Bechinath Olam [Contemplation of the World]. With commentary

A CLASSIC OF MEDIEVAL JEWISH THOUGHT. AN ATTRACTIVE COPY, COMPLETE R. Yedaiah Bedersi (c.1270-1340), a native of Beziers, Provence, is perhaps most famous for the part he took in the Maimonidean Controversy. In a lengthy epistle to R. Solomon ben Adret of Barcelona, published in the latter’s She’eloth U’Teshuvoth Rashb”a, Bedersi defended the Provencal scholars with their bent for rationalist philosophy. Bedersi’s Bechinath Olam is a profound poetic composition on the futility and vanity of the world and the inestimably greater benefits of intellectual and religious pursuits. The author finds consolation in Maimonides’ world of ideas, concluding that the greatest achievement for man is to “perfect one’s understanding and immerse oneself in the grandeur of the idea of God. No power in the world can can break man’s will when he strives toward this exalted goal.” For a critical analysis of Yedaiah Ha’Penini’s poetic style, see I. Zinberg, A History of Jewish Literature, Vol. III (1973), pp. 96-8. Prof. Marc Saperstein has published excerpts from the as yet unpublished manuscript of Yedaiah's commentary on the Midrashim. See M. Saperstein, Yedaiah Bedersi’s Commentary on the Midrashim in: Proceedings of the World Congress of Jewish Studies 8:3 (1982), pp. 59-65; idem, Selected Passages from Yedaiah Bedersi’s Commentary on the Midrashim in: Studies in Medieval Jewish History and Literature, Vol. II (1984) pp. 424-40