David Franco Mendes. “Lecha yehemu E-l levavi u-mei’ai” [Epithalamium or Wedding Riddle]

(DUTCH JUDAICA)

(Holland)

18th Century

Hebrew manuscript on “key-hole” shaped single paper leaf. Finely penned illustration relating to Hebrew riddle in square characters provided with nikud (vowel points). Poem in four columns

See Iris Fishof, From the Secular to the Sacred (1985), no, 47 (pp.74-75) for a slightly different version of the same riddle, this one, colored

These riddles were a source of amusement and entertainment to the invited wedding-guests. The three legs pictured here symbolize the Three Festivals of Passover, Pentecost and Tabernacles, referred to in Hebrew as “regalim,” which has the double entendre of “legs.” Above each leg is a finely-dressed woman symbolizing each respective Festival. From right to left, The first woman carries a banner depicting a lamb - representing the Paschal Lamb, and thus Passover. The next woman carries sheaves of barley and first fruits:- Pentecost (Shevu’oth) terminates fifty days of counting the Omer, a measure of barley, at which time the first fruits would be offered in the Temple in Jerusalem. And finally, the leftmost damsel displays in her hair a twig of a willow tree (one of the Four Species waved on the Festival of Tabernacles), while carrying a basket of produce, and so symbolizing the Harvest Festival (Sukoth). See Vivian B. Mann, Gardens and Ghettos (1989), pp. 281-2, nos. 161a, 161b; Dan Pagis, “Baroque Trends in Italian Hebrew Poetry as Reflected in an Unknown Genre,” Italian Judaica 6 (1986), pp. 263-278; idem, “On the History of the Hebrew Riddle in Italy and Holland,” Tarbiz, 1985; M.H. Gans, Memorbook (1977), p.155