HASHKIVENU - SONG OF THE ANGELS A Short Choral Cycle (Note by the composer) In 1979 I left Israel to continue my studies at the Conservatoire de Musique in...
HASHKIVENU - SONG OF
THE ANGELS
A Short
Choral Cycle
(Note by
the composer)
In 1979 I
left Israel to continue my
studies at the Conservatoire de Musique in Geneva. At a Sabbath evening service at a
local synagogue there, I heard a tune I had never heard before, which was sung
for the liturgical text hashkivenu - a
prayer recited at every evening service, although this particular melody was reserved
in that synagogue for the Sabbath. I was immediately inspired by its beauty and
its mixture of dignity and melancholy. Although the synagogue was a traditional
Ashkenazi one, I recognized from the tune's character that it could not be of
Ashkenazi origin. Indeed, it turned out to be a traditional Sephardi version,
known in Near Eastern Sephardi as well as Moroccan synagogues. But the Geneva rendition is a
distorted variant of the tune, probably because those worshipers were removed
from the mainstream of Sephardi liturgical practice. In any case, I memorized
the tune as I heard it there and I resolved to use it in one of my next works.
About a
year later I wrote Hashkivenu Variations
for string quartet, employing this melody as the principal theme, but in the
ensuing years I still felt that I had not explored sufficiently the full
potential hidden in the inspiring tune. So in 1993 I returned to it for a
series of short choral movements within my opera Fool's Paradise. In this comic opera, there is a role for some
singers who pretend to be angels and who sing hashkivenu in celestial harmony. That new piece - for four-part
mixed choir, percussion, and organ - offered a fresh perception by combining
the essence of the hashkivenu prayer
text with other Sabbath-related mystical images: (1) the Sabbath Queen - the sh'khina, traditionally understood as
the feminine manifestation of the Divine Presence, who is welcomed into the
midst of the congregants as the Sabbath approaches; (2) the kabbalistic image
of the "Sabbath bride," who enters during the preliminary kabbalat shabbat (welcoming the Sabbath) service, which precedes
the section of the evening service proper (arvit)
during which hashkivenu is recited or
sung; and (3) allegorical images of the angels who are perceived poetically as
ushering in the peace of the Sabbath and even accompanying worshipers home for
the evening meal following the service to ensure the blessing and presence of
Sabbath peace. (According to a legend in an allegorical passage of the Talmud
[Shabbat 119B], two angels, one good and one evil, escort each Jew or family
home. When, upon seeing the home specially prepared for the Sabbath, the good
angel expresses the wish that it may be the same on the following Sabbath, even
the evil one is compelled to give his assent. Hence the words in the well-known
Sabbath hymn shalom aleikhem, sung prior
to commencing the meal: "May your departure also be with peace, angels of peace!"
- viz., peace for the following Sabbath as well.)
In this
newer choral version, I complemented the elements and fragments of the
traditional tune as I heard it in Geneva
with new, original material for the words in the hashkivenu text - v'taknenu b'etza
tova milfanekha (Direct us in the
right path through Your good counsel). The cycle ends
with the angels' departure, recalling the dual image in the shalom aleikhem text, "Come with peace
[also in the final strophe of I'kha dodi
in the kabbalat shabbat
service) and go with peace." The ending is a musical echo of the angels'
entrance, but this time the wordless canon is accompanied by dark, distant
cluster sounds in the organ.
-O. B.
CELESTIAL DIALOGUES
The
composer views this work as a "stylistic confrontation" between a klezmer
clarinet solo - deriving from the haunting virtuoso sounds typical of
traditional eastern European Jewish bands - and cantorial vocal passages that
emanate from age-old Ashkenazi liturgical ritual. The piece also constitutes what
he calls "a dichotomy between song and dance, which at
the conclusion become one and the same expression: a prayer." The strings - which
function simultaneously as collective participant, audience, and echo - for the
most part represent a worshiping congregation experiencing what a congregation engaged
in true prayer would: a process of spiritual purification.
