Sacred Poems
The greater part of Ibn Ezra's 220 sacred compositions are found in the mahzor, the traditional Jewish prayerbooks for the High Holy Days, Rosh Hashanah, "the Jewish New Year", and Yom Kippur, "Day of Atonement". These penitential poems, or selichot, earned him the name HaSallach.
Their aim is to invite man to look within himself; they depict the vanity of worldly glory, the disillusion which must be experienced at last by the pleasure-seeker, and the inevitableness of divine judgment. A skillfully elaborated piece of work is the Avodah, the introduction to which is a part of the Portuguese Mahzor. Unlike his predecessors, Ibn Ezra begins his review of Biblical history not with Adam, but with the giving of the Torah.
The piyyuttim which follow the mishnaic text of the Temple service, especially the piyyut "Happy is the eye that beheld it," are considered by many to be of remarkable beauty.
Read more about this topic: Moses Ibn Ezra
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