The glories of ancient piyyut: אז באין כל

The discovery of a new inscription like that from Zincirli, of a site like Khirbet Qeiyafa, of missing pages of Hebrew Ben Sira – all these things cannot fail to create excitement in the minds of students of the biblical world.  But what about the massive piyyut, one of the most ancient Avodah in our possession, that has come to light thanks to finds from the Cairo Geniza and the Firkovitch collection housed in St. Petersburg? The very existence of this composition is unknown to all but a few specialists. Fragments were published by Zvi Malachi in 1974. Joseph Yahalom reconstructed and published an annotated version of the composition from Genizah fragments in 1996. Since then, more fragments have been discovered. I base myself on the 2005 edition published by Michael D. Swartz and Joseph Yahalom (bibliography at the end of this post).

An Avodah piyyut like אז באין כל ’Az be-’En Kol is of enormous interest to anyone with a passion for the history of reception of the Hebrew Bible, the diachronic development of ancient Hebrew poetry, and the theology and theological anthropology of Judaism in Greco-Roman antiquity. For the student of ancient Hebrew, furthermore, reading piyyut is an excellent exercise. Phrase after phrase of piyyut goes back to the biblical corpus. Continuities and transformations are all worth noting.

אז באין כל ’Az be-’En Kol, furthermore, is a stunning witness to a religious synthesis in which biblical, “apocryphal,” and rabbinic elements congeal to form a portrait of a loving, merciful God. The God of the piyyut is the Creator of the cosmos and elector of a people and a priesthood. The world and the cult are understood as a theatre of glory, holiness, and divine lovingkindness.

Below the fold, I provide and translate strophe by strophe the letter א of the opening acrostic of the composition. My translation differs in details from that offered by Swartz and Yahalom. I cite their translation as well, for comparison’s sake, when the differences are particularly salient. I would love to have some back-and-forth with the authors on-line about problems of interpretation, but that is a tall order. I sincerely hope that fellow Hebraists will challenge my interpretation if such seems necessary. For pedagogical reasons, I quote the Hebrew without vowels to begin with. If you are able to read the piyyut correctly without vowels, it is a sign that you are proficient in Hebrew. If not, you might consider mastering Hebrew at a higher level. In the end, you will be glad if you do.

אז באין כל

אתה כל הייתה

ובהכינך כל

אתה כל נמלאתה

(1) When there was nothing at all,

you were all that was,

and when you established all,

you filled all.

אָז בְּאֵין כֹּל

אַתָּה כֹּל הָיִיתָה

וּבַהֲכִינָךְ כֹּל

אַתָּה כֹּל נִמְלֵאתָה

Note: סוּסָךְ instead of סוּסְךָ is, so far as I have noted, the only significant variation from Masoretic Hebrew convention in terms of vocalization of the piyyut as presented in Swartz and Yahalom

[אז בברא]ך כל

אתה חדש לחדשו

כי ישושיך בראשית

ובחורותיך באחרית

(2) [When] you [created] all

you possessed newness so as to renew it,

for your senescence was in the beginning

and your youthfulness in the ending.

 

S & Y: line 2: you are ever renewing,

[אָז בְּבָרְאָ]ךְ כֹּל

אַתָּה חָדָׂש לְחַדְּשׁוֹ

כִּי יְשׁוּשֶׁיךָ בְּרֵאשִׁית

וּבְחוּרוֹתֶיךָ בְּאַחֲרִית

 

אין עין לשור

אוי חנייתך

כי על אדירים

אז מקדם חניתה

(3) No eye can spy

the comforts of your tabernacle,

for above the Majesties

you tabernacled from of old.

אֵין עַיִן לָשׁוּר

אַוֵּי חֲנִייָּתֶךָ

כִּי עַל אַדִּירִים

אָז מִקֶּדֶם חָנִיתָה

S&Y vocalizeאִוֻּי  and חֲנִיָּיתֶךָ. Note pausal form. אדירים=המים

או איזה שכוי

יחקור מקום שכנך

ואש אוכלה אש

בלבת מים החתיתה

(4) Or what of the rooster?

He might search for your dwelling place,

but fire devouring fire

you put down in the flaming waters.

 

S&Y: line 1: Or perhaps some rooster; lines 3-4: you have snatched up a fire consuming fire from the fiery waters.

