An Aramaic Piyyut for Passover

Written in the spoken language of the Jews of Palestine (while quoting biblical Hebrew at times), Aramaic poetry reflects the same milieu as Hebrew piyyutim and was written for holidays like Purim or Passover, for life-cycle events like funerals and weddings, or to embellish particular biblical episodes like Joseph and Potiphar’s wife or the death of Moses. These poems are generally simpler than Hebrew compositions and unselfconsciously employ many Greek loanwords. The following poem invokes the biblical Song of Songs, traditionally recited before Passover, but is not related to any set liturgy or committed to any theological interpretations. Instead, the author has tamed the content of the original, turning the interaction of the two lovers into a story of love and marriage, only implicitly between God and Israel. Only thirty-eight out of the original forty-four lines are extant, recovered from the Cairo Geniza.