I. AM KADOSH (Holy
Folk)
This is an
introductory cadenza in which the two soloists make their initial entrances and
musical statements. The movement's title, Am
kadosh (Holy Folk), refers to a traditional call to Jews to arise for
morning prayers - "to serve the Creator." It echoes an old common practice
among Jews, especially in small towns and villages, or in certain religious
neighborhoods in Israel (and previously in Palestine), particularly during the period
of the yamim nora'im (Days of Awe) -
during the days immediately preceding Rosh Hashana and the "ten days of
repentance" between Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur - when the s'lihot liturgy (penitential prayers) is recited at the daily
morning services (shaharit). The local shammash
(beadle) would go from house to house at dawn, knocking on each door to awaken
the inhabitants and calling on them to hasten to the synagogue to join the
congregation for morning prayers. Thus did observant Jews begin each day in
those traditional surroundings, as they still do.
II. UV'YOM HASHABBAT (The Sabbath Day)
The focus
here is on the cantor's song. Its nusah hat'filla (the prescribed traditional
musical formulas and modes for specific prayers, sections of services, and
specific days or holydays in Ashkenazi ritual) here is centered around a single principal focal pitch (the reciting tone of
the chant), which is given a continuous rumbling sound in the cellos and
basses.
III. A GASN NIGN (A Street Song)
In this
movement the clarinet takes the lead in a purely instrumental tune reminiscent
of Jewish bands in eastern European towns and villages - klezmorim - who typically played these type of melodies in the street,
particularly when welcoming the guests as they arrived to participate in a
wedding ceremony.
IV. ADONOI MELEKH (God, the King)
This is an
emphatic proclamation of God's sovereignty, expressed by solid support from the
entire ensemble. The marked, even exaggerated individuality of the solo parts,
and the contrast between them, symbolize the individuality and uniqueness of
each worshiper as a participant in the communal prayer. These three phrases
affirming God's eternal sovereignty - past, present, and future - derive from
the Bible and occur in this combination throughout the Hebrew liturgy.
V. CELESTIAL FREYLEKH
The
instrumental peak of -the entire work is this traditional eastern European
Jewish wedding dance of joy, the freylekh.
The movement begins with a solo recitative for the clarinet and continues with
the orchestra as it becomes a perpetual-motion wedding dance, symbolizing a
marriage between heaven and earth - between man and God, and between humanity and
its Divine source.
VI. DINEN (Serve!)
The
composer describes this concluding movement as "a quietly ecstatic setting"
based on a Hassidic melody attached to a piyyut
(liturgical poem) recited in the Yom Kippur liturgy and, in some traditions, every
Sabbath. This prayer traverses the entire Hebrew alphabet in the acrostic of
its strophes, punctuated after each one by the refrain "To You whose life is eternal."
Ben-Amots has employed this melody as an illustration of the way in which the
major mode is often reserved in Hebrew liturgy "for the most serene and solemn
moments."
-Neil W.
Levin
SHTETL SONGS
To Ofer
Ben-Amots, and to many of his generation, it often seemed as if Yiddish were
spoken only by elderly immigrants from eastern Europe
who were, for the most part, Holocaust survivors. "Growing up in Israel just a
few years after the state was born," remarked the composer, "Yiddish was known
to me - especially as the son of a Bulgarian Sephardi mother and a father from
Libyan Jewry-erroneously as a 'vanished tongue' of a bygone era and a distant
place."
Indeed,
many among the younger generations of Israelis then, like their predecessor halutzim
(pioneers) before them in Palestine, had attached to the Yiddish language the
opprobrium of association with the "old order" and the Old World, and thus in
their eyes it was a cultural artifact of bitter memories: exile, ghettos,
pogroms, disenfranchisement, poverty, and helplessness. Those perceptions were
at odds with the new spirit of youthful regeneration, a fresh start, national
pride, and statehood, fostering the notion that Yiddish represented an
encumbrance of the past that deserved shedding, if not extinction. Even the very
sound of the language appeared in that naïvely arrogant perception to clash
with the modern image of a proud, strong, and free sabra - a native of the "old-new" land.
There were
also political overtones. Those among the establishment who had come from
German Jewry sometimes had an aversion to Yiddish as the aural-cultural logo of
eastern European Jewry, And to those, like Ben-Amots, from non-European
backgrounds altogether - Sephardi, Yemenite, Persian, Babylonian, Syrian,
Bukharan, and other Jews from the Arabic world and the Jewish orient - Yiddish
and its culture were simply foreign.
