Dominion Built of Praise
JEWISH CULTURE AND CONTEXTS
Published in association with the Herbert D. Katz Center for Advanced Judaic Studies of the University of Pennsylvania
Series editors: Shaul Magid, Francesca Trivellato, Steven Weitzman
A complete list of books in the series is available from the publisher.
DOMINION
BUILT
of
PRAISE
Panegyric and Legitimacy Among Jews in the Medieval Mediterranean
JONATHAN DECTER
UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA PRESS
PHILADELPHIA
Copyright © 2018 University of Pennsylvania Press
All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations used for purposes of review or scholarly citation, none of this book may be reproduced in any form by any means without written permission from the publisher.
Published by
University of Pennsylvania Press
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19104-4112
Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Decter, Jonathan P., 1971– author.
Title: Dominion built of praise : panegyric and legitimacy among Jews in the medieval Mediterranean / Jonathan Decter.
Other titles: Jewish culture and contexts.
Description: 1st edition. | Philadelphia : University of Pennsylvania Press, [2018] | Series: Jewish culture and contexts | Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2018004265 | ISBN 9780812250411 (hardcover : alk. paper)
Subjects: LCSH: Hebrew poetry, Medieval—Mediterranean Region—History and criticism. | Laudatory poetry—History and criticism. | Praise in literature. | Jews—Mediterranean Region—Social life and customs—History—To 1500. | Leadership—Religious aspects—Judaism—History—To 1500. | Power (Philosophy) in literature.
Classification: LCC PJ5023 .D43 2018 | DDC 892.41/209—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018004265
For Nikki
CONTENTS
Chapter 1. Performance Matters: Between Public Acclamation and Epistolary Exchange
Chapter 2. Poetic Gifts: Maussian Exchange and the Working of Medieval Jewish Culture
Chapter 3. “Humble Like the Humble One”: The Language of Jewish Political Legitimacy
Chapter 4. “Sefarad Boasts over Shinar”: Mediterranean Regionalism in Jewish Panegyric
Chapter 5. “A Word Aptly Spoken”: The Ethics of Praise
Chapter 7. In Praise of God, in Praise of Man: Issues in Political Theology
Chapter 9. The Other “Great Eagle”: Interreligious Panegyrics and the Limits of Interpretation
INTRODUCTION
I remember once as a graduate student reading in class a long Hebrew poem, “Lekha re‘i ve-re‘a ha-me’orim” (Come, my friend and friend of the luminaries), by the eleventh-century Andalusian Jewish poet Shelomoh Ibn Gabirol. We began with the poem’s exquisite introduction, which describes a palace garden wherein the flowers, statues, and birds engage in a word battle of one-upmanship, each claiming superiority over his rivals. Ultimately, the poet’s voice intrudes upon the scene to silence the competitors and declare that none can compare with the addressee of the poem, whose virtues the poet extols for another ten lines. I remember how we read the poem line by line, meticulously parsing each word, appreciating the aesthetic effects, and comparing themes with themes from Arabic poetry. We began with the first line, and, by the time class ended, we had barely reached the takhalluṣ (Ar., “escape verse”), in which the poet made a transition from the description of the garden to praise for his addressee.
In the next class, we did not return to read the panegyric section but began with another qaṣīda (Ar., formal ode), Yehudah Halevi’s “Ereṣ keyaldah haytah yoneqet” (The earth nursed like a baby girl), another nature description leading into panegyric. Again, we read to the takhalluṣ, and class ended.1 None of us missed reading the panegyric in detail. Even a cursory glance at the panegyric sections of several poems revealed a rather predictable set of virtues (generosity, wisdom, eloquence) inevitably presented through tropes that were equally as predictable (generous as the rain, wise as Solomon, speech like arrows). Further, the panegyrics seldom offered any personal data that a biographer or historian might find of interest. And most of all, we found the poet’s obsequious posturing downright detestable—all of that fawning was laid on so thick and reeked of phoniness, especially since poets seemed to say the same thing about every addressee.
Alas, medieval Hebrew praise poetry did not fit our literary tastes. Surely, we were not alone. Our preference for love poetry, nature poetry, and other genres was something that we shared with the pioneering scholars of the Wissenschaft des Judentums, whose