הרב אבן גבירול

Rav Shlomo ibn Gabirol (4781/1021 — c. 4818/1058), Shlomo ben Yehuda, was one of the great paytanim of the golden age of Sefarad, whose sacred poetry entered the machzor and the siddur. He was born in Malaga in southern Spain; his father, once a figure of standing in Cordoba, had been forced to Malaga before his son’s birth, and the boy was orphaned young. In the courts of Muslim Spain, where wealthy Jews gathered poets and scholars about them, his patron was Yekutiel ibn Chassan, who provided for him during his years in Zaragoza — so that he is remembered as “the poet of Zaragoza.” When Yekutiel was killed in a conspiracy, ibn Gabirol composed three kinot upon him.

At about twenty-five he was compelled to leave Zaragoza, and in 1045 came under the protection of Rav Shmuel HaNagid in Granada; in time that bond frayed, and he wandered among cities for the rest of his days. He suffered grievously from a severe illness of the skin, and much of his poetry speaks of his pain. He was niftar in Valencia; an old legend tells that one who envied his gift killed him and buried him beneath a fig tree, whose early and uncommonly sweet fruit led at last to the discovery of his grave.

His sefer Keter Malchut, is a long spiritual poem tracing the greatness of Hashem, the order of Creation, and man standing before his Maker, which was received into the tefillot of Yom Kippur. His Azharot for Shavuot set out all taryag mitzvot and drew commentaries of their own, among them the Zohar HaRakia of the Rashbatz; his kinah Shomron kol titen is said on Tisha B’Av, and other of his piyutim entered the Shabbat and festival davening. In mussar he wrote Tikkun Middot HaNefesh, first composed in Arabic, and the collection of ethical sayings Mivchar HaPninim. His philosophical work Mekor Chaim — long preserved only in a Latin translation, Fons Vitae — treats the matter and form of all created things; its authorship, lost for centuries, was shown by the scholar Shlomo Munk to be his.