"In
retrospect," reflected Ben-Amots, "many of us chose simply not to be aware, or
to let ourselves become aware, of the proud legacy of Yiddish culture and
Yiddish-speaking Jewry during the previous hundred years - the defiance and
assertiveness of the Jewish Labor Bund in eastern Europe; the sophisticated
Yiddish artistic life that had reigned in many cosmopolitan European cities;
the rich body of secular Yiddish literature; or the heritage of Yiddish song."
True, there were small, cloistered resident circles of non-Zionist, and even
anti-Zionist, Yiddish-speaking extreme orthodoxy in Israel then, including certain
deeply pious Hassidic sects. For them Hebrew was exclusively a "holy tongue,"
not to be profaned by vernacular use - at least not until the messianic era
arrived. Moreover, to them, modern Hebrew (as opposed
to biblical or liturgical Hebrew) represented the secular parameters of the
Haskala, or the Jewish Enlightenment, as well as the Zionist cause and its nonreligious
state - the very developments to which they were opposed. But the Hassidic
connection to Yiddish had to do with daily communication and religious study,
not Yiddish culture. And in any case, Ben-Amots's circles had little or no
contact with those self-segregated groups. If anything, the very association of
Yiddish with such intensely orthodox religious adherents only seemed to confirm
to the majority of young Israelis their youthful misperception of the language
as outdated, fossilized, and tied to backwardness.
Ben-Amots
later reflected that - apart from those very pious religious circles - it
seemed to these young Israelis that, even if some of the older generation of eastern
European immigrants did speak Yiddish, they must have done so exclusively in
private. For them, as for all who were committed to the Zionist ideal of
resettling and rebuilding the ancient homeland, the new language - the symbol of long - sought nationhood - was modern Hebrew, and Hebrew was inextricable from the Zionist
ideology of national rebirth.
Ironically
for a young Jewish composer, it was in Germany, while he was a student
there in the 1980s, , that Ben-Amots really "discovered"
Yiddish. "My introduction to German culture and language during that sojourn,"
he recalls, "provided me with the key to one of the two basic original
linguistic components of Yiddish. I began to acquaint myself with that Jewish language
as well, and soon I gained access to a wealth of eastern European literary
works by poets, novelists, and playwrights such as Sholom Aleichem, Yehuda Leib
Peretz, S. An-Sky, Isaac Bashevis Singer, Sholem Asch, Mendl Mocher Sforim, and
so many others." It was also in Germany
that Ben-Amots stumbled by chance upon an old, almost tattered copy of a
collection of Yiddish folksongs that had been published in Europe
decades before. He was intrigued by the simple beauty of those tunes and the
mixture of pain and humor in the poems. His instinct as a composer was to
rearrange the songs with a fresh artistic and personal interpretation. "In a
way," he later remarked, "I felt as if I was doing my share not only to elevate
these marvelous songs from their natural folklore milieu to an art form, but also
to preserve them." The songs he selected became the material for his new song cycle,
Shtetl Songs, which he completed
shortly after his immigration to the United States. "This cycle thus
became my first, 'American work,' "he has said with great pride. He describes
it as
... a musical tour of the enclosed Jewish neighborhood or small
town in eastern Europe during the 19th and even early 20th centuries. The work
portrays aspects of the daily life of those inhabitants, which encompasses
their happiness as well as their pain and daily struggle, their hopes as well
as their despair. Throughout the cycle one meets characters and situations
typical of our perceptions of shtetl
(market town) life... I looked for the harmony and form suggested to me by each song.
There is dissonance, and there are clusters and chromatically oriented runs in
the piano part. Overall, the piece is far from being tonal in the traditional
sense; but parts of it can be very modal, depending upon the tune.
The
complete cycle comprises nine songs, of which six have been included on this
recording. There is also a version for mixed chorus.
