Halevi's well-known saying, "Israel is to the world as the heart to the body." An intimate connection was also established, by Jews and Greeks alike, between the physical condition of the heart and man's moral character. It was a not unnatural thought that former ages were more pious than later times.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking