Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Yitzhak Sapir" <yitzhaksapir AT gmail.com>]

On 11/13/06, Yigal Levin wrote:
> "Xemdat Yamim" does not appear in the Tanakh. You got the expression from
> the Shabbat hymn "Hashomer Shabbat...". I have no idea who wrote that or
> when.

The poem "Baruch El-Elyon" is written by Rabbi Baruch bar Shmuel of Mainz,
apparently an important Ashkenazi authority of Mainz in the early Medieval
period (his year of death is listed as 1221) and one of the
authorities that made
up the Tosafot of the Talmud.  His name "Baruch" is written in the
first letters of
the poem.

Presumably, the phrase in consideration means, "God, the Rock, called it the
most precious of days."  It is somewhat surprising to me because the song
*does* say "God called it", but in the end, it's intended to be poetic.

A translation into English and Russian and Modern Hebrew transliteration is 
at:

http://www.kabbalah.info/ruskab/Sukkot2003/shabat2.htm

A scholarly reference:
Emanuel, Simcha.  'Rabbi Baruch of Mainz - Portrait of a Scholar as Reflected
in the Fragments of his Writings', Ephraim E. Urbach Memorial Volume, Israel
Academy of the Sciences, 2001, p. 125-163.

Yitzhak Sapir