LEKHA ELI

TO YOU MY GOD IS MY DESIRE To you my God is my desire in you is my pleasure and my love to you is my heart and my kidneys to you is my spirit and my soul Bring me back and I shall return and thou shalt want my repentance To you I shall shout out, to you I shall stick until my return to my land to you I am as long as I live (except) until after my death Bring me back... To you is my hand and foot and from you is my characteristic (all of) myself, my blood is for you and my skin and my nation Bring me back...Abraham Ibn Ezra was born in Tudela, Spain, in 1089 (some sources also give 1092); left Spain probably for good in 1146; and died in 1167 (1164 according to some sources), perhaps in London. After he left Spain, he lived in a number of cities, including Rome, Pisa, Narbonne, and London, writing many books and spreading his knowledge of Spanish-Jewish-Arabic culture. Tudela was also the birthplace of another famous poet, Yehuda Halevi, and another famous traveler, Benjamin of Tudela. Ibn Ezra was a polymath who according to Leon Weinberger wrote "over one hundred books on medicine, astronomy, mathematics, philosophy, poetry, Bible, Talmud, and linguistics" and "was the model itinerant sage." He also "was one of the best known and admired Jewish figures in the West. His Pisan Tables in astronomy were the authoritative guides for Roger Bacon..., Nicolas of Cusa..., and Pico della Pirandola..., and he was remembered for his pioneering efforts in introducing the mathematics of the Arabs to the Europeans" (9). According to David Goldstein, "he endeavored to bring the culture of the Spanish Jews to those living in Italy, France and England, and it is primarily due to him that schools of poetry began to flourish in Italy and Provence..." (153).