RE: Cuando el Rey Nimrod

[Leonard Koenick <lkoenick...>]

Fascinating and the parallels to “Moses and the bulrushes” are obvious even
to me.

Leonard Koenick

-----Original Message-----
From: owner-jewish-music (at) shamash(dot)org
[mailto:owner-jewish-music (at) shamash(dot)org]On Behalf Of MaxwellSt (at) 
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Sent: Tuesday, September 03, 2002 5:53 PM
To: World music from a Jewish slant
Subject: Cuando el Rey Nimrod

I just found some interesting background material on this oft-recorded
Ladino song which I thought I'd share with them that care (sources below).
Lori

"A popular medieval legend, which has been retold in a ballad sung at Jewish
birth celebrations <http://www.jhom.com/topics/choir/cuando.htm>  in the
Balkans and which recounts the birth of Abraham, reflects the age-old
importance attributed to celestial activity at the time of birth, as well as
the medieval custom whereby kings employed astrologers to help them make
strategic decisions.

According to the legend, one evening King Nimrod summoned all his courtiers,
councilors, and astrologers to make merry with him. Late at night, as they
returned to their homes, they gazed up at the sky, and an enormous comet
coursed across the horizon from the east and swallowed four stars, each in a
different quarter of the heavens. The astrologers stood aghast and whispered
to one another: "Terah's son has just been born. He will be a mighty
Emperor. His descendants will multiply and inherit the earth for all
eternity, dethroning kings and possessing their lands:"

Nimrod ordered the baby to be put to death and relaxed only when he was told
that this had been done. The murdered infant was not in fact Terah's child,
however; his baby, who grew up to be Abraham, was well hidden in a cave,
where he was fed by the angel Gabriel."

The blue highlight takes you to this further explanation:
"One of the best ways to understand a people is through their folksongs,
which reflect both their mundane reality and their overriding world-view.
The notice of Abraham's birth in the book of Genesis is very brief: "When
Terah had lived seventy years, he begot Abram, Nahor, and Haran" (Genesis
11:26).

The Israelite folk imagination, however, could not leave the moment
unelaborated, and a many midrashim, legends and traditions grew up around
this pivotal event in the history of the Jewish people.

Many of these midrashim tell of the evil King Nimrod, a famed hunter and
astrologer, who not only foretold the birth of Abraham but learned that
Abraham would overthrow his idolatrous regime with a new faith in one God.
In order to prevent this outcome (especially threatening since the king
thought himself a god), Nimord sets out to destroy all newborn baby boys.
Abraham is miraculously saved and goes on outsmart the King and survive a
fiery furnace.

Cuando el Rey Nimrod is a Ladino <http://www.jhom.com/topics/choir/#1> song
that celebrates the birth of Abraham. It incorporates many elements taken
from the Nimrod midrashim. This song is sung as a Shabbat z'mira (table
song) and at circumcisions. The exact date of its origin is unknown but it
probably dates from the 16th or 17th century."
<http://www.jhom.com/lifecycle/birth/#g>
Graves, R. and R. Patai, Hebrew Myths (New York: Doubleday, 1964), pp.
134ff. The story is from story is from an early ninth-century midrash,
Pirkei de Rabbi Eliezer, chapter 26. The Ladino ballad is thought to come
from a twelfth century rendering of the legend: Attiad, M. "Romancot
ve-shirei am be-yahadut sepharadit" (Jerusalem: Ben Zvi Institute, 1961), p.
236-38. Weich-Shahak, S., "Shirim sepharadiim yehudiim le-brit milah," Dohan
12 (1989): pp. 168-70. More recently, it has become popular in a modern
Hebrew version, too, written and sung by Israeli Naomi Shemer.

source: http://www.jhom.com/lifecycle/birth/mazal_tov.htm