These prayers are taken from a collection of verse translations (with the Hebrew, Yiddish, and Aramaic texts on facing pages) which is to be published next month by Schocken Books under the title The Language of Faith. Nahum N. Glatzer, editor of the collection, describes it as follows:
About one half of the selections is from the liturgy of Ashkenazic Jewry. (A few Sephardic prayers have also been included.) The other half consists of private devotions, ranging from the talmudic masters to Nahman of Bratzlav (ca. 1800), the great Hasidic master. The few biblical prayers in this volume have been taken from those which form a part of the synagogue service.
The prayers were translated by Olga Marx and Jacob Sloan. Of the selections below, “Our Eyes Are Longing For Your Love” and “Who Sets Apart the Sacred and Profane” were translated by Olga Marx, the rest by Jacob Sloan.
The Language of Faith is the first volume in the Schocken Library, “a series of volumes planned toward the building up of a comprehensive home library devoted to outstanding expressions of Jewish thought and Jewish experience, ancient and modern.” The first five volumes in the series C$1.50 per volume) are to be published September 2. Later volumes will follow these at the rate of one a month.—ED.
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Watchman of Israel
From the Morning Prayer.
Watchman of Israel,
watch the remnant of Israel,
and let Israel not fail,
who say,
Hear, O Israel.
Watchman of one people,
watch the remnant of one people,
and let not one people fail,
who one proclaim Thy name,
Adonai is our God, Adonai is one.
Watchman of a holy people,
watch the remnant of a holy people,
and let not a holy people fail,
who three times holiness do cry,
Unto the Holy.
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Our Father, the Father Compassionate
From the Morning Prayer. This passage is followed by the proclamation of the unity of God (“Hear, O Israel”).
Our Father, the Father compassionate,
have compassion on us,
and put it in our heart
to understand and comprehend,
to hear, to learn, and to teach,
to watch, to do,
and to uphold all the words of thy Torah-
Study
lovingly.
And our eyes in thy Torah enlighten,
and make our heart to thy commandments
adhere,
and our heart unite
to love and to revere thy name.
And let us never be shamed at all.
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You Are He Who Was
From the Morning Prayer.
You are He who was
when the world was not created,
and you are He who has been
since the world’s creation.
You are He who is
and you are He
who shall be for the world-to-be.
Sacred make your name
through those that sanctify it,
and sacred make your name
in this world of yours.
Then in your salvation may our horn rise
high!
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Take Pity, Adonai, Our God On Us
A passage from the Grace after Meals. The text follows the Sephardic version.
Take pity, Adonai, our God, on us
and on Israel, thy folk,
and on Jerusalem, thy city,
and on Mount Zion, thy glory’s habitation,
and on the grand and holy house,
over which thy name is called.
Our Father, shepherd us,
feed us, maintain us,
sustain us, ease us,
pray ease us speedily from all our pressing
foes.
Nor let us be needing, Adonai, our God,
gifts at the hands of flesh-and-blood,
nor loans at the hands of those
whose gift is petty, humiliation much;
but at thy hand
that is full and broad,
and rich and open;
that we be not shamed in this world
nor disgraced in the other.
And the kingship of the house of David,
thine anointed,
return to its place,
speedily in our days.
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Our Eyes Are Longing For Your Love
Written by Yannai, who lived in Palestine, ca. 600. The work of this predecessor of the liturgical school has been reconstructed from manuscripts in the Schocken Institute for Medieval Hebrew Poetry in Jerusalem by Menahem Zulay. The present poem has as its inspiration Genesis 29:31-32: “The Lord saw that Leah was hated. . . . She said, ‘He has looked upon my affliction.’”
Our eyes are longing for your love
Who love those whom their foes do hate.
Affliction festers in ourselves,
And foes who hate, strike from without.
Look on us as on Leah, beset with affliction,
As you looked on the hate that begot her
affliction:
Hated within her house,
And hated without.
Not everyone who is loved, is loved.
Not everyone who is hated, is hated.
Some are hated below, and loved above.
Those you hate are hated, those you love
are loved.
Hated we are, for you we love, O Holy!
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Well I Know, Adonai
From a long prayer by Saadia, Gaon of Sura (born 882 in Fayyum, Egypt, died 942 in Sura, Babylonia).
Well I know, Adonai,
I was nought, and thou made me.
Thou formed and founded me,
a deed of life and mercy doing with me;
and thy command my spirit did guard.
Hast allowed me reason, wisdom, and in-
sight;
of the strength of thy power girded me;
of thy wealth and honor dowered me;
and from height to height exalted me,
until, from day to day advancing,
thou hast brought me to this hour,
and to attain this present end.
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Who Sets Apart the Sacred and Profane
A free translation of a hymn by Isaac ben Judah ibn Ghayyat (Spain, 11th century).
Who sets apart the sacred and profane,
May He have mercy on our sins, and deign
To multiply our seed and what we gain,
Like sand, like stars by night.
The palm spins out her shadow, day has
waned,
I call to God who holds me in his hands,
The watchman said, the morning cometh
and
The night—also the night!
Have pity on me, awesome Lord on high,
and succor me this day, oh, hear my cry,
This evening when the sun has left the sky,
In darkness of the night.
I call upon you, God, to help me know
the path of life that you would have me go,
to raise me from my lowly state, to show
Your grace from dawn to night.
Oh, make me clean of my iniquity.
So none may ask, to vex and sadden me,
Where is this God who wrought you?
Where is he
Whose word is song by night!
For in your hand we are no more than clay!
Forgive the grave transgression and the
slight,
And tidings will speed forth from day to
day,
Resound from night to night.
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In My Straits I Called to Adonai
Jonah’s prayer “from out of the fish’s belly” (Jonah 2:3-10). The book of Jonah is read on the Day of Atonement.
In my straits I called to Adonai,
and he did reply.
From the belly of the Chasm, I screamed;
Thou didst heed my voice.
When thou cast me deep into the heart of
seas,
when the Torrent surrounded me,
when all thy breakers and waves
passed over me—
Then I said, “I am banished from before
thine eyes.”
Yet shall I look again
toward thy sacred habitation.
The waters compassed me to the soul,
the deep surrounded me,
weeds wrapped round my head—
when I sank to the ends of the hills,
the earth, whose bars were about me for-
ever—
thou raised me alive out of the Pit,
Adonai, my God.
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