EPISODE 1: Yedid Nefesh
Shabbat Unbound is the world's longest Friday night Sabbath service, stretching over eight episodes. Instead of rushing through all the Friday night Shabbat prayers in one sitting, like we might in a classical synagogue environment, we're taking our time diving deep into one prayer each episode through song study and sacred conversation. It's the most original and traditional way to engage in the transition into Shabbat, taking each prayer as its own world with its own Torah to teach us. Miriam Terlinchamp, Lex Rofeberg and an incredible group of musicians invite you to discover what happens when Shabbat slows down. The first episode focuses on Yedid Nefesh.
[1] All the music for the Shabbat Unbound podcast was recorded live at The Monastery Studios in Cincinnati, Ohio under the direction of Ric Hordinski.
[2] Lex made AMAZING resources to accompany each episode of Shabbat Unbound, check out this page for further learning.
[3] Molly Bajgot, composer of this version of Yedid Nefesh,is a queer Jewish musician, educator, and activist living on Nipmuc & Pocumtuc land in Easthampton, MA. You can find out more about her on her website: mollybajgot.com
[4] Reb’ Zalman’s translation of Yedid Nefesh can be found here.
[5] Check out this gorgeous article on the power of vulnerability through the lens of love, by Karen Erlichman
[6] The melody Healer of the Broken-Hearted for the prayer for healing comes from Shir Meira Feit. Learn more about their work at ShirMeira.com.
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Miriam: Welcome to Shabbat Bound, the world's longest Friday night Sabbath service, stretching over eight episodes. Instead of rushing through all the Friday night Shabbat prayers in one sitting, like we might in a classical synagogue environment, we're taking our time diving deep into one prayer each episode through song study and sacred conversation. It's the most original and traditional way to engage in the transition into Shabbat, taking each prayer as its own world with its own Torah to teach us. I am Miriam Terlinchamp, and together with Lex Rofeberg and our incredible musicians, we're inviting you to discover what happens when Shabbat slows down. We begin with Yedid Nefesh.
Lex: When we were deciding which melody would launch our entire series, we landed on Molly Baigot’s Yedid Nefesh. And the reason I chose it is really that I fell in love with it a few years ago. It channels the spirit of Yedid Nefesh, of this steep yearning, this deep longing. It really brings an air of love, of yearning, and even an erotic energy that is important and that I'll speak to later. Here's Molly Baigot’s rendition of Yedid Nefesh from her album Revelry.
YEDID NEFESH (song)
Yedid Nefesh Av Harachaman Meshoch Avedech el retzonecha Yaarutz avdecha cmo ayal yishtachaveh el mul hadarecha. Ye’erav lo yedidutecha minofet suf vchol ta’am.
Hadur naehziv ha’olam nafeshi cholet ahavateycha ana el na refa na la, beharot la noam ziveycha. Az titchazek vetitrapeh vehaytah la simchat olam.
Vatik yehemu rachameicha vchusa na al ben ahuveycha ki ze kama nichsof nichsafrti lirot betiferet uzehca ele chamda libi vechusa na v’al titalam.
Higaleh na ufros chavivi alay et sukkat shlomeycha tair eretz micvodecha nagila vnismecha ba mahere ahuv ki va moed vechaneynu kimey olam.
Miriam: Yedid Nefesh is an incredible prayer. One of its secrets is that there's no single way to read it or to sing it. It's attributed to different authors. We're not quite sure when it came into being. There are several different versions of that text and all kinds of ways of singing it. It became popular in the 16th century because it has this esoteric, evocative energy to it. It's an acrostic poem, normally an acrostic poem would be A, B, and C, but this acrostic spells the name of God, believing in some way that the true origin of this text isn't a single human, but actually all of us, or the energy of God is what's bringing it into the world. It is both spelling the name of God, embodying the spirit of God, and also is non-binary, like God.
Listen for a moment to its poetry. The Hebrew is attributed to Elazar ben Moshe Azikiri, and the translation is from Reb Zalman Shachter Shalomi.
