שמים בקשו רחמים עלי': מקונוונציה מדרשית לעיצוב ספרותי מודרני: מקונוונציה מדרשית לעיצוב ספרותי מודרני

The paper examines Bialik's poem Al ha-Sheḥitah ('On the Slaughter') in an inter-literary context alongside the historical context of the Kishinev pogrom, which has been discussed by literary critics. This paper maintains that the deep structure of Bialik's poem refers to the legend of Ben-Dordia in the Babylonian Talmud (Avodah Zarah 17b). It interprets the obvious allusion in the poem to the Talmudic expression: Shamayim va-aretz bakshu alai raḥamim (Heaven and earth plead for me) as an interpretive key to the entire poem rather than as a collocation and a purely rhetorical ornament, as is customary in criticism. This emerges from the linguistic and stylistic codes that are dispersed throughout the poem, At the same time, Al ha-Sheḥitah relates to some works from modern Hebrew literature, which also maintain a dialogue with the talmudic legend, directly or indirectly: Bakshu Aleinu Raḥamim" ('Plead for Us') by Yitzhak Rabinovich, the Ḥibbat Ẓion poet, which was published in the anthology Zemirot Yisrael; the poem Hakarat ha-Yeshut ('Knowledge of Essence') by Uri Zvi Greenberg; the story Al ha-Sheḥitah by Agnon in Elu ve-Elu and Po'emat ha-Teshuvah ('Poem of Repentance') by Yosef Ẓvi Rimon that was published in the collection Ketarim. The importance of Bialik's Al ha-Sheḥitah in the chrono-historical development of the theme is bound up with its complex links to these phenomena that preceded it and followed it. The recurrent appearances of the aggadah of Ben-Dordia in contemporary Hebrew literature appear to be connected with the intertwining of the threads of the plot with extra-literary cultural phenomena of the period: moral, psychological, national and artistic needs are reflected in the description of the search for a definition of self-identity.