Shmuel Religion Analysis

Shmuel’s Religious Beliefs Shmuel, like his Christian and Muslim counterparts in medieval Spain, believes in God: a deity that currently has Islam, Christianity, and Judaism as followers with different interpretations in the 11th century. Throughout Shmuel’s poetry, he upholds his Jewish faith through spiritual imagery and religious beliefs. Shmuel’s admiration towards God in his poems establishes the foundation of his Jewish faith. For example, in Shmuel’s “On Fleeing the City” he uses phrases like “By God and God’s faithful—and I keep my oaths,” “and soul will save us,” and “May YAH be with you as you love” in order to demonstrate that when Shmuel left Cordoba he relied on his personal beliefs to guide him through leaving the city as a

For instance, in the “House of Prayer” poem Shmuel writes, “…and he thanked the Lord who had made him a man and not a woman. And I told him: You flaunt your phallic soul, but the Lord will prove you hollow.” he alludes to the story of Adam and Eve while simultaneously displaying that flaunting success makes the Lord not favor those followers (Selected Poems of Shmuel HaNagid, Page 34). This relates to the Jewish idea of “Thou shall not covet,” which can be interpreted in this situation to mean that one should not be constantly praying for more success from the Lord because the Lord will believe that you are nothing but greedy at that point. Furthermore, Shmuel asserts that Jews come from the same family as Moses when he writes, “Likewise with Moses, the prophet of God, who is kin to me, When the peoples are gathered I will call him my father, and he’ll call me my son” (Selected Poems of Shmuel HaNagid, Page 67). This is a common theme between Judaism and Christianity that believes that God is the father of all life on Earth, and by extension humans are his children as well. Keeping this in mind, Shmuel creates these spiritual images of God’s children and coveting to uphold the Jewish teachings he has had throughout his life. Moreover, by doing this Shmuel reminds the audience that Judaism created the first biblical scriptures, and will continue to be taught in the

For example, in Shmuel’s “Earth To Man” poem he writes that “Earth to man is a prison forever. These tidbits then for fools: Run where you will. Heaven surrounds you. Get out if you can.” which expresses a discontent with the concept of an eternally good place that has no flaws (Selected Poems of Shmuel HaNagid, Page 121). Consequently, Shmuel begins to question God’s benevolence in “Send the Lord to the People” where he writes “Send the Lord to the people, who dwell in darkness; they who’ve been brought to the shadow of death by dismiss; and set Him by the window to watch—to stand there and spy through the lattice” (Selected Poems of Shmuel HaNagid, Page 152). This suggests that God watches over people in darkness, doing nothing to help them get out of it, which to Shmuel means that God doesn’t treat everything equally. Overall though, this continues to demonstrate Jewish beliefs in a vengeful God that despises sinners like “they who’ve been brought to the shadow of death by dismiss,” so in a way Shmuel is able to justify the treatment of people in darkness because they could be