לוּ יִשְׁקְלוּ רֵעַי מְהוּמָתִי | Lu Yishqelu Ré’ai Mehumati — reshut №2 from the Old Sefaradi Tiqun for Shabbat Divrei, by Levi ibn al-Tabban

Contributor(s):

Isaac Gantwerk Mayer (transcription & naqdanut), Isaac Gantwerk Mayer (translation) and Levi ibn al-Tabban

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2 July 2026 under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike (CC BY-SA) 4.0 International copyleft license

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12th century C.E., 49th century A.M., acrostic, Acrostic signature, Nusaḥ Sefaradi, פיוטים piyyuṭim, רשויות reshuyot, שבת דברי Shabbat Divrei, Three Weeks of Mourning

In older Sephardic practice, there are cycles of reshuyot (permission-poems) recited on the three sabbaths of rebuke. These reshuyot, inserted before important prayers, date back to medieval Andalusian poets. They are largely mournful in tone, and accordingly the Ḥida opposed their recitation as unbefitting the joy of sabbaths, but due to their antiquity and cherishedness some communities (for instance those of Morocco) preserved them, reciting them all prior to Maariv on the ninth of Av instead. In any case, they are very clearly designed for the Shabbatot to which they are assigned, and to serve as reshuyot for the prayers to which they are assigned.

This reshut by Levi ibn al-Tabban is the second of six reshuyot for the first sabbath of rebuke, Shabbat Divrei, the first Sabbath of Rebuke after 17 Tammuz. It is the second reshut recited before Nishmat at the outset of the Shaḥarit service.

Source (Hebrew)	Translation (English)
לׄוּׄ יִׄשְׁקְלוּ רֵעַי מְהוּמָתִי כָּבְדָה כְּחוֹל־יָם אוֹ כְּאַשְׁמָתִי׃ עַל־כֵּן נְפוּגוֹתִי וּמַאֲמָרַי לָֽעוּ וְאָבְדָה כׇּל־מְזִמָּתִי׃	Look, would that my friends weigh my tumult as heavy as the sand of the sea or my guilt! Ergo I am benumbed, and my speeches I swallow, and all my schemes are lost.
עַל־מִי אֲקוֹנֵן בַּתְּחִלָּה אִם הֶֽרֶג עֲדָתִי אוֹ־חֲרוֹב בֵּיתִי׃ עַל־טוֹב וְרַע חַיָּב לְהוֹדוֹת לָךְ כׇּל־חַי וְכֵן תּוֹדְךָ יְחִידָתִי׃	Whom should I keen over first? The murder of my assembly, or the destruction of my house? In good and in evil all life must acknowledge You;^[1] Mishnah Berakhot 9:5 thus my one soul will acknowledge You.

Notes

Notes
1	Mishnah Berakhot 9:5

Isaac Gantwerk Mayer (transcription & naqdanut)

From a family of musicians, Isaac Gantwerk Mayer believes that creative art is one of the most powerful ways to get in touch with the divine. He composes music and poetry in Hebrew and English. (He also translates and authors his own original works.) Isaac runs a Jewish music transcription service, which will transcribe and set any Jewish music in any language, recorded or written. Contact his service on Facebook or via his music blog.

Isaac Gantwerk Mayer (translation)

From a family of musicians, Isaac Gantwerk Mayer believes that creative art is one of the most powerful ways to get in touch with the divine. He composes music and poetry in Hebrew and English. (He also authors his own original works and transcribes Hebrew and Aramaic text, adding niqqud and t'amim as needed.) Isaac runs a Jewish music transcription service, which will transcribe and set any Jewish music in any language, recorded or written. Contact his service on Facebook or via his music blog.

Levi ibn al-Tabban

Levi ben Yaaqov ibn al-Tabban (לוי בן יעקב אבן אלתבאן; fl. 12th c.), also known with the Arabic surname Abu l'Fihm, was a Jewish grammarian and poet who lived at Zaragoza. He was the friend and elder contemporary of Yehudah ha-Levi, who styled al-Tabban "King of Song." He is also alluded to by Abraham ibn Ezra in the preface to "Moznayim." Levi ibn al-Tabban was the author of a grammatical work in Arabic, called "Miftaḥ" (The Key), of which only the title has been preserved. Of his piyyutim, a number are extant in the festival liturgies of Tripoli, Avignon, and Algeria, and can usually be easily identified by his customary acrostic, לוי בן יעקב or אני לוי. The spirit of melancholy which pervades his penitential poem in the Tripoli prayer-book (page 63a), "To you, men, I call" (Hebrew: אליכם אישים אקרא), as well as the dirge-like recital of abuse and misery which it contains, shows the poem to have been produced in an age of persecution and tyranny practiced against the Jews. Others of his literary products, which are marked by distress and gloom, also point to such circumstances. The allusions in them are to the devastation of the province of Zaragoza carried on by the Christians under Alfonso Ⅵ, whose triumphant advance Yusuf ibn Tashfin was called from Africa to check.

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Augsburger Wunderzeichenbuch — Folio 11? „Vision des Jeremia“ (ca. 1552) by Heinrich Vogtherr the Younger (or Hans Burgkmair der Jüngere)

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ויהי נעם אדני אלהינו עלינו ומעשה ידינו כוננה עלינו ומעשה ידינו כוננהו׃ (תהלים צ:יז) · "May the pleasantness of אדֹני our elo’ah be upon us; may our handiwork be established for us — our handiwork, may it be established." (Psalms 90:17)