I am in dread, facing the maker of heaven

2nd Half of the 10th Century

About This Entry

Isaac Ibn Qapron’s selihah, a penitential poem, would have been recited around the time of Yom Kippur. It laments the fact that the Jews are in exile and beseeches God to restore their former glory. This text is the sole surviving poem from Ibn Qapron, who, as a student of Menahem Ibn Saruq, rejected the use of Arabic meter in Hebrew poetry. This poem thus contains lines of a fixed number of syllables, ignoring the Arabic distinction between long and short syllables. Ibn Qapron writes this text in the first-person singular, giving the reader the impression that the words are his own and thus deviating from the practice of earlier liturgical poets, who spoke in the voice of the congregation as a whole.

I am in dread, facing the maker of heaven.

I have no response—my lips are dumb.

I am young and lame, but may I see Your kindness,

[as if I were] comely as an old man, blameless and upright.

I look forward to Your kindness, act mightily with my heart,

and no longer say, “I am merely young in days.”

I arise, and awaken [the community], with the permission of old and young,

O Yah, I open my mouth widely in supplication—

may You bring me mercy!

When I call out to You, listen, for the wretched places his fate

in Your hands, O Yah, rock of eternity.

O Shining One, from Your lair, do not hide Your vision from me.

and avenge me, with Your right hand, O God, from attackers.

They have laid Your sanctum waste, and dragged me around,

and placed traps and snares at my feet.

Our glorious [Temple] has been befouled, and our heart is broken,

for we have no father; we are like orphans.

We have descended into shame, and been consumed by fire,

as they hack at Your Temple with axes and hammers.

We have been dispersed to distant islands, and despised,

a byword among nations, scorned among peoples.

They have plotted and assembled, and plowed over my back,

and muttered over me, by night and by day.

Restore Your joy for me, and heed my cry,

O King, enthroned upon a seat of mercy!¹

Translated by Gabriel Wasserman.

Notes

[This last line serves as a bridge to the passage in the penitential services that begins “O King, enthroned upon a seat of mercy” and is recited after every poem that is used in the service.—Trans.]

Published in: The Posen Library of Jewish Culture and Civilization, vol. 3: Encountering Christianity and Islam.