A Recitation and Discussion of Levi Ibn al-Tābban’s “To Rise with the Dawning”

A Recitation and Discussion of Levi Ibn al-Tābban’s “To Rise with the Dawning”

Listen to how it sounds. I'm going to read it to you in Hebrew. I know a lot of you read Hebrew on your own, but listen to me read it, because I'm going to try to read it in accordance with the metrical system that was used by—that the poets had in mind, so that you hear the rhythms that the poets were aiming at.

לְבָבִי יְעִירֵנִי כְּשׁוֹאֵל לְשַׁחֲרָה
וְעֵינִי לְעַפְעַפֵּי שְׁחָרִים מְשַׁמְּרָה
וְאָקוּם לְעֹפֶר חֵן וּפָנָיו אֲכַפְּרָה
בְּפִי מַעֲנֵה לָשׁוֹן כְּבוֹדוֹ אֲסַפְּרָה
יְקָרוֹ בְקָהָל רָב וְצִדְקוֹ אֲבַשְּׂרָה
וְרוּחִי בְּעוֹד תִּהְיֶה בְּקִרְבִּי אֲזַמְּרָה

Now you got the rhythm. Now listen to this.

قفا نبك من ذكرى حبيب ومنزل

بسقط اللوى بين الدّهول فحومل

That's Arabic. That's the beginning of one of the really famous Arabic poems that a person like Ibn al-Tābban would have learned as a child. And you can see that he's used exactly the same rhythm, exactly the same pattern, in order to create this little religious poem. 

[The Arabic poem is by the pre-Islamic Arabian poet Imru’ al-Qais (496–565). These lines, translated by Raymond Scheindlin, read:

Stop here, my friends, And let us weep 
For a lost love and her old abode.—Ed.]

Do you have the translation in front of you? 

Yes. Okay. 

To rise with the dawning 
My heart awakens me. 
I watch for the eyelids Of sunrise impatiently. 
I rise to my Fair Gazelle, 
And beg Him to pardon me. 
With words He imparted, 
I speak of His sovereignty. 
His splendor, His righteousness  
I hymn to His community 
And praise Him as long as 
His spirit remains with me.

So here you have a poet rising in the morning and reciting this apparently spontaneous prayer. Obviously, it’s not spontaneous. He crafted it. Probably took him weeks to write a simple poem like this. But it sounds spontaneous. It sounds like somebody lying awake in the morning and can't wait to get up to pray. And prayer comes spontaneously to such a person because God’s spirit is there. Philosophers would teach that man’s soul is actually descended directly from God. “And praise Him as long as His spirit remains with me”—it's the God in me that enables me to sing praises. It's a thought very common among these poets. Ibn Gabirol developed it extensively, and there are plenty of poems by Ibn Gabirol here. But the nice thing about this book is that you have a less familiar name, a less familiar poet, and a genuine gem of liturgical poetry.