The charm
of the first song, Bay dem shtetl
(words by Zalmen Rozental, 1892-1959), resides in its simplicity. A poor but
contented family lives in a small cottage. As he has done all his life, the
father labors continuously, and he even manages to buy a number of animals for the
family: a dog, a horse, a goose, and a hen. When the hen finally Jays eggs, it
is a major event and cause for rejoicing, and when the chicks are hatched, it
seems miraculous to the children. Like most folksongs, which, as folklore, were
known exclusively by oral transmission long before any collector transcribed
them, this song has many text as well as musical variants - probably only some
of which are extant today.
Bistu mit mir broyges (Are You Upset with Me?) describes
a typical moment in the interaction of a married couple in many religious or
even quasi-religious circles of small-town eastern European Jewish life of that
period - especially among those attracted by Hassidic beliefs and
superstitions. The wife appears to be "out of sorts" - in low spirits or somehow
distressed. Her husband, protesting that he doesn't know why she would be angry
with him - or perhaps more out of classic concern for sholem bayes (household peace) and as a sign of his love and concern
- suggests a visit to the rebbe
(rabbinic-type leader of Hassidim) for counsel and to request the rebbe's prayers on behalf of their
marriage, a common practice in that world regarding personal matters. The husband
also tries either to defuse his wife's anger or to brighten her mood (depending
on how one interprets the words) with promises of gifts. The piano part
consists of a set of variations depicting the mood of each strophe.
The
vagueness of the text could also invite other, complementary as well as
colliding, planes of interpretation - including modern psychological, psychosexual,
or sociological constructions. Gender-driven contemporary readings might intuit
a cynical inference in the husband's attempt to placate his wife, and some
might interpret the visit to the rebbe, and especially the suggestion of his
supposed powers of intercession, not merely as an innocent reference to a
common folk practice, but as a satirical jibe at what many outside the Hassidic
world perceived as foolishness. Indeed, during the 19th and early 20th centuries
- influenced especially by more rigorously academic rabbinic circles and mitnagdim (opponents of Hassidism),
probably at first in Lithuania
- a specifically satirical, so-called anti-Hassidic, Yiddish song repertoire
accumulated. These songs mocked Hassidic ways and superstitions and poked fun
in particular at the nonintellectual orientation and the alleged self-serving
charisma of certain Hassidic rebbes.
In some
cases the anti-Hassidic genesis of such songs is known; in others the message
is transparent in the words. But the viewpoint or bias is not always so clear. It
is not always certain whether the words actually bespeak a satirical agenda,
whether they simply extol or even romanticize perceived Hassidic virtues or attributes
- or whether the very ambiguity is itself part of the satire.
Some songs
long assumed to be of anti-Hassidic genesis, however, have been subjected more
recently to reassessment by folklorists. Sometimes such modern reexamination
leans toward accepting the Hassidic references at face value. Bistu mit mir broyges presents us with
these many possibilities.
Klip klap can be interpreted as a humorous interchange,
in a slow waltz tempo, presumably between a young man and the woman he courts.
He implores her to open the door and let him in from a rainstorm, but either
she is too shy and hesitant or she thinks it improper - and improper for him to
ask. On the other hand, perhaps they have had a quarrel and her response is
purely sarcastic. One might also infer erotic overtones.
Typical of
many European Hassidic songs, Royz royz, owes its origin to a non-Jewish
secular song - in this case a Hungarian shepherd's love song - from which it
was consciously adapted. This procedure was consistent with a view espoused by
certain Hassidic circles, and promulgated by some Hassidic masters, that the
inner musical essence of even a profane tune is redeemable by Judaic spiritual
and mystical appropriation, thereby transferring that musical element to a
higher, or holy, purpose. The history of this song provides an illustration of
the process by which such songs sometimes evolved from foreign, completely
nonreligious ones to those encapsulating specifically Hassidic religious
concepts. In Royz, royz the transferred
idea concerns the intertwined relationship between the Divine Presence and the
Jewish Diaspora, which is seen not only as a political-geographic and physical
dispersion, but as a spiritual exile. Within that context, a long-held belief
among certain Hassidic circles is that all tunes originated in the sacred music
of the ancient Temple in Jerusalem - viz., that
all music is inherently holy and originated as such, emanating from God.
Accordingly, melodies - like the people Israel - were expelled from their
source and dispersed "among the other nations and peoples." Far from perceiving
the musical adoption process as either theft or imitation, "redeeming" such
songs is said to restore them to their appropriate spiritual status, allowing them
to regain their sanctity.
