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Hymn for the Third Meal

By Yitzhak Luria Yitzhak Luria

Translated By Peter Cole Read the translator's notes

Prepare the feast

       of perfect faith,

the delight of the Holy King.

       Prepare the feast of the King.

This is the feast

       of the Lesser Presence;

the Ancient Eminence and Field of Apples

       assemble with Him for the feast.

•

Sons of the Palace—

you who yearn

to behold the radiance

of the Lesser Presence—

be seated here

at this Sabbath table,

adorned and crowned

with the name of the King.

Exult in your being

part of this gathering

among the guardian

angels’ wings,

and rejoice now

within this hour

of favor which knows

not what anger brings.

Draw near me here—

see my power,

without the judgments

of judgment’s terror.

Those without

may not enter,

for they are dogs

of rancor and gall.

I hereby call

to the Ancient of Days

to summon His will

to drive them away—

for when His favor

in this room is shown,

the husks are rendered

null and void.

He drives them into

holes in the ground,

conceals them deep

in caverns of stone.

And so it is

now and till twilight—

within the Impatient

One’s delight.

Source: Poetry (March 2012).

Biography

Yitzhak Luria (1534–1572) was raised in Egypt and, late in life, came to the Galilee town of Safed. While he left behind almost no writing apart from a handful of poems, he is responsible for the articulation of a highly complex and potent revision of Kabbalah’s principal mythic vision.

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