188 r Michael Katz
שיר מרובע מפי הראב”ע
כל אוון ורע לצדיק לא אירע
התחל בנושע וסיים ברשע
הסב בתשע ויצא הרשע.
A song of four lines, Ibn-Ezra composed:
To no ill and harm was the righteous exposed;
Begin with a saved, with a sinner conclude,
Go round by nine, and all malice preclude.
Now let’s all hope and wait for total abolishment of malice, so we can
live in a world of goodness and purity, a world in which Ibn-Ezras and
al-Khwarizmis enrich each other in knowledge and insight, live side by
side in harmony, and contribute together to the advancement of science
and humankind.
Notes
- See Tony Levy, “Hebrew and Latin Versions of an Unknown Mathematical Text by
Abraham Ibn Ezra,” Aleph 1 (2001): 295–305, and also Shlomo Sela, Abraham Ibn Ezra
and the Rise of Medieval Hebrew Science (Boston: Brill, 2003), 21. - For the influence on Ibn-Ezra of other Muslim scholars, consult, e.g., chapter 5 in
Irene Lancaster, Deconstructing the Bible: Abraham Ibn Ezra’s Introduction to the Torah
(London: Routledge Curzon, 2003) as well as several articles in Isadore Twersky and Jay
M. Harris, eds., Rabbi Abraham Ibn Ezra: Studies in the Writings of a Twelfth-Century
Jewish Polymath (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1993). - For example, S. Gandz, The Mishnat ha-Middot (Berlin: J. Springer, 1932).
- For example, G. B. Sarfati, “Mishnat ha-Midot,” in H. Ben-Shammai, ed., Heqer
̔Ever we- ̔Arav (Tel Aviv and Jerusalem: Tel Aviv University and Hebrew University,
1993), 463–90 (Hebrew). - Mikraot Gedolot (Great Bible Readings), often called the Rabbinic Bible, is a collec-
tion of traditional biblical exegeses highly revered by Orthodox Jews. - Another explanation might be that Ibn-Ezra wants to reserve gematria strictly to
matters of the utmost glory and mystery, such as God’s name, our concern in the present
essay. - Throughout this essay, the translations (and explanations) are mine, but in some
places I have consulted H. Norman Strickman and Arthur M. Silver, Ibn Ezra’s Commen-
tary on the Pentateuch (New York: Menorah, 1996). (Similar explanations and presenta-
tions can be found in several Hebrew sources, e.g., in the Torat Chaim Chumash, pub-
lished by Mossad Harav Kook.) I tried to translate quite literally, and hence the English