Letter: T-S 13J24.8

In Your Name.

My longing for my master—may God grant you long days of happiness, make your high rank and greatness endure, protect you and keep you!—has intensified. News of you was delayed longer than expected. May God bring me together with you as is desired, for He is the One Who is capable of doing so, if He be willing.

I had already written two letters about the tax but could not reach the travelers in time with this third, for they left at dawn, so I am sending these few lines after them to inform your honor and his honor, my master Abū l-Rabī‘—may God bring us all together, if He be willing!—what I had explained in the previous two letters. I also want to let you know that your servant my father has not purchased any provisions, whether of east or of west. He greets you and awaits word from you regarding the journey. We long for you to be so good as to write us about your intentions. If you wish, he will come up to you, and if you wish, he will wait for you here.

As for me, your servant Abū l-‘Alā, I swear and God knows that if I were not tied up with Gentiles (in fact, with some of the most prominent of this city) and if there were someone here who could take my place, I would substitute myself for this letter. Perhaps that will be during the week of Passover, for I do not care about the kind of worldly things that others do.

As for the news here: the judge took all the poems and made them into a dīwān, with headings such as, “This is the poem that 

Verso

Master Judah recited about a pool and a fountain” and “This is what he said in reply”; “This is what Master Judah (may his Rock protect him) recited about chickens” and “This is his reply”; and what he said about this, that, and the other person, and “What he said in a dream.” People who saw them [the poems] and hadn’t seen that sort of thing were saying, “How can a man who has declared himself a pilgrim be speaking such nonsense?”—especially when he saw what he saw. I was told these things by several witnesses. One incident was only reported by a single person of the judge’s circle, according to whom he [Ibn al-‘Ammānī] said, “One of the top men of the community offered Halevi bread in his house, and he refused to eat it; but he has been with us and does not stop writing panegyrics about us.” This caused a great uproar among people who were angered that this had happened to him. I swear, I gave everyone the answer that he deserved, though I am really displeased with the one in the circle of the judge who was the cause of all this because he caused people embarrassment.

In addition, [he was criticized for] the phrase “thorn-bush cuttings” in his poem with the first line “Unhappy Are My Thoughts This Hanukkah.” . . . The only thing that led me to mention this, by God, is pure friendship for you, not anger at anyone else, and my caring for your dignity (may it ever be great!). Do not task me with thoughtlessness or frivolity. This is not my nature. I have only one face and I do not conceal a thing, either in religious or worldly affairs.

Special greetings to you for your best welfare. Also the best of greetings to my master the Ṣāhib al-Shurṭa, my master Abū l-Rabi‘, and my master Isaac.

Put your healing on my heart’s wound, for your love lives deep inside me. When I’m sad because you’re absent, looking at your writing heals me.

[In Arabic characters:] Read and burn immediately. Peace.