שָׁנְנוּ לְשׁוֹנָם | Shan’nu L’shonam — an ahavah piyyuṭ for Shabbat Vayera, by Rabbi Shmuel bar Avraham haLevi

An ahava piyyut for Shabbat Vayera, recited in the old Nusaḥ Polin (Eastern Ashkenazi) rite, written (according to Davidson) by R. Shmuel bar Avraham haLevi. Shmuel bar Avraham haLevi (1165-1216, according to Graetz) was a poet and scholar of the ibn Ḥasdai family of Barcelona, and the father of the noted Maimonidean translator Avraham bar Shmuel ibn Ḥasdai. This piyyuṭ takes God’s fateful instruction to Abraham — “Take, please, your son, your only one, whom you love,” and, in a shocking bit of poetic ḥutzpah, reframes it a request that God takes back Israel!

Categories:

Parashat Vayera

Tags:

12th century C.E., 50th century A.M., acrostic, Acrostic signature, אהבה רבה ahavah rabbah, combating anti-Jewish oppression, Jewish-Christian relations, Minhag Polin, Nusaḥ Ashkenaz, particularism and universalism, פיוטים piyyuṭim, polemic, פרשת וירא parashat Vayera

Contributor(s):

Isaac Gantwerk Mayer (translation), Isaac Gantwerk Mayer (transcription & naqdanut) and Shmuel bar Avraham haLevi

שָׁנְנוּ לְשׁוֹנָם | Shan’nu L’shonam — an ahavah piyyuṭ for Shabbat Vayera, by Rabbi Shmuel bar Avraham haLevi

בְּנֵי עָפָר מִי מָנָה | B’nei Afar Mi Manah (Thy sons—the dust of Jacob who hath told?), a zulat piyyuṭ for the first day of Sukkot (translated by Elsie Davis)