The Voice Of Jerusalem

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Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: SONGS OF THE SYNAGOGUE These translations, chosen from my contributions to " The Service of the Synagogue," by kind permission of Messrs. George Routledge and Sons, are designed to elucidate Judaism by illustrating the conceptions that found their way into its orthodox liturgy, not necessarily always the highest conceptions it has produced. There is a general approximation to the metre and rhymings of the originals. The use of rhyme and metre, it may be remarked, is a comparative novelty in Hebrew. Rhyme was not introduced into Hebrew poetry before the seventh century, when it appears in the Piyyutim of Yannai. Milton calls rhyme " that barbarous invention to set off lame metre "; but there was not even metre in Hebrew then. That was not brought in till three centuries later by Dunash ben Labrat, a young poet of Baghdad origin, who probably picked it up from the Fez poets. " Such a thing hath hitherto been unknown in Israel," said Saadia, the great Gaon of Sura, when Dun- ash showed him Hebrew jigging to Arab measures.] YIGDAL, THE RHYME OF THE THIRTEEN ARTICLES (Attributed to Daniel Ben Judah, fourteenth century.) (Daily Service.) 1. The living God O magnify and bless, Transcending Time and here eternally. 2. One Being, yet unique in unity; A mystery of Oneness measureless. 3. Lo form or body He has none, and man No semblance of His holiness can frame. 4. Before Creation's dawn He was the same; The first to be, though never He began. 5. He is the world's and every creature's Lord; His rule and majesty are manifest, 6. And through His chosen, glorious sons exprest In prophecies that through their lips are poured 7. Yet never like to Moses rose a seer, Permitted glimpse behind the veil divine. 8. This faithful prince of God's prophetic li...

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