As on this month’s last day

Leone Modena

17th Century

As on this month’s last day,
the moon is waning,
make my sins wane, O Lord,
my merits flourish.
I know my heart is hard—
a wicked web whose threads are sin—
and I deserve the fire
for weaving wrong and shame thereto,
for going after gain,
for fleeing you as bad boys flee their school.
I come before You, Lord,
to beg for the antidote
against sin’s venom,
sorrowfully pleading,
in torments wrought by me alone,
my hand and mouth and eye
numb of sense and feeling.
You made New Moons
a time to seek atonement;
one day each month, you silence
Satan, the accuser.
I now bring you your people’s prayer
one day ahead,
so that tomorrow, you will know me,
not see me as a stranger.
Arise in mercy, O our King,
and pity holy Zion;
give glory to your dwelling-place,
that we may bring to you again
our New Moon offerings.
And, Lord, send him who wears our crown.
There do our hearts yearn to return,
to shine once more.

Translated by
Raymond P.
Scheindlin
.

Credits

Leone Modena, “As on This Month’s Last Day” (poem, Modena, 17th century). Published in: Leone Modena, The Divan of Leo de Modena = Divan le-Rabi Yehudah Aryeh mi-Modinah: A Collection of His Hebrew Poetical Works, Edited from a Unique Ms. in the Bodleian Library, ed. Simon Bernstein (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society of America, 1932), 199–200.

Published in: The Posen Library of Jewish Culture and Civilization, vol. 5.

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Creator Bio

Leone Modena

1571–1648

Leone Modena was born in Venice and spent most of his youth in Ferrara. In addition to acquiring a traditional education, he studied poetry, letter writing, music, Latin, and kabbalah. While awaiting ordination in Venice, Modena earned a living in a variety of ways, among them teaching, writing letters and poetry, preaching, and correcting proofs. Modena spent time in Ferrara, Florence, and other Italian towns before he was finally ordained in Venice in 1609. He later served as chief translator of Hebrew documents for the Venetian government. Known for delivering sermons in the Venetian synagogues so skillfully that he attracted Christian listeners, Modena published numerous books in Hebrew for Jews, as well as Historia de’ riti Ebraici (Account of Jewish Rites; 1637), an Italian-language guide to Jewish ritual originally commissioned for King James I. Particularly well known is his work Ari nohem (A Roaring Lion), which questioned the antiquity of the kabbalah. Ḥayye Yehudah (The Life of Judah) details Modena’s personal struggles, including his excessive gambling, several illnesses, and the deaths of infant children and two grown sons.

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