The
Hassidic adoption and adaptation of the song now known as Royz, royz is attributed by legend to Rebbe Yitzhak Taub of Kaliv
(Hungary), also known as the Kaliver Rebbe. Accordrng to the legend, he was
walking in a field when, upon hearing a young shepherd singing this tune to the
Hungarian words Ruzha, ruzha, yak ti
daleka (Rose, rose, how far away you are), he discerned a profound sense of
spiritual longing and pain deep beneath its outer layers. The Kaliver Rebbe
gave a few coins to the lad as a symbolic ransom to redeem the song - and also
to cause him to forget it permanently, which he did immediately. The rebbe then altered and adjusted the
words to suit the deeper meaning he intuited in it, connecting it now to the sh'khina (the Divine Presence, or Holy Spirit)
who is far away, and to the galut
(Jewish exile) that seems so endless. In the Midrash - a collective body of
interpretive commentary and explanatory literature on Scriptures that incorporates
much teaching by way of allegorical, legendary, anecdotal, and parabolic means -
the sh'khina, seen as the "feminine
manifestation" and merciful side of God's presence, is said to have joined the
House of Israel as it was dispersed into exile. In the song's new guise, the shepherd's
sentiments of worldly romantic longing have given way to a spiritual longing
for the sh'khina, almost as if the
singer is challenging the sh'khina to
demonstrate the reality of the Midrashic anecdote by shortening the exile. For
if the sh'khina accompanied Israel into the
exile of the Diaspora, how could it now appear to be so far away? And if the
Divine Presence indeed were not so distant, the exile would not last so long.
Yet in Hassidic perception it is this very longing for, and seeking to cling
to, the sh'khina that will bring greater
closeness and, ultimately, redemption and an end to exile.
Royz, royz is still a popular song - with many
text variants and adaptations, including liturgical ones-among some
contemporary Hassidic groups. These extant variants include one that combines
Hebrew and Yiddish fused with the original Hungarian, and one that is a parody
expressing mariiallonging. Ben-Amots was particularly interested in the wide
range of this melody, which is unusual for folksongs. In its descent over a span
of one and a half octaves, he heard a gathering lament.
The melody
of Di
dray neytorins is attributed to M. Shneyer (1885-1942). Its words, by
the famous Yiddish poet and writer Yehuda Leib Peretz (1852-1915), describe the
anguish and despair of three seamstresses who work endlessly in a sweatshop,
with no hope of normal married life and only eventual death to anticipate. The
continuous clicking sound of the sewing machines is mirrored throughout the
piano part in this setting.
Der rebbe tantst is a folksong that is also known by
its text incipit, Sha, shtil. It is
commonly assumed to have originated as one of the satirical anti-Hassidic
songs, in this case mocking the dancing rebbe
(rather than one who is studious or scholarly - although in another extant
variant strophe the rebbe discourses
on the Torah), his blindly devoted followers (his Hassidim), and their
superstitious belief in his powers. But it could also be viewed - as it is by
many Hassidim themselves - more benignly as a simple testament to the spiritual
power of music and dance. In the present transformed setting, the successive
strophes are presented as a set of variations on the principal theme. But
Ben-Amots also has given this otherwise strophic song a through-composed
treatment, whereby it gains in intensity and motion from beginning to end
through continuous or developing variations.
-Neil W.
Levin
PSALM 81
(Note by
the composer)
T'hillim, the biblical Book of Psalms, is
arguably the most "musical" book among the Holy Scriptures. Unlike the other
books of the canon, T'hillim is not divided
into p'rakim, or chapters, but rather
into mizmorim - liturgical songs. In fact, the word psalm stems from the Septuagint's translation of the Greek, psalmoi,
referring to "songs sung to [the accompaniment of] plucked string instruments."
The Book of Psalms, comprising 150 individual texts, provides us with the
largest body of original Hebraic liturgy. Moreover, from the principal content
of a number of Psalms, and from their superscriptions, we learn something of
musical performance practice in Jewish antiquity, and we are given indications
of the variety of instruments during the First and Second Temple
eras.
