I thank You, for You have answered me

12th Century

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This yotser (a poem recited in the blessing “who creates (yotser) light” in the morning service) is found in Ashkenazic prayer books for the second Sabbath of Hanukkah, an occasion that comes up only rarely, when the holiday both begins and ends on the Sabbath. It is not clear whether the poet intended the poem for this rare occurrence or simply for the regular annual Sabbath of Hanukkah, but the universal tradition throughout Ashkenaz (and northern France and northern Italy) was to recite “I give thanks to You” by Joseph bar Solomon as the yotser on the regular Sabbath of Hanukkah, so Menahem’s poem had to be assigned to the second Sabbath when there was one. Menahem starts the poem with the few biblical texts that predict the events of the post biblical Hasmonaean revolt, namely Zechariah 9:13 and various visions of Daniel. After this section, he begins to tell a story of Hanukkah, based on Midrash Hanukkah literature (this section has been elided in this translation) but then goes of in his own direction, gathering facts about the Hasmonaean wars preserved in various places in talmudic literature. He concludes with the famous story of the miraculous oil-cruse, rare in Ashkenazic liturgical poems for Hanukkah and, significantly, not found in “I give thanks to You.”

I thank You, for You have answered me, kept me alive, not finished me.

You have not let my enemies gloat over me. You have raised me up from the grave.

I exalt you, O Lord, for you have drawn me up (Psalms 30:1).

You contemplated, from far in the past, to inscribe the matter, perfectly planned.

Before the news came, You had already announced and informed:

I shall rouse up your children, O Zion, against your children, O Greece! (Zechariah 9:13).

You redeemed me at the beginning from the mortar and bricks of Pibeseth and Aven [Egyptian cities],

and also from Greece, the deep mire, the evildoers,

from the horrible pit, from the slimy mire (Psalms 40:3).

They prevented the observance of the menorah, the Sukkot festival, the law, and mentioning the divine Name.

But God gave me a portion of seven and eight,¹ to recite Hallel,

of the choirmaster, a psalm upon the eight—for the Holy One! (Psalms 12:1).

The beloved [Daniel] dreamed about the Third Kingdom, explicitly:

the image of a tiger with four wings, which he wrote down.

From there it split into four heads (Genesis 2:10).

A second time, he was shown a goat, which became greater and mightier, fearsomely,

and the great horn, and the four conspicuous horns replacing it, coming about

to the north and to the south and to the east and to the west (Genesis 13:14).

Then a king more brazen faced than Shishak [of Egypt] and Sheshach [Babylonia]

ordered his decrees to his vizier, who imposed them on my people,

and this concealed the light of the whole earth and made it dark (Exodus 10:15). [ . . . ]

Seated between the hills, the city stuck like a peg to cause trouble and rage,

Ekron, it was uprooted, Caesarea of Seir.

Therefore, the city was named [Ekron, related to the word ‘akar, “to uproot”] (Genesis 19:22).

Ever since my chieftains conquered it, in the name of the Lord, my battle-standard,

its name was changed, now it is called “The Inheritance of the Prince’s Tower.”

It was like a chiefdom of Judah, and Ekron was like Jebusi [Jerusalem] (Zechariah 9:7). [ . . . ]

All the stones of the altar that the Greeks had defiled,

[the Jews] hid them away, deposited in enclosed chambers,

and they took new stones and brought them in place of those stones (Leviticus 14:42). [ . . . ]

When the enemy and his whole host was utterly wiped out,

the messengers set out to proclaim in the provinces that victory had sprouted,

to bring them to Jerusalem, to joyfully perform a dedication [ḥanukkah] (Nehemiah 2:27).

They dedicated the sanctum and cleaned it, to light lamps faithfully.

They searched and found in the cavities a hidden cruse of oil:

only one jug of oil (2 Kings 4:2).

Its glow turned out miraculously to last for eight days, for my diligent people.

Therefore, they established these days for the generations of all times,

to recall, to thank, and to praise the Lord (1 Chronicles 16:4).

Your priests were clothed in righteousness when you set fire to the thorns and weeds [the evildoers].

You gave victory to your pious people, and they sang as they kindled olive oil:

a psalm, a song for the dedication of the Temple—O Holy One! (Psalms 30:1).

Translated by Gabriel Wasserman.

Notes

[An allusion to “The Homily of the Monarchies,” part of the Midrash Ḥanukkah literature, which expounds Ecclesiastes 11:2: Give a portion to seven, yea, to eight as meaning that the Greeks outlawed the lighting of the Temple menorah (with its seven branches) and the observance of Sukkot (with its eight days, including Shemini ‘Atzeret), but God responded by giving the Jews the seven sons of Hasmonaeus and the eight days of Hanukkah.—Trans.]

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

I thank You, for You have answered me

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