Selected Poems (Engelse vertaling)

35 JEHUDAH HALEVI

Then why do the satirists mock at me
And make me a word of reviling?
Since if they believe in God's law
The teaching of Israel refutes them,¹
And if they lack faith—lo! we part
With no portion in common between us.

Possibly it referred to the conception of the Divine Presence
never returning to Egypt. It has been suggested that
the Egyptian Jews of that time removed the line from the
poem. [Ehrlich reads וירד in line 31, and supplies in

line 32 the words: מועל ?ה ^עילה?• The meaning of

the two lines would then be: He who goes down from
her holiness to Babylon or Egypt is as one committing
against her a trespass. Ed.].

¹ The law against dwelling in Egypt is to be found in
Deut.17,16. This text often caused qualms to the Jewish
communities which settled in Egypt in the Middle Ages.