The text
structure of the Psalms repeatedly reveals the literary technique of parallelism,
which has a direct bearing on our knowledge of musical forms and vocal performance
practices. Thus, a verse is often divisible into two subsections, each
representing the same basic idea but with different words and even different poetic
feet. Psalm 81 is an unambiguous example of such poetic parallelism. The phrase
"Sing aloud unto God, our strength" has its parallel in the
succeeding one: "Raise a shout for Jacob's God." Similarly, the phrase "For it
is a law of Israel"
is matched by the words "a ruling of Jacob's God." In Psalm 81 we also find
another form of verse partition, a technique that may be described as "supplementary
parallelism." In such cases, the second subsection of the verse goes beyond
merely repeating the meaning of the first with similar but different wording,
and it adds a new element, twist, or bit of new information to the initial statement.
The obvious and simple process of expressing that parallelism musically
involved either dividing the chorus into two groups (antiphony), or dividing the
rendition of verses or subsections between soloist and chorus (responsorial
rendition). Indeed, these "call and response" forms are among the earliest
patterns to enter the early Church liturgy - in the Gradual, psalmody, and
hymnody. The responsorial technique has remained an integral part of Hebrew
liturgy and liturgical rendition in the interplay between precentor (sh'liab tzibbur, or messenger of the
congregation), or, later, hazzan
(cantor), and congregation.
Psalm 81 is
attributed to Asaf, the director of the choirs in the ancient Temple
in Jerusalem.
Inspired by the architecture of the text, the composition is structured as a
large A-B-C-B-A "return" form. When I first examined Psalm 81, the very
prospect of setting to music an original biblical Hebrew text intrigued me. My
plan was to create a blend of excitement and mystery through a highly rhythmic
treatment, with constantly shifting meters at a high rate of speed. This setting
accentuates the unusual, irregular rhythm of ancient Hebrew, with poetic meters
of 9, 11, 13, 15, etc. Second, I was interested in the parallelism of the text
and its natural impact on musical form. Therefore, I chose to divide the choir
into two parts and compose the Psalm setting as an antiphon. The frequent reference
to musical instruments in the Psalm (drum, stringed instruments, shofar) was another inspiring element that triggered my
imitation of the shofar call in the divided choir - a motive that can be heard
clearly at the end of section A. In addition, I added timpani and a large
batterie of other percussion to accompany the choir.
I found the
concluding part of verse 6 the most intriguing: "When He went out through the land of Egypt, language I heard that I knew not."
The implication of the Hebrew word sh'ma
(listen) in this context is twofold: perceiving sound, a musical function; and understanding,
or realizing. The mystical and apocalyptic facets of a sudden revelation or
enlightenment expressed in these words became the central part of the work - a
slow fugato, marked "adagio."
Texts and Translations
HASHKIVENU
Sung in Hebrew
Translation by Rabbi Morton M.
Leifman
Cause us, O
Lord, our God, to retire for the evening in peace
and then
again to arise unto life, O our King,
and
spread Your canopy of peace over us.
Direct us
with Your counsel and save us
for the
sake of Your name. Be a shield around us...
CELESTIAL DIALOGUES
Translation: Eliyahu Mishulovin
(See page
12 for transliterations.)
AM KADOSH (Holy People)
Sung in
Yiddish and Hebrew
Holy folk!
Wake up and
go
Worship the
Creator of the World.
I gave you
good counsel;
Forsake not
my Torah.
It is a
tree of Life
To those
who hold on to it steadily,
And all who
uphold it find happiness.
Wake up and
go
Worship the
Creator of the World.
Holy folk,
A Holy People.
UV'YOM HASHABBAT (On the Sabbath Day)
Numbers
28:9 - abbath liturgy
Sung in
Hebrew
On the
Sabbath Day - two yearling lambs without blemish
[for the additional sacrificial ritual in the Temple].
A GASN NIGN (A Street Tune)
(instrumental)
ADONAI MELEKH (The Lord Is King)
Sung in
Hebrew
The Lord is
King,
The Lord
was King,
The Lord
shall reign for all eternity.
CELESTIAL FREYLEKH
(instrumental)
DINEN (Serve)
Sung in
Yiddish and Hebrew
Oh, serve!
