THE BURNING
OF THE
LAW
To Meïr ben Baruch ben Meïr, born in Worms in 1220, was given the title "Light and Great Light," reserved for the greatest Rabbis. In 1286 he was imprisoned as a hostage for the Jewish emigrants, and in 1293 he died in prison, though a ransom had been offered for his release. He had refused it, fearing to create a precedent for the extortion of money from the Jews by their imprisonment and ransom, The following Kinnah, in which he mourns the burning of the Law at Paris, is read on the Ninth of Ab, and has the form of the "Zion" poems for that day, of which Jehudah Halevi's Ode to Zion (p. 37) is the chief.
Stanza 2, line 1, "panting for thy land's sweet dust,"Amos ii, 7.
Stanza 7, line 4, Proverbs xxiv, 31.
Stanza 9, line 4, Psalm cxxxvii, 8.
Stanza 18, line 4, Isaiah xl, 2.
Stanza 25, line 1, "Taking His holy treasure," Proverbs vii, 20; line 2, Proverbs vii, 19.
Stanza 26, line 3, Isaiah xxx, 17.
Stanza 30, line 4, Jeremiah ii, 2.
