The Jewish people is rescued
About This Entry
This is the only poem to survive from the southern Italian poet Shefatiah. It is a seliḥah, a poem for the penitential prayers recited on Yom Kippur, the penitential days leading up to it, or a fast day at some other point in the year. The poet presents the Jewish people as being in a desperate situation, at serious risk from their oppressors, with God as their only hope. In the fifth stanza, he refers to “Seir and his father-in-law”; “Seir” refers to Esau, who lives on Mount Seir (see Genesis 36:8), and “his father-in-law” is Ishmael (see Genesis 28:9). In accordance with the medieval Jewish understanding of these biblical figures and the nations descended from them, “Esau” refers to the kingdoms of Christendom and “Ishmael” to the Muslims. The expression “Seir and his father-in-law” was imitated by a number of later Hebrew poets in southern Italy, reflecting their experience in a land that saw ongoing conflicts between Byzantine and Norman Christians and raiding Muslim armies.
Notes
[The expression tsakun laḥasham, taken from Isaiah 26:16, is very obscure in its biblical context, but it is traditionally understood as something like “they have poured forth their prayer.” Shefatiah, like many liturgical poets, seems to treat it as a noun meaning “prayer,” and here it is translated as “the prayer they pour forth.”—Trans.]
Published in: The Posen Library of Jewish Culture and Civilization, vol. 3: Encountering Christianity and Islam.
