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
Famous quotes containing the words sacred and/or poems:
“You are told a lot about your education, but some beautiful, sacred memory, preserved since childhood, is perhaps the best education of all. If a man carries many such memories into life with him, he is saved for the rest of his days. And even if only one good memory is left in our hearts, it may also be the instrument of our salvation one day.”
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“I try to make a rough music, a dance of the mind, a calculus of the emotions, a driving beat of praise out of the pain and mystery that surround me and become me. My poems are meant to make your mind get up and shout.”
—Judith Johnson Sherwin (b. 1936)