Jedaiah ben Abraham Bedersi (c. 1270 – c. 1340) (Hebrew:ידעיה הבדרשי) was aJewish poet, physician, and philosopher; born atBéziers (hence his surname Bedersi). HisOccitan name wasEn Bonet, which probably corresponds to the Hebrew nameTobiah;[1] and, according to the practices ofHachmei Provence, he occasionally joined to his name that of his father,Abraham Bedersi.
In his poems he assumed the appellation "Penini" (הפניני, "Dispenser of Pearls"), and because of this appellation the ethical workMibḥar haPeninim ofSolomon ibn Gabirol has been erroneously ascribed to Bedersi.
Bedersi was a precocious child. He was scarcely fifteen years old when he published his workBaqqashat ha-Memin "The Mem Prayer", a hymn of 1000 words, each of which begins with the lettermem, translated intoLatin andGerman. Bedersi's father, very much pleased with the evidence of his child's precocity, expressed his approbation in a short poem, which in many editions is given at the end of the hymn. The work contains only mere quibbles on Biblical passages and is often very obscure, but considering the age of the author, the facility with which he handles the Hebrew vocabulary is astonishing.[2]
Bedersi's Talmudical knowledge must have been equally extensive; for, as may be seen in the introduction to his commentary on theAggadah of theTalmud, he was but fifteen years old when he entered the Talmudical school of R. Meshullam. At the age of seventeen he produced his ethical workSefer ha-Pardes (The Book of the Garden). This treatise, first published at Constantinople in 1515 (?) and reproduced byJoseph Luzzatto inOzar ha-Ṣifrut, iii., is divided into eight chapters:
At eighteen he published a work in defense of women, entitledẒilẓal Kenafayim (The Rustling of Wings) orOheb Nashim (The Women-Lover). In the short introduction to this treatise, Bedersi says that he wrote it againstJudah ibn Shabbethai'sSone ha-Nashim (The Woman-Hater). The young poet dedicated this composition to his two friends, Meïr and Judah, sons ofDon Solomon Dels-Enfanz ofArles. It was written inrhymed prose, and has been edited by Neubauer in theZunz Jubelschrift, 1884.[2]
These poetical productions of Bedersi's youth were followed by a number of works of a more serious character, among which were:
Beḥinat ha-ʿOlam (The Examination of the World), called also by its first words, "Shamayim la-Rom" (Heaven's Height), a didactic poem written after the 1306expulsion of Jews from France, to which event reference is made in the eleventh chapter (compare Renan-Neubauer,Les Ecrivains Juifs Français, p. 37). This poem is divided into 37 short chapters, and may be summarized as follows:
The sage, though the highest type of humanity, is liable to the vicissitudes of fortune. He is not exempt from any of the evils which assail humanity; and the sword of death stabs alike the philosopher and the boor. But, if this view be dispiriting, there is another which is consoling. The soul which lives within him, when man is bereft of this world's goods, will accompany him beyond the grave. Still, to the shame of humanity, man does not care to improve this noblest part of himself. He is entrapped by the perfidious charms of the world; and his years roll away in search of illusions.
And yet the world is nothing but a tempestuous sea; time is naught but a bridge thrown over the abyss connecting the negation that preceded existence with the eternity that is to follow it. The slightest inadvertence can precipitate him who crosses this bridge into the abyss. Are worldly pleasures, then, worth seeking? After their enjoyment follows despair, a vacuum never to be filled. Unfortunate are they who give way to their enticements. Can one be heedless when so many agents of destruction are suspended over his head; when the stars that roll above him and survey his fate bring about, in their rapid courses, unforeseen but inevitable events, that the decree of the Eternal has attached to their movement.But do not, child of man, accuse the Author of nature of the evils that overwhelm thy short and frail existence. The evils thou complainest of are of thine own making. As for the Eternal, His words are all wisdom and goodness. Man aspires in vain to understand them; they are beyond his intelligence. All that may be conceived of Him is that He is inconceivable. Celestial by origin, the human soul, so long as it is attached to the body, groans under a shameful slavery. The occupation worthy of its noble extraction is therefore to direct all its faculties toward the worship of its Creator, the happiness of its fellow-creatures, and the triumph of truth. This result can be attained only in keeping the commandments of God.[2]
Bedersi concludes his poem by expressing his admiration forMaimonides:
Finally, turn neither to the left nor to the right from all that the wise men believed, the chief of whom was the distinguished master Maimonides, of blessed memory, with whom no one can be compared from among the wise men who have lived since the close of the Talmud; then I shall be sure that thou, enriched with all the knowledge of religion and philosophy, wilt fear the Lord thy God.[2]
According toHusik, Bedersi as the author of this poem is the "wise man" quoted byJoseph Albo inSefer HaIkkarim (II:30) on the unknowability of God:
The most that we can understand about God is that we can not understand Him, as thewise man said: The sum total of what we know of Thee is that we do not know Thee.[2]
This poem enjoyed the greatest success. Published first atMantua by Estellina, wife ofAbraham Conat, between 1476 and 1480, it was republished 67 times (compareBibliotheca Friedlandiana, ii. 139), with many commentaries, among which are those written byMoshe ibn Habib,Jacob Frances, andYom-Tov Lipmann Heller. Four commentaries written byIsaac Monçon,Jacob (of Fano?),Leon of Mantua, andImmanuel of Lattes the Younger are still extant in manuscript (MSS. at St. Petersburg and at the Bodleian Library, Oxford, Nos. 502 and 1404). The poem was translated into Latin by Uchtman; intoGerman byIsaac ben Isaiah Auerbach,Hirsch ben Meïr,Joel ben Joseph Faust or Wust, Simson Hamburger, Auerbach (who made use of a translation of parts iv. and v. byMendelssohn), J. Levy, Joseph Hirschfeld, and (in verse) by Stern, preceded by an interesting Hebrew introduction by Weiss; into French by Philippe Aquinas and Michel Beer; into Italian inAntologia Israelitica, 1880,pp. 334 et seq.; into English by Tobias Goodman;[3] into Polish by J. Tugendhold.[2] Moshe Kunitz wrote a commentary on it entitledHaOyen.
According to Luzzatto (Ḥotam Toknit, Appendix, p. 5), Bedersi was also the author of the poemBaḳḳashat ha-Lamedin (The Lamed Prayer), orBet El (House of God), orBatte Nefesh (Tablets), a prayer composed of 412 words in which only the letters from "alef" to "lamed" occur. This composition is commonly attributed to his father,Abraham Bedersi. Another poem, entitledElef Alfin (Thousand Alephs), composed of 1000 words, each of which begins with the letteraleph, also attributed to Abraham Bedersi, seems to have been written by Jedaiah. In this poem the author bewails the sufferings and the exile of the Jews, which can only refer to the banishment of the Jews from France in 1306 (compare Luzzatto, l.c.;Shem haGedolim, ofChaim Yosef David Azulai ii. s.v.;Heinrich Graetz,Gesch. der Juden, vii. 206).[2]
Bedersi also wrote a large number of treatises on philosophy, several of which are quoted byMoses ibn Ḥabib in the introduction to his commentary on theBeḥinat ha-'Olam. Seven of these works are still extant in manuscript:
This article incorporates text from a publication now in thepublic domain: Gottheil, Richard;Broydé, Isaac (1901–1906)."Bedersi, Jedaiah ben Abraham". InSinger, Isidore; et al. (eds.).The Jewish Encyclopedia. New York: Funk & Wagnalls.