Solomon ben Judah ibn Gabirol

Background

Solomon ibn Gabirol was born around 1021 in Málaga, Andalusia, and was orphaned at an early age.

Education

Solomon ibn Gabirol spent his formative years in Saragossa, where he found a generous patron in Yekutiel ibn Hassan. The latter died when Ibn Gabirol was 17, and the youthful poet was forced to resume his wandering. The poetry he wrote during this period reflects his melancholy mood.

Career

In Granada, Ibn Gabirol found a new patron in Samuel he-Nagid, the famous Spanish Jewish statesman, poet, and Talmudist, but when Samuel died, Ibn Gabirol again suffered want and need.

Ibn Gabirol distinguished himself both in his secular and religious poems. The former were written generally in a light vein, but some of them depict loneliness and despair. About half of his 300 verses that have survived are religious in character. His greatest and longest masterpiece of religious poetry is his Keter Malkhut, a partly philosophical meditation on struggling man's insignificance before the sublime mystery of the universe and God.

Ibn Gabirol ranks as the first great Spanish Jewish thinker. His chief work, the Mekor Hayyim, written originally in Arabic, accepts the Neoplatonic ideas of Emanation, expounded primarily by Plotinus. But Ibn Gabirol's view of Emanation differs from that of the Neoplatonists in that his Emanations are the result of the Will of God and not a mere mechanical necessity or flow from the Divine Source. Matter is spiritual and as such streams directly from the Godhead; it becomes corporeal only at a distance from its origin. Perhaps because Ibn Gabirol omitted all biblical allusion in Mekor Hayyim, Jews did not read it; in fact, it was regarded by many as the product either of a Christian scholastic writer or of a Moslem, and "Ibn Gabirol" was frequently corrupted to Avicebron or Avicembril.

Tikkun Middot Ha-nephesh, Ibn Gabirol's ethical treatise, despite its many biblical quotations, represented a system of ethics independent of the Jewish tradition. It was based largely on a psychological and physiological approach and urged man to attain harmony in body and soul by disciplining his senses along the lines of Aristotle's golden mean. Although Ibn Gabirol exercised a relatively minor influence on later Jewish thinkers, his Neoplatonic ideas penetrated the medieval Cabala, or Jewish mystic lore.

Solomon ibn Gabirol died at a young age, some believe before his fortieth birthday (1058), but more probably at the age of 48 (1069). According to a legend he was murdered by a jealous rival, the murder being discovered when the fig tree under which the body was concealed bore extraordinary fruit.

Achievements

• Despite his short life Solomon ibn Gabirol left an immense legacy consisting of hundreds of poems, both secular and sacred, and several important philosophical works. Many of his sacred poems form part of the liturgy of the synagogue.

Works

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  • Vulture in a Cage: Poems by Solomon Ibn Gabirol

    ("Vulture in a cage," Solomon Ibn Gabirol's own self-descr...)

  • The Fountain of Life: (Fons Vitae)

    (Solomon ibn Gabirol is now best known for his work Fons V...)

  • The Kingly Crown

    (Keter Malkhut is perhaps the greatest religious Hebrew po...)

  • The Font of Life (Fons vitae) (Mediaeval Philosophical Texts in Translation)

    (This volume is a sound translation of the Fons vitae of S...)

  • The Improvement Of The Moral Qualities: An Ethical Treatise Of The Eleventh Century By Solomon Ibn Gibirol

    (This scarce antiquarian book is a facsimile reprint of th...)

  • The Fountain of Life (Fons Vitae) Specially Abridged Edition

    (The Fountain of Life (Fons Vitae) by Solomon Ibn Gabirol.)

  • A Crown for the King

    (Solomon ibn Gabirol (ca. 1021--ca. 1058) was the greatest...)

  • The Fountain of Life: Fons Vitae (English, Latin and Arabic Edition)

Views

Quotations: The test of good manners is to be patient with the bad ones.

Kings may be judges of the earth, but wise men are the judges of kings.

The beginning of wisdom is to desire it.

My friend is he who will tell me my faults in private.

Jealousy is cruel as the grave: the coals thereof are coals of fire.

Connections

It is considered that he never married.

References

• Solomon Ibn Gabirol: A Bibliography (English, Hebrew and Multilingual Edition)
• The Liturgical Poetry of Rabbi Solomon Ibn Gabirol
• The Improvement of the Moral Qualities, an Ethical Treatise of the Eleventh Century by Solomon Ibn Gabirol (Gorgias Theological Library)
• Adon Olam (Words: Solomon Ibn Gabirol Music: Gerard Edery)
• "Azharoth" Part of the Liturgical Poetry of Rabbi Solomon Ibn Gabirol (Hebrew)
• Solomon Ibn Gabirol Quotes 3 - Canvas Art Print
• Solomon Ibn Gabirol's Choice of Pearls (Library of Jewish Classics, No. 4)
• Ibn Gabirol (Jewish Thinkers)
• Selected Religious Poems Of Solomon Ibn Gabirol