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You who live secure
In your warm houses
Who return at evening to find
Hot food and friendly faces:
Consider whether this is a man,
Who labours in the mud
Who knows no peace
Who fights for a crust…
This tombstone of Abraham Roccas (d. 1587) is located in the Cloister of the Papal Archbasilica of San Giovanni in Laterano, in Rome, Italy.
Ḥay ibn Yaqẓān, composed by the Muslim philosopher Abū Bakr ibn Tufayl al-Qaysi (1110–1185), relates the story of Ḥay ibn Yaqẓān, literally “Alive, son of Awake,” as he grows up alone on a deserted…
In a dream, in a night vision, while [I was] asleep upon [my] bed during my imprisonment, a voice called in my ears. The voice was the voice of Jacob, like the voice of my father, may his memory be…
For Joseph Kohen Balarin of blessed memory, to his brother, in Prague.
Wisdom brings strength to the wise, dear brother from a city of strength, elevated leader and rabbi, my brother and head, may…
What is this sound of tumult that I hear—
Roaring of the sea, not burbling of the brook
Like the roar of a lion or a tiger?
I am in great danger and do not know
If my time approaches when I must…
Tombstone of Shifra Tamari (d. 1565), Padua, Italy. In the early modern period, most Jewish tombstones in Italy were Italian Renaissance in style. Hebrew epitaph poems, like the one on this gravestone…
And the sages have stated, in regard to the reward of those who serve the Almighty and carry out His will in this world, in Song of Songs Rabbah 6:8: Anyone who occupies himself with the Torah in this…
You, Jerusalem, I can never forget;
Rather, I remember you in my every joy,
With tears in my eyes, which never cease.
I am moved by grief and great sadness,
Not by mockery, nor happiness:
Solely to…
What shall the passive and lackluster do
if the pious and accomplished are swiftly felled by angels?
Quake, nations, and rich and poor fear ye the judgment day.
When the…