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IN HIS ARTICLE "DRINK YOUR WINE WITH A MERRY HEART,"1 Dan Pagis argues that in several poems Shmuel Hanagid (993 - 1056) advocates a daring theistic version of hedonism that far outstrips the Greek original. Hanagid, according to Pagis, completely reverses the common view on God's design for human behavior: the Lord not only allows sensual pleasure; He actually commands and ordains it. He rewards those who enjoy themselves and punishes those who do not. That revolutionary conception of human life and duty, Pagis claims, is based on a radical interpretation of Eccles. 9:7: "Go, eat your bread with joy and drink your wine with a merry heart, for God has already accepted your deeds." According to that reading of this verse, God has already approved of our pleasure-seeking behavior. The righteous, then, are wise people who understand God's commandment to enjoy life to the hilt; the sinners are those who lead a life of self-denial, deprivation, and suffering. The reward that God metes out to the righteous is that very pleasure they indulge in; the sinners, those silly people who misunderstood God, are punished by their own abstemious lives.
Pagis attributes that radical view to Shmuel Hanagid on the force of several poems, the first of which is "Aleikhem lefo'alkhem." Here it is, in T. Carmi's prose translation:2
THE REWARD
You owe it to your Maker to pursue a righteous course, and He must give you your just deserts. But do not pass all your days in His service: set aside a time for God and times for yourselves. Give half the day to Him, half to your own needs - and then give wine no respite all night long! Put out the candle light-let your goblets shine instead. Scorn the voice of singers-let your jugs sing for you. Since you will not find wine, song, or company in the grave-let this, O fools, be your reward for all your labours!
This is a baffling poem. Can a believer (and there is no doubt that Shmuel Hanagid was a believer) be so irreverent? Scholar Ezra Fleischer saw no other way but to dismiss this poem as "a joke."3 But dismissing problematic texts is not methodologically advisable; furthermore, our poem does not stand alone; it...