EPISODE 2: Shiru L’Adonai
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 second episode focuses on Shiru L’Adonai.
[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] Check out this page for further learning about Shiru L’Adonai (and all our Shabbat Unbound episodes).
[3] Interested in learning more about composer Jake Erhlich and his community? You can find out more about Jake and Congregation T’chiyah on their website.
[4] “Every psalm, every prayer is an act of relationship, a way of moving into holy Presence, a way of opening ourselves to hear the voice of the Divine, which the cares of ordinary life may, all too frequently, muffle”. – Psalms of Jewish liturgy, page 121 Miriyam Glazer
[5 ] Miriam mentions the Zohar, the mystical text of Kabbalah, when referring to the Sabbath. You can read more about the spiritual nature of the Sabbath in the Zohar, Volume II (Shemot), Terumah 14:164–165
-
Miriam: What if we treated each Shabbat prayer, not as something