Behinat Ha-'Olam
Beḥinat ha-'Olam (The Examination of the World), called also by its first words, "Shamayim la-Rom" (Heaven's Height), a didactic poem written after the banishment of the Jews from France (1306), to which event reference is made in the eleventh chapter (compare Renan-Neubauer, Les Ecrivains Juifs Français, p. 37). This poem is divided into 37 short chapters, and may be summarized as follows:
The sage, though the highest type of humanity, is liable to the vicissitudes of fortune. He is not exempt from any of the evils which assail humanity; and the sword of death stabs alike the philosopher and the boor. But, if this view be dispiriting, there is another which is consoling. The soul which lives within him, when man is bereft of this world's goods, will accompany him beyond the grave. Still, to the shame of humanity, man does not care to improve this noblest part of himself. He is entrapped by the perfidious charms of the world; and his years roll away in search of illusions.
And yet the world is nothing but a tempestuous sea; time is naught but a bridge thrown over the abyss connecting the negation that preceded existence with the eternity that is to follow it. The slightest inadvertence can precipitate him who crosses this bridge into the abyss. Are worldly pleasures, then, worth seeking? After their enjoyment follows despair, a vacuum never to be filled. Unfortunate are they who give way to their enticements. Can one be heedless when so many agents of destruction are suspended over his head; when the stars that roll above him and survey his fate bring about, in their rapid courses, unforeseen but inevitable events, that the decree of the Eternal has attached to their movement.
But do not, child of man, accuse the Author of nature of the evils that overwhelm thy short and frail existence. The evils thou complainest of are of thine own making. As for the Eternal, His words are all wisdom and goodness. Man aspires in vain to understand them; they are beyond his intelligence. All that may be conceived of Him is that He is inconceivable. Celestial by origin, the human soul, so long as it is attached to the body, groans under a shameful slavery. The occupation worthy of its noble extraction is therefore to direct all its faculties toward the worship of its Creator, the happiness of its fellow-creatures, and the triumph of truth. This result can be attained only in keeping the commandments of God.
Bedersi concludes his poem by expressing his admiration for Maimonides:
Finally, turn neither to the left nor to the right from all that the wise men believed, the chief of whom was the distinguished master Maimonides, of blessed memory, with whom no one can be compared from among the wise men who have lived since the close of the Talmud; then I shall be sure that thou, enriched with all the knowledge of religion and philosophy, wilt fear the Lord thy God.
According to Husik, Bedersi as the author of this poem is the "wise man" quoted by Joseph Albo in Sefer Ikkarim (II:30) on the unknowability of God:
The most that we can understand about God is that we can not understand Him, as the wise man said: The sum total of what we know of Thee is that we do not know Thee.
This poem enjoyed the greatest success. Published first at Mantua by Estellina, wife of Abraham Conat, between 1476 and 1480, it was republished 67 times (compare Bibliotheca Friedlandiana, ii. 139), with many commentaries, among which are those written by Moses ibn Ḥabib, Jacob Frances, and Yom-Ṭob Lipmann Heller. Four commentaries written by Isaac Monçon, Jacob (of Fano?), Leon of Mantua, and Immanuel of Lattes the Younger are still extant in manuscript (MSS. at St. Petersburg and at the Bodleian Library, Oxford, Nos. 502 and 1404). The poem was translated into Latin by Uchtman; into German by Isaac Auerbach, Hirsch ben Meïr, Joel ben Joseph Faust or Wust, Simson Hamburger, Auerbach (who made use of a translation of parts iv. and v. by Mendelssohn), J. Levy, Joseph Hirschfeld, and (in verse) by Stern, preceded by an interesting Hebrew introduction by Weiss; into French by Philippe Aquinas and Michel Beer; into Italian in Antologia Israelitica, 1880,pp. 334 et seq.; into English by Tobias Goodman; into Polish by J. Tugendhold.
Read more about this topic: Jedaiah Ben Abraham Bedersi