אוֹ אֵיזֶה שֶׂכְוִי

יַחְקוֹר מָקוֹם שִׁכְנֶךָ

וְאֵשׁ אוֹכְלָה אֵשׁ

בְּלַבַּת מַיִם הֶחְתֵּיתָה

 

לבת=להבת; החתה=הנחית

So the piyyut begins. Its protology is a mirror image of God filling the Temple and his glory overflowing from there to fill the entire earth (cf. Isaiah 6).

The first strophe confesses two things: (1) Prior to any thing existing there was nothing besides God. The tautological statement expresses God’s absolute priority. (2) God filled all from the moment of creation. The first thought recalls the doctrine of creatio ex nihilo. The second is reminiscent of the Christian confession according to which the exceeding greatness of divine power is found in “him (the Christ) who fills all in all” (Ephesians 1:23). In the piyyut, it is God who fills all in all, not the Messiah.

The second strophe affirms that God is old and young simultaneously, always new in himself, and always renewing. The inaccessibility of God is stressed in the third strophe. The Majesties are probably the waters mentioned in Genesis 1. The waters are reported to be laced with fire in the fourth strophe. The source of this tradition is unknown to me.

With respect to ancient Hebrew, שור consistently replaces ראה in the piyyut. חנייה appears to be a substitute for משכן / אהל. אדירים is an example of a circumlocution used in place of a simple noun (probably המים ‘the waters’ above and below the heavens according to Gen 1:7). Poetic substitutions abound in piyyut. 

To be continued.

Bibliography

Zvi Malachi, העבודה ליום הכפורים ׃ אופייה תולדותיה והתפתחותה בשירה העברית, (2 vols.; Ph.D. diss.; Hebrew University Jerusalem, 1974; Michael D. Swartz and Joseph Yahalom, Avodah: An Anthology of Ancient Poetry for Yom Kippur, Penn State Library of Jewish Studies; University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2005; Joseph Yahalom, אז באין כל׃ סדר העבודה הארץ ישראלי הקדום ליום הכפורים, Jerusalem: Magnes, 1996.

Comments

[Jared]

This is a beautiful poem--both in terms of imagery and in terms of sonority.

I found the second stanza particularly stunning. I thought your English rendering of the second line of that stanza ("you possessed newness so as to renew it") rather awkward, however, compared to the succinctness of the Hebrew. I do not have a better translation off the top of my head, but am sure there must be a better way.

I am looking forward to future piyyut postings.

[John Hobbins]

Jared,

I really enjoyed meeting you at SBL-Boston. I only wish we had had more time to talk.

I agree that my translation of which you speak is awkward. I am currently at a loss as to how to improve it.

[Simon]

This is fascinating. Is the date of the piyyut known?

I would have thought that the author was using שכוי to mean "mind" rather than "rooster" in the fourth strophe. I know that the Talmud understands it as "rooster" in Job 38:36, but "mind" is also found in the medieval commentaries and the Targum, and IMHO it makes a more natural parallelism between אֵין עַיִן in the third strophe and אֵיזֶה שֶׁכְוִי in the fourth.

[David Guttmann]

See Chagiga Bavli 12a
מאי שמים א"ר יוסי בר חנינא ששם מים במתניתא תנא אש ומים מלמד שהביאן הקב"ה וטרפן זה בזה ועשה מהן רקיע

Is the whole Piyut available online?

אתה כל הייתה

I would suggest - You were everything.

thus

אתה כל נמלאתה

You were filled with all (or everything)

would segue well.

An early source for the problem of Tzimtzum :-)

[David Guttmann]

הֶחְתֵּיתָה

is it possible from
מחתה
?

[John Hobbins]

Simon,

Yahalom believes that this work, which is mentioned in ancient liturgical sources, influenced Yose ben Yose's Azkir Gevurot. In that case, it would be relatively early, perhaps third cent. CE.

Your suggested interpretation of שכוי is certainly worth considering. However, I understand the last two lines of the strophe as an explanation of why the שכוי cannot search out God's dwelling place: the way is barred by fiery water. Perhaps I'm missing something, but I find it hard to see how that would stop the mind if indeed it could, against the tenor of Job 28, transport itself into God's abode.

[John Hobbins]

David,

Thanks for the reference that shows that tradition elsewhere thought of fire and water as that which the expanse of heaven was made.

I appreciate the encouragement to translate the second line of the first strophe more concisely. "You were all" is perhaps best.

For חתה in the sense I suggest here, see Prov 25:22. But you're right, a connection with מחתה 'fire-pan' seems intended here.