O father of the son

O father of the son, come here to mourn,
for God has distanced from you
your son, your only-begotten,
  whom you love—Isaac (Genesis 22:2).
I am the man who has seen disaster,
  and his joy has gone into exile.
Ah! I have been scourged, gone is the fruit of my loins,
  something I had never considered.
I thought that in my old age
  he would give me release and rescue,
but my begetting and toil have been in vain.
  For how can my heart rejoice?
  He has expired, he has died—Isaac [see Genesis 35:29].
I cry, yes, cry, at every moment,
  and I take up wailing and woe,
these past three years,
  when I recall his death in a foreign land,
and his wanderings from place to place.
  My soul churned for him,
until I brought him to my home,
  crying by night and by day,
So many travails befell me—
  this is the story of Isaac (Genesis 25:19).
My friends, let me be!
  If you offer me consolation, you disturb me.
Do not mention the one on whom I had compassion,
  do not speak his name to me.
Time has extinguished the remaining ember that I had.
  And what if it breaks me?
It has made me desolate, eternally desolate,
  and taken my eye’s beloved.
My flesh and heart pined, when Isaac finished (Genesis 27:30).
O God,1 whose hand holds everything,
  You who act as You wish toward all Your creations,
speak to calm the heart of the aching father,
  who has revered Your name since his youth.
Blow a spirit of consolation upon him
  and let him pass between its pieces.
He taught his beloved son
  to walk in the way of his parents, to fear You,
when he was still a boy—
  [the path] that you demonstrated to your servant, Isaac. (Genesis 24:24).
Translated by Gabriel Wasserman.

Notes

[Ma‘on, literally “lair, dwelling,” referring to God’s dwelling in heaven, and here, by metonymy, to God.—Trans.]

Credits

Bibliothèque nationale de France, Department of Manuscripts, Arabe 3929, fol. 78r, detail.

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

Engage with this Source

Abraham Ibn Ezra wrote this Hebrew poem while mourning the loss of his son, Isaac Ibn Ezra. After departing al-Andalus (Muslim Spain) with Judah ha-Levi in 1140, Isaac ended up in Baghdad, where he was rumored to have converted to Islam. Ibn Ezra’s sadness as a grieving father is palpable in these lines.

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