Works
Gershom's literary activity was not less fruitful. He is celebrated for his works in the field of Biblical exegesis, the Masorah, and lexicography. He revised the text of the Mishnah and Talmud, and wrote commentaries on several treatises of the latter which were very popular and gave an impulse to the production of other works of the kind. His selichot were inspired by the bloody persecutions of his time. Gershom also left a large number of rabbinical responsa, which are scattered throughout various collections.
He is the author of Seliha 42 - Zechor Berit Avraham ("Remember the Covenant of Abraham"), a liturgical poem recited by Ashkenazic Jews during the season of Rosh HaShana and Yom Kippur.
The Holy City and its regions
are turned to shame and to spoils
and all its desirable things are buried and hidden
and nothing is left except this Torah.
Read more about this topic: Gershom Ben Judah
Famous quotes containing the word works:
“His character as one of the fathers of the English language would alone make his works important, even those which have little poetical merit. He was as simple as Wordsworth in preferring his homely but vigorous Saxon tongue, when it was neglected by the court, and had not yet attained to the dignity of a literature, and rendered a similar service to his country to that which Dante rendered to Italy.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“...A shadow now occasionally crossed my simple, sanguine, and life enjoying mind, a notion that I was never really going to accomplish those powerful literary works which would blow a noble trumpet to social generosity and noblesse oblige before the world. What? should I find myself always planning and never achieving ... a richly complicated and yet firmly unified novel?”
—Sarah N. Cleghorn (1876–1959)
“For thou hast made him a little lower than the angels, and hast
crowned him with glory and honor.
Thou madest him to have dominion over the works of thy hands;”
—Bible: Hebrew Psalm VIII (l. VIII, 5–6)