Serve, we
will serve,
Serve, we
must serve.
Oh, serve!
Serve, we
have to serve,
We will
serve,
We must
serve,
We have to
serve,
The Creator of the World.
Glory and
faithfulness [we ascribe]
To You whose life is eternal.
Oh; serve!...
Insight and
blessings [emanate from]
You whose life is eternal.
Serve, we
have to serve,
We will
serve...
Grandeur
and greatness [we ascribe]
To You whose life is eternal.
CELESTIAL DIALOGUES
(Transliterations)
AM KADOSH
am kadosh,
shteyt oyf un geyt
I'avodas habore.
ki lekab tov nattati lokhem,
torati al ta'azovu.
etz hayyim he la'mabazikim ba,
v'tom'khe'ha m'ushar;
shteyt oyf un geyt
I'avodas habore.
am k'doshim
am kadosh.
UV'YOM HASHABBAT
uv'yom hashabbat,
shney kh'vasim
b'ney shana t'mimim.
ADONAI MELEKH
adonoi melekh,
adonoi malakh,
adonoi yimlokh l'olam va'ed.
DINEN
oy dinen,
dinen vet men dinen,
dinen muz men dinen.
oy dinen,
dinen darf men dinen.
vet men dinen,
muz men dinen,
men darf dinen
dem boyre oylem,
ha'adderet v'ha'emuna
I'hay olamim.
oy dinen...
habina v'hab'rakha
I'hay olamim.
dinen, dinen, dinen...
hag'vura v'hag'dula
I'hay olamim.
SHTETL SONGS
Sung in Yiddish
Translation: Eliyahu Mishulovin
(See page
15 for transliterations.)
1. BAY DEM SHTETL
(Near the Town)
Near the
edge of town stands a cottage
With a
little roof,
And around
the cottage
Many little
trees are growing.
My father
with my mother,
Khanele and
me,
All four of
us have been living there
Together a long time.
And my
father works and works
All his
days,
And he buys
and brings us
Nice,
pretty things.
Buys a
little horse that neighs
Whose name
is mutzik,
Buys a
puppy that barks
Whose name
is tsutsik.
Buys a
goose with a white neck
And
feathers white as snow.
Buys a hen
that cackles, cackles
Until she lays an egg.
Mother
takes these eggs,
Oh, what a
miracle!
She sits
the hen on them
And we have
beautiful chicks.
2. BISTU MIT MIR
BROYGES (Are You Upset with Me?)
Are you
upset with me?
I don't
know why.
All day you
walk around
With a long face.
Maybe you
want to know
If I love
you -
Let us then
take a trip together
To see the rebbe.
We'll go to
the rebbe
And give
him a p;dyen [token gift
So that he
should pray to God for
That we may have a good life.
Oh, the rebbe
He will
bless us
So that
from now on both of us
Will live like people should.
And as we
journey
Back from
the rebbe,
We'll take
a detour
Over to the Salva Market.
There I
will buy for you
Hashkivenu - Song of the Angels (more info)
-
Entrance of the Sabbath Bride - 4:18
-
Peace upon you, Angels of Peace - 1:29
-
Come in peace, Angels of Peace - 1:23
-
Bless me for peace, ye Angels of Peace (V'taknenu) - 1:05
-
Go in peace, Angels of Peace (echo) - 1:38
Celestial Dialogues (more info)
-
Am kadosh (Holy People) - 3:44
-
Uv'yom hashabbat (On the Sabbath Day) - 4:13
-
A gasn nign (A Street Tune) - 4:14
-
Adonoi melekh (The Lord is King) - 7:13
-
Celestial freylekh - 5:18
-
Dinen (Serve) - 4:07
Shtetl Songs (more info)
-
Bay dem shtetl (Near the Town) - 3:10
-
Bistu mit mir broyges (Are You Upset with Me?) - 2:36
-
Klip klap (Knock, Knock) - 2:45
-
Royz, royz (Rose, Rose) - 2:37
-
Di dray neytorins (The Three Seamstresses) - 3:42
-
Der rebbe tantst (The Rebbe is Dancing) - 4:04
Psalm 81 (more info)
-
Psalm 81 - 13:37
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