יְדִיד נֶֽפֶשׁ אָב הָרַחֲמָן מְשׁוֹךְ עַבְדְּךְ אֶל־רְצוֹנֶֽךָ יָרוּץ עַבְדְּךָ כְּמוֹ אַיָּל יִשְׁתַּחֲוֶה
אֶל מוּל הֲדָרֶֽךָ יֶעֱרַב לוֹ יְדִידוּתֶֽיךָ מִנֹּֽפֶת צוּף וְכׇל־טָֽעַם׃
הָדוּר נָאֶה זִיו הָעוֹלָם נַפְשִׁי חוֹלַת אַהֲבָתֶֽךָ אָנָּא אֵל־נָא רְפָא נָא לָהּ בְּהַרְאוֹת לָהּ
נֹֽעַם זִיוֶֽךָ אָז תִּתְחַזֵּק וְתִתְרַפֵּא וְהָֽיְתָה לָּהּ שִׂמְחַת עוֹלָם׃
וָתִיק יֶהֱמוּ רַחֲמֶֽיךָ וְחוּסָה נָּא עַל בֵּן אֲהוּבֶֽךָ כִּי־זֶה כַּמָּה נִכְסוֹף נִכְסַֽפְתִּי,,,
לִרְאוֹת בְּתִפְאֶֽרֶת עֻזֶּֽךָ אֵֽלֶּה חָמְדָה לִבִּי וְחֽוּסָה נָּא וְאַל תִּתְעַלָּם׃,,
הִגָּלֶה נָא וּפְרוֹס חָבִיבִי עָלַי אֶת־סֻכַּת שְׁלוֹמֶֽךָ תָּאִיר אֶֽרֶץ מִכְּבוֹדֶֽךָ,,
נָגִֽילָה וְנִשְׂמְחָה בָּךְ מַהֵר אָהוּב כִּי בָא מוֹעֵד וְחָנֵּֽנוּ כִּימֵי עוֹלָם׃,
You who love my soul. Compassion's gentle source. Take my disposition and shape it to your will like a darting dear, I will flee to you before your glorious presence. Humbly do I bow. Let your sweet love delight me with its thrill because no other delight will my hunger still.
It's all about love, a vulnerable longing, yearning, orienting love, woven throughout. The poetry that feels like rhyme in these heavy, intimate metaphors and themes of light that plays throughout.
Speaking of the radiance of the universe and the light that plays throughout… I was taking an evening walk recently and it felt like everything was just a little bit brighter, even though it was so late at night. It turns out there was a super moon. And I don't know if you've been out when you're walking and there's a super moon, but everything to me feels just a little bit brighter. Like someone flipped on some kind of switch. Everything feels a little louder. The animals are making a little bit more noise. The dogs are howling a little louder and it's sharper. If you look at the face of the moon, you can see her blue face just a little bit more sharp. In reality, it is 14% bigger, which makes it 30% brighter and that brightness shines on us…and I think that light is a different kind of light than maybe the light in our bathroom when we're staring ourselves in the mirror deciding, what wrinkle or what part of ourselves is imperfect. The light of the moon, I think, is a version of the light of the Divine. It's soft. It sees you fully for who you are, and it also wants to see you in love.
Yedid Nefesh is all about the ways to experience the Divine through light.
There's this gorgeous line in the poem, and it says,לִרְאוֹת בְּתִפְאֶֽרֶת
Lirot Betiferet, to see my light. In your light.
What if the divine light that we are bathed in is just like that? A light that we are fully seen for who we are, that it both shines on our imperfections and has compassion for them. The vulnerability to be seen fully for who you are, and to also simultaneously believe that you are loved fully for who you are is a connection to the Divine. It's a connection to that light. It's one thing also, I think for the light to be on you and to receive, it's a whole other thing for the light to be from within you going outward.
And it makes me think a lot about Moses. That moment when he's up on the mountain and he encounters God and when he comes down, his face is resplendent with light. He's so full of light that he actually has to veil himself from that light because it was too powerful for the people to take in. What an amazing thing to think about that when you are so fully seen in love that you are exuding compassionate love and light so much that actually the rest of us can't even take it. It would be incredible. If each of us could walk with this kind of physical manifestation of Divine light, of compassionate love, to actually believe that we are embodying Betzelem Elohim to be made in the Divine image, to contain light and to emanate that light and to shine that light onto others and into the world of physical embodiment of compassion.
