Solomon ibn Gabirol: Thou Livest

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Thou Livest

Solomon ibn Gabirol, Solomon ibn Gabirol poetry, Jewish, Jewish poetry, poetry, [TRADITION SUB2] poetry, poetry

by Solomon ibn Gabirol
(1021? - 1058) Timeline

English version by
Bernard Lewis

Original Language
Hebrew

Thou livest, but not from determined time or known epoch.
Thou livest, but not with soul or breath, for Thou art soul of the soul.
Thou livest, but not as the life of man that is like vanity, its end in moths and worms.
Thou livest, and whoever attains Thy secret will find eternal delight -- "and eat, and live for ever."

-- from The Heart and the Fountain: An Anthology of Jewish Mystical Experiences, by Joseph Dan

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Themes

Bliss

Recommended Books

	The Dream of the Poem: Hebrew Poetry from Muslim and Christian Spain, 950-1492, Edited by Peter Cole
	The Heart and the Fountain: An Anthology of Jewish Mystical Experiences, by Joseph Dan
	Music of a Distant Drum: Classical Arabic, Persian, Turkish & Hebrew Poems, Translated by Bernard Lewis
	The Penguin Book of Hebrew Verse, Edited by T. Carmi
	Poetry for the Spirit: Poems of Universal Wisdom and Beauty, Edited by Alan Jacobs

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This is a poem of praise to God, a recognition that the Eternal genuinely lives. But God does not live in an "experience" of life, that is, not a life that is bound by history, not a life with a beginning and an end. It is not the experience of a creature, a being of limitations. The life God "lives" is Life itself, the source from which the experience of life emerges.

And this foundation of Life can be directly perceived. When you touch this "secret," you find sacred bliss, "eternal delight" that lets you know you are a part of life beyond birth and death. You come to know that you are, in truth, deathless. There is often an accompanying experience of swallowing a sacred substance, and when you "eat" this, you know that the eternal one, in which we have our own being, does indeed "live for ever."

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