The Convergence of Judaism and Islam. Religious, Scientific, and Cultural Dimensions

One Thousand Years of Cultural Harmony between Judaism and Islam r 265

The poem also presents two sets of rhyming schemes, though in a sim-
pler manner than Najarah’s: the first belongs to each of the stanzas, and
the second, to its refrain.^22
Al-Hakham’s language demonstrates his scholarly knowledge of both
Jewish scriptures and of rabbinical writing. He also uses simple vocabu-
lary that is known to his congregation and taken from passages in the
Bible, such as Psalms, Isaiah, Exodus, the Song of Songs, Proverbs, and the
liturgy (Ben Ya ̔akov 1970, 328).
This poem expresses wishes and blessings for the bar mitzvah boy. His
thirteenth birthday symbolizes a significant stage in a young man’s life
as a Jew, a stage at which he is expected to act according to the rules and
spirit of the Torah. Two mystical elements are evident in the poem. The
first is based on the idea conveyed in the Zohar (part 1, 179:1), the book
of Jewish mysticism, according to which, at the age of thirteen, the yeser
hara ̔a (the evil inclination) leaves the child and Hayeser hatov (the good
inclination) replaces it. This idea is expressed explicitly in the third stanza
(line 3) nimlat mipah yokshim ([the bar mitzvah boy] has escaped from
the fowler’s trap [the evil inclination]), and in the fifth stanza (line 1) yeser
ksil se yomar veyeser tov ba bigvulo (Evil inclination be set apart and good
inclination enter his domain).
The second mystical idea is expressed through the word or (light),
which appears in various forms and symbolizes kabbalistic figures. Ac-
cording to the Kabbalah, haor hane ̔elam (the hidden mysterious light)
is the mystical light of God. In Barukh El Hay, two synonyms for light
appear in the second stanza. The first is orah (light): veyilvash khesimlah
orah (And he shall clothe himself in light as a garment) (line 1), and the
second is betifarah (glory or brilliance): asher ne ̔etar betifarah, ([and] He
shall wear the crown of glory [that God gave him]) (line 2). Both lines de-
scribe the light as royal garments, a majestic dress and a crown, suggesting
that the bar mitzvah boy will be surrounded and protected by God’s holy
light and thus will be safe.
The melody of Najarah’s Yihyu Kemos is cited in the heading of this
poem as the melody to which the poem is recommended to be sung. The
maqām is thus the same, ̔ajam, and is the only melodic version for this
poem, which is sung by Shlomoh Reuven Mu ̔alem.^23