Talk:Kuando el rey Nimrod

Inconsistency
"...this song comes from North Africa..." is not consistent with "...composed and sang it in Medieval Spain before they were expelled in 1492" — Preceding unsigned comment added by 187.207.7.36 (talk) 12:46, 27 November 2014 (UTC)

Interpretations Danilius (talk) 10:14, 15 February 2015 (UTC)
There is some Christian spin on this song and some basic ignorance of Judaism and Medrash.

The phrase "He saw a holy light above the Jewish quarter" does not refer to a star, but simply to a holy light. This is in line with the birth of Moses, of whom the Talmud (Sotah 12a, 11 lines from the bottom) writes that the house was filled with light upon his birth. No star there either. So this interpretation that this has something to do with the star of Bethlehem really is just spin and has no source. This part is actually referred to in the Sefer Ben Sirah (see rest of comment below).

"the song is about a Jewish community persecuted by a cruel king and witnessing the birth of a miraculous saviour". Just read the song. It has nothing to do with a saviour, but praise for the father of the child, the boy himself, the Sandak and mohel for bringing Eliyahu Hanavi (Elijah the Prophet) to the ceremony (source from the Zohar, see articel here: http://www.daat.ac.il/encyclopedia/value.asp?id1=723). The story of Abraham merely explains the origin of the circumcision.

Now this bit: "from the careers of Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego, who emerged unscathed from the fiery furnace" is a Medrash in Bereishis Rabbah 38 regarding Abraham being saved form a fiery furnace amongst other sources, which is common knowledge today as it was then, amongst even children who study Torah, and therefore the writer would have referred to this, as opposed to Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego.

"It is also suggested that the song borrows from the Christian nativity story" I have no idea who suggested it since there is no source for it, but if the basis for this is the source text, the source suggest nothing of the kind. There is no "manger" in the text since the word "mearah" does not occur in Spanish, and in Hebrew means a "cave".

"Then he was telling all the midwives That every pregnant woman Who did not give birth at once was going to be killed because Abraham our father was going to born."

This refers to the account written in Sefer Ben Sirah (see here: https://www.ccarnet.org/media/filer_public/2012/06/14/maayanot_-_primary_sources_-_spring_2012.pdf) which was very popular in Sephardic circles of the period, and therfore does not refer to the story of Moses at all.