From what can we tithe?
About This Entry
This piyyut, which would be inserted in the repetition of the Amidah on the Sabbath of the intermediate days of Passover or Sukkot, blames the people of Israel for their current, woeful state. The poet refers to their failure to fulfill the tithing requirements detailed in Deuteronomy 14, reflecting the Palestinian practice of reading from this section on the Sabbaths occurring during Passover and Sukkot. (Communities that came under Babylonian influence selected different readings.) He bemoans the Jews’ current inability to provide tithes to the poor.
From what can we tithe and what can we offer?
With what can we honor and what can we give?
Our land is not ours.
What was ours is not ours–
our strength [is given] to strangers,
to foreigners our produce.
When God opened His stores, we did not take tithes,
nor had pity for the poor,
nor redeemed second tithes.
We withheld good. Now good
is withheld from us–
we were given, because of our sins,
into the hand of our oppressors.
We are like a ship in troubled waters,
neither coming nor going.
We are like a sick man–neither
dead nor living, hoping for You, cause of death and life.
Let Your mercy greet us,
and Your anger be restrained,
and we will call in Your name–
for we are Your portion and Your nation.
For You are God of the world,
from eternity to eternity.
Nothing is hidden from You–
God who lives forever.
Living and enduring, exalted on high, awesome and holy.
Translated by Abigail Denemark Ossip.
Published in: The Posen Library of Jewish Culture and Civilization, vol. 3: Encountering Christianity and Islam.
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