Poéme d’Ephraim Al-Naqua en l’honneur de Moshé ben Maimon

**Poem by Ephraïm Al-Naqua in honor of Moshé ben Maïmon** A Hebrew poetic composition in 51 verses, this learned piyyut edited by Alexander Marx in 1935 (poem no. 19 of his series *Texts by and about Maimonides*) constitutes one of the most eloquent versified apologies for the *Moreh Nevukhim* (Guide for the Perplexed) to emerge from the Sephardic milieu in the aftermath of the Maimonidean controversies. The French translation, by David Encaoua with the assistance of André Benzenou, restores both its argumentative rigor and its allusive density. **Structure and argumentative progression.** The poem unfolds according to an architecture of five movements. Verses 1 to 14 praise the method of the Guide: a progressive approach, a "well-set" table of chapters (v. 3), arguments "without falsification or concealed deception" (v. 4), elucidation of the Targum, the Sefirot, and the names of the cherubim (vv. 6–13). Verses 15 to 18, polemical, target the "great rabbi son of Naḥman" — Naḥmanides (Ramban) — accused of opposing to the Guide "deep but unconvincing words" and "lights that darken rather than illuminate." Verses 19 to 33 draw up the catalog of questions resolved by Maïmonides: prophecy and angelic apparitions (vv. 21–22), the meaning of sacrifices (v. 23), rational proofs of God's existence grounded in Aristotle (vv. 25–27), theodicy and the secret of Job (vv. 28–30), the prayer of the righteous as well as of the sinner (vv. 31–33). Verses 34 to 42 address the *secrets of creation* (*ma'aseh bereshit*) and the *chariot of Ezekiel* (*ma'aseh merkavah*), then the history of origins — Adam, Eve, the serpent, Cain, Abel, Seth — as the matrix for the transmission of languages and wisdoms. Verses 43 to 51 return to polemics: disqualification of detractors "using obscure words," blessing upon Maïmonides destined for the Garden of Eden, and the final crowning of the *Guide* "for its work of demystification." **Doctrinal stakes.** The poem takes a side, without ambiguity, in favor of the legitimacy of philosophical theology against an exclusively Kabbalistic reading of Judaism. Three theses are defended therein: (1) *Aristotelian reason* is a valid instrument for the *Torah*, insofar as it subordinates itself to revelation (vv. 25–27); (2) the esoteric narratives of the Bible — *bereshit*, *merkavah*, sacrifices, prophecy — are susceptible to a rational exegesis that does not abolish their sacredness but illuminates it (vv. 23, 34–36); (3) doctrinal obscurity is not a virtue: opposing to the Guide "vain words" amounts to betraying the intellect (vv. 16–17, 43). In this the poem is inscribed within the long posterity of the Maimonidean controversies (1232, 1305) and testifies to their continuation in the Sephardic diaspora of the 14th–15th centuries, where the defense of the *Moreh* had become an identity marker against the anti-rationalist currents of Provence and Catalonia. **Author and context.** Ephraïm Al-Naqua (Anqawa, Encaoua), born in Castile around 1359 and died in Tlemcen in 1442, is the founder of the Jewish community of Tlemcen after the persecutions of 1391 in Spain. A physician, Talmudist, and Kabbalist himself — author of the *Sha'ar Kevod Hashem* —, he embodies this late Sephardic paradox of a scholar who masters the esoteric disciplines while defending the legitimacy of Maimonidean rationalism. The tomb of the *Rab*, in Tlemcen, remained until the 20th century a major pilgrimage site of North African Judaism. **Source and establishment of the text.** The poem was edited by Alexander Marx in *The Jewish Quarterly Review*, New Series, vol. 25, no. 4 (April 1935), within a dossier of Hebrew pieces relating to Maimonides. The present French translation, the first to our knowledge, was established by David Encaoua with the prior assistance of André Benzenou.

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