The Exploits of Moses
Unknown
1702
I shall begin by praising the True One
who in six days created the whole entire world
and on the seventh day He ceased work and rested.
Give thanks unto the Lord for He is good, for His lovingkindness endures forever.
Blessed be such a God, such a mighty Lord
who created heavens and earth and with all their rest,
and all that is contained in them in six days He created it.
Great thanks I shall give Him who worked such a marvel:
created the sun and the moon and the night with the day;
the water was spread out, in one place He gathered it.
He made us think and also care:
on the third day He created all that is planted and sown,
which are trees bearing fruit, each with its own taste.
Also on the Wednesday, listen well what He did,
for He fixed the heavenly bodies and the stars too
that they should light the world which our Lord did create.
See how much fowl and fish on the Thursday were created
and the angels in Heaven who uttered a prayer
that His children should escape from the subjection of kingdoms.
May we merit to arrive at the Friday,
on it man was created, the world to sustain
and He placed him in Gan Eden, and on the Sabbath He rested.
He did us kindness through His pure compassion
that we should keep the Sabbath, for that is His wish,
that on it no work be done nor any kind of profession.
All that hear it are gripped with great joy,
when Abraham was born, he knew the One Above
and to all the strangers God he made known.
Isaac was born to Abraham, and at the end of one hundred years,
when time came for him to wed at the age of thirty-seven,
God commanded to slaughter him and offer him as a sacrifice.
“Thus shall be your seed” He answered him;
his son is tied up, he is sharpening the knife;
an angel descended from Heaven, and took it from his hands.
“A ram you shall slaughter in place of your son,
for God has now tested you and has known you;
from this merit shall be nourished those that come after you.”
Upon his return, messengers to him came,
telling that was born the bride for his son so beloved,
and the soul of the mother as a sacrifice was taken by God.
“I shall give great thanks to the One who made this pact,
For I trust in God that from him I shall see a great lineage,
and before I die, I shall see him with a son.”
Many sins we committed for into Egypt we fell;
Because we sold our brother as a slave to enemies,
And were forced to make bricks for the emperor.
Pharaoh, our king is an astrologer, he saw in the stars
that the Jews were children of the One who sustains the world
that very soon He would send them the redeemer.
He doesn’t know what to do, he will send for his counselors;
the counsel they give him is to issue a proclamation
that every son that is born they shall cast into the river.
This terrible decree very soon was signed:
every son that was born they would cast into the river
and into the midst of the river they cast the redeemer.
Moses was very humble, to [Pharoah’s] house they bore him,
the king took him in his arms, he took off his crown;
Then the king was troubled: “Here you see the one I was thinking about?”
The king asked his people what to do with the child,
for to send him to be killed seemed to him a sin;
the advice which they gave him, they put him to the test.
After the ten plagues which He made in the sight of the Egyptians,
such was their cruelty that they failed to take heed
until there came death and slew their first-born.
To us He was merciful on the midnight of Passover:
at the time when the Jews were eating the Passover sacrifice
there came the wicked Pharaoh and banished us from his land
As Moses left Egypt, he went by the river
to take the bones of Joseph and carry them with him,
as the Children of Israel he had strongly sworn them to do.
When Israel Your People saw the great miracle
of the parting of the Sea, He divided it into twelve parts
and the majority of the Christians became Jews.
Our Teacher Moses began a song to sing
with men and women, and the song said:
“I will sing unto the Lord for He has been highly exalted.”
Six hundred thousand came out of Egypt united
and went towards Jerusalem, rich and full of possessions;
on their way they went singing, “Blessed be He who took us out.”
Three days before, Moses purified them,
warning them not touch the mountain or approach a woman
for they must be prepared to see the Creator.
On Mount Sinai the Mighty One descended
The awesome Lord God, and said “Holy People”;
with fear and repose His Sacred Law He gave us.
Blowing the shofar, raising their eyes to the sky;
they saw the face of God, and all fainted away
then to Moses they said: “Let the Lord God not speak with us.”
Blessed be He that said “I am God” first commandment of all;
“Do not worship other gods, but the True God;
Take not the Name of the Creator in vain.”
“Keep the Sabbath Day and honor thy father and mother;
do not kill one another nor commit fornication;
do not covet a married woman nor be a thief.”
A great miracle He wrought with us when He gave us the Sacred Law;
He did not trust us and demanded a guarantee from us,
we gave it to our children and then He was content.
He rescued us from slavery and set us free.
He made the manna descend for us and gave it to us for food;
forty years we ate it and it annoyed no one.
Stiff-necked we were (at the time of the return),1
when we wished to drink, the water tasted bitter to us
and with a rod of oleander Moses our Teacher sweetened it.
With a pillar of cloud they go by day so that the sun does not harm them
and by night with a pillar of fire to light up their way;
they clear the road of every obstacle.
Avoiding wars, and coming to Paran,
they wanted to send spies to the land of Canaan
to see whether it flowed with honey and milk as God had promised.
Many misfortunes befell them when the spies went;
for they spoke of the land that which they did not see
“None shall enter there” God uttered a curse.
Arriving in Kadesh, Moses sent messengers
“Your brother Israel” the king of Edom they told
that he should let them pass within its boundaries.
“We will pass through your land and we shall do you no harm;
we shall not eat of your bread nor drink of your water,
we shall march directly to where God has sent us.”
Stranger and enemy, then he replied:
“I shall go out to meet you like a cruel enemy.”
Our merciful God into our hands did deliver him.
Ammon and Moab went forth and confronted the Jews;
they could not vanquish them and so they sent for Bilaam,
they knew him to be a sorcerer and that he would curse them.
Living and Enduring God, Bilaam sees in his dreams
“The Jews were my children, do not affront them,
because if you curse them, I shall give them My blessing.”
The heavens and earth shook when they heard from Moses
that God told him that he would die, and that he had answered Him:
“I wish that my bones be buried in the cave of Hebron.”
“The entire Law by my hand was given,
that is the reason why I make this request:
that it should not be outside the land but in Hebron.”
“I don’t wish to die now, I want to enter the Land;
I want to fulfill the mitzvot that arise from dwelling there.
The day that I enter our land, then remove my soul.”
“Israel was Your people, forty years have I served them;
I don’t want to die now, with them I wish to go;
I want to enter the land which You have promised.”
“Moses, speak no more, for you are not heeded;
what you ask for, you are uttering words in vain;
Joshua, your disciple, will enter in your stead.”
When Moses heard this, he acknowledged defeat;
then he sent to summon all of the twelve tribes.
and to each of them, one by one he gave his blessing.
Translated by .
David
Herman
This engraving depicting a Jewish woman in Cairo, Egypt, is from Cornelis de Bruyn’s travelogue, Reizen van Corn de Bruyn door de vermaardste deelen van Klein Asia, de eylanden Scio, Rhodus, Cyprus enz. mitsg. de voornaamste steden van Aegypten, Syrien en Palestina, first published in Delft, the Netherlands, in 1698. Before the advent of photography, it was not uncommon for artists to travel to what were considered exotic or picturesque locations in Europe, North Africa, and the Near East, and to produce artworks upon their return home that helped satisfy the curiosity of the public about distant places and peoples.
Notes
[In the manuscript, the scribe placed parentheses here to indicate that the phrase was an erroneous repetition of an earlier piece of the poem; the scribe wrote the correct text in the margin, but illegibly.—Trans.]
Credits
Moses ha-Kohen, “Las Hazañas de Moisés (The Exploits of Moses, Ladino)” in Ne’im zemirot (Sarajevo-Venecia, 1702), 150v–152r. Republished in: Elena Romero, Coplas Sefardíes: Primera Selección (Córdoba: Ediciones El Almendro, 1988), 55–65.
Published in: The Posen Library of Jewish Culture and Civilization, vol. 5.
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