Take a moment in your own life and consider a time where you really felt that light shining on you. When, you felt that light coming from you and it allowed you to enter a place of deeper compassion for the world.
Did it feel like the world got a whole lot brighter? Did it feel like you could hear things differently? Did you see differently, not the harsh kind of light, but the bright light like the moon, full, vulnerable, compassionate, a light that came from within and without. This is what the Yedid Nefesh prayer is trying to get at what it feels like to be seen fully as you are and to be loved, for it to be bathed in light to such a degree that you can return that loving light to others.
Yedid Nefesh is, so Judaism Unbound. There's no one single Hebrew, there's no author or gender or translation or tune. No singular thing we can point to and say, oh, that's the OG version. That's the original one. That's the way to do it. It's so familiar, but it's not the same. It's like jazz. It's like love. What's meaningful about it is its multiplicity, and the common thread through all of it is love. It's a version and a vision of the world to come.
It's just like earth, but lit from within and without, with the light of love.
Music from Yedid Nefesh
Lex: Here's the thing about Yedid Nefesh, it's very sexy. We kick off Friday Night Services with a sensual, poetic piece of erotica, basically, I'm not exaggerating. You can look at the text. That's really what it says, and I think it's worth naming that.
I think it's worth naming that a weekly ritual about connecting to holiness, connecting to one another, connecting to the Divine, does so through fairly erotic sensual imagery and I wanted to hone in specifically on the closing paragraph. As Miriam mentioned, this poem is an acrostic. It goes Yud Hay Vav Hay as the first letter of each of four paragraphs, which spells out the Tetragrammaton God's four letter name.
And that's interesting for a variety of reasons. The culminating verse is the final. Hey, and in that verse we read. “Please beloved, reveal yourself.” It's literally like a strip tease. We don't talk about it this way because we want our liturgy to be very proper, to not necessarily go to our naked bodies, but this is a prayer of longing between maybe a human and another human, or between a human and God or between a collective of human beings and God. And we read specifically, “Please beloved, reveal yourself. Spread your sukkot of peace all over me. Habibi.” The word Chavivi in Hebrew is a cognate of the Arabic Habibi, which many of you may be familiar with. This is a gorgeous conclusion, again, to a very central imagery filled poetic song that launches us into a spirit of connection with one another and with the Divine.
And the last thing I'll say is it matters that the acrostic of this poem is Yud Hay, Vav Hay, God's name. We're gonna learn later in Lecha Dodi that often the way acrostics work in our liturgy is that they spell out the composer's name. It's kind of an ego fest. We learn that Shlomo HaLevy is the name of the composer of Lecha Dodi. Because if you look at the verses, Shin Lamed Mem, Hey, it spells out Shlomo Halevy for each of those verses. But here we don't know the composer's name. The composer wanted to tell us YHVH is the composer. So may we understand, may we know deep within our bodies, deep within our neshamas, that for every one of our prayers, YHVH, the oneness of all creation is in fact the composer. And no matter which human author channeled a prayer, every single melody, every single prayer is a channeling of that divine oneness, known as YHVH.
Music from Yedid Nefesh
Miriam: We pause now for a moment of healing, grounding ourselves first in our bodies, searching the physical places in need of healing and also the spiritual ones. Begin by imagining a light within, focusing on that light, letting it grow into your limbs, up through your chest, into your head, and when that light feels full, full of healing and love and possibility. Let it extend beyond you to the people that you love, to your family and your friends to your neighbors.
Call in. The people specifically who are in need of healing
Call in also those whose needs we cannot see whose invisible grief. Pain is also in need of our love. Extend that light into the city,into hospital beds and nursing facilities and prison cells. Let that light travel all the way down to our country's borders.
Let it extend to each person who seeks refuge. Send that light across the oceans into places of deep fear and war and hunger.
Let that light travel the whole globe, extending and connecting its energy until it finds its way all the way right back here to where that light was first cultivated. Finding its way all the way back to where it first began to our broken hearts. Reminding ourselves that healing begins first within.
Music: Healer of the Broken Hearted by Rena Branson
הָ֭רֹפֵא לִשְׁב֣וּרֵי לֵ֑ב וּ֝מְחַבֵּ֗שׁ לְעַצְּבוֹתָֽם
מוֹנֶה מִסְפָּר לַכּוֹכָבִים לְכֻלָּם, שֵׁמוֹת יִקְרָא
Harofei lishvurei lev umkhabesh l'atz'votam
Moneh mispar lakokhavim l'khulam shemot yikra
Healer of the brokenhearted and tender of our wounds
You account for every star and call each one by name
Miriam: We continue with the watch word of our faith. The Shema prayer. Shema asks us to imagine a world where we're all connected. To say in a single line that we are one and we are part of that oneness. And the way we're going to do it here is to take each word one at a time, Shema as listen and hear Israel, as all of us, us God wrestlers, each word, one breath, connecting together across time and space as we listen and sing at the same time.
שְׁמַע יִשְׂרָאֵל יְהוָה אֱלֹהֵינוּ יְהוָה אֶחָד
Shema Yisrael Adonai Eloheinu Adonai Echad
Miriam: When Jewish people gather in prayer, there's always room for grief, and so that's true here too. Even though we're not physically together, we are in this together. So wherever you are, pause. When Jewish folk gather in a communal setting we make space for grief with the prayer Mourner’s Kaddish. When we recite the Mourners Kaddish, Kaddish Yatom, usually our mourners rise. So here we're going to rise with our body and our breath to raise up a little bit taller, to find a little more room in our bodies for that breath. This prayer, though associated with death, has no mention of it. In fact, it's line after line, affirming life, saying that even in the world that we're living in right now, I still choose to live in it. And an essential part of this prayer is the word, amen. That the griever, the mourner, will say the line. And together in community, we say Amen. And amen just means I agree this life is worth living. Amen. This life is scary, but I'm still in it. Amen. I'll find my way back from this grief. Amen. So that everyone part of this is connected, if you'd like to call in someone's name who you're remembering, especially right now, or to connect into that grief, feel free to say their names out loud. And we rise in body and in breath as we continue with the words of Kaddish Yatom.
Yitgadal v’yitkadash sh’mei raba b’alma di v’ra chir’utei; v’yamlich malchutei b’hayeichon u-v’yomeichon, uv’hayei d’chol beit yisrael, ba-agala u-vi-z’man kariv, v’imru amen.
Y’hei sh’mei raba m’varach l’alam u-l’almei almaya.
Yitbarach v’yishtabah, v’yitpa’ar v’yitromam, v’yitnasei v’yit-hadar, v’yit’aleh v’yit’halal sh’mei d’kudsha, b’rich hu, l’ela min kol birchata v’shirata, tushb’hata v’nehemata, da-amiran b’alma, v’imru amen.
Y’hei sh’lama raba min sh’maya, v’hayim, aleinu v’al koi yisrael, v’imru amen.
Oseh shalom bi-m’romav, hu ya’aseh shalom aleinu v’al kol yisrael, v’imru amen.
Music from Yedid Nefesh.
Miriam: And that's a wrap on Yedid Nefesh. A prayer with no single author, no one true melody. Just like jazz, just like love. Thank you for sitting with us in the light today for letting yourself be seen fully imperfectly beautifully. On our next episode, we're singing our way into Shabbat with Shiru L’Adonai, because sometimes the best way to transition into sacred time is just to sing. Until then, Shabbat shalom.
Miriam: Huge gratitude to Lipman Kanfer for foundation for Living. Torah, for making the Shabbat Unbound podcast possible. Shabbat Unbound is a production of the Institute for the Next Jewish Future, and part of the family of podcasts of Judaism Unbound, created by Miriam Terlinchamp and Lex Rofeberg, directed by Joey Taylor, produced at Monastery Studios. Sound engineering by Justin Newton. Original podcast theme music and arrangements by Ric Hordinski and art by Katie Kaner. Special thanks to our musicians Ric Hordinski on guitar, Andrea Summer and vocals. Matt Wiles on Bass. and Josh Seurekamp on drums. Special thanks to our featured composer of Yedid Nefesh, Molly Baigot. Check the show notes for bonus material. Lex did an incredible job, so there are so many resources for you to check out.
And if you love this podcast, that's wonderful. Join us for our monthly live Shabbat events. You can find the next one on our website at www.judaismunbound.com/shabbat unbound. And always we'd love to hear from you. Please email us at hello@judaismunbound.com.
