רבי אברהם אבן עזרא

In the fiftieth year of his life, Abraham ibn Ezra rose from Tudela in Spain and set out on a road that would never end. The Almohads were overrunning Muslim Spain, the paradise of the Jewish Golden Age was about to be destroyed, and the sage who knew everything, grammar, poetry, mathematics, astronomy and biblical commentary, shouldered the whole treasure of Spain and wandered: Italy, Rome, Lucca, Mantua, Provence, France, as far as London in England. In every city where he paused, he left a book behind.

This is his greatness: Ibn Ezra was the living bridge between two Jewish worlds. The learning of Spain, the scientific grammar of Chayyuj and ibn Janach, philosophy and natural science, had been written in Arabic and stayed sealed off from the Jews of Ashkenaz and France. Ibn Ezra translated it into Hebrew and carried it himself, from town to town, to communities that had never encountered it. In Rouen he sat with Rabbeinu Tam, Rashi grandson: two worlds meeting because of one wanderer.

In his Torah commentary, terse and sharp, printed beside Rashi in most editions, he sought the plain meaning alone, even when it was uncomfortable. He hinted through fine allusions (the secret of the twelve) at questions no one dared ask, teaching his readers to read the text with open eyes without surrendering their awe of Heaven. Maimonides, who revered him, instructed his own son to study Bible commentary from Ibn Ezra alone.

And alongside all this, poverty. Ibn Ezra was destitute all his days and joked about his bad luck with brilliant bitterness: were I to deal in candles, the sun would not set until the day I died. His son Isaac converted under duress, and it broke his heart. Here is what he teaches: a man can lose his land, his livelihood, even his son, and still carry an entire civilization on his back and hand it down to the generations. Exile took everything from him except Torah and wisdom, and these he scattered in every place his foot touched.