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My heart is in the east, and I in the uttermost west--How can I find savour in food? How shall it be sweet to me? How shall I render my vows and my bonds, while yet. Zion lieth beneath the fetter of Edom, and I in Arab chains? A light thing would it seem to me to leave all the good things of Spain --
In just a few lines, Judah Halevi expresses in the following poem his yearning for Zion and the intensity of his longing: My heart is in the east, and I in the uttermost west– How can I find savor in food? How shall it be sweet to me? How shall I render my vows and my bonds, while yet
Jan 4, 2022 · My heart is in the east, and I am in the distant west. How can I taste what I eat, and how can it be sweet? How can I fulfill by vows and oaths, as long as Zion is in the chains of Edom, and I am in the binds of the Arabs?
- 224
- XX AA XXX
- Iambic tetrameter
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Halevi’s poems of longing for Israel like Libi baMizrach (my heart is in the east) juxtapose love and pain, and dream and reality to express the distance between Spain and the Middle East and his desire to bridge it. He believed he would find true liberation through subservience to God’s will in Israel.
Jul 22, 2006 · The stirring words of the medieval poet of Zion, Yehudah HaLevi, echo through each and every generation: “My heart is in the East, and I am in the far reaches of the West.” At no other time is this heartfelt cry more deeply felt than when Israel is under attack.
This famous medieval poem was written by Judah Halevi, the renowned rabbi, poet and philosopher who lived most of his life in Muslim Spain. “My heart is in the East and I am at the edge of the West” expresses the ageless longing of the Jewish people for Tzion, for Zion, for the land of Israel. Halevi penned these words some time in the ...
The following article explores his philosophical attitude toward the Land of Israel. On this topic, however, Halevi is best known for a line of poetry that expressed his intense yearning for the Holy Land: “My heart is in the East and I am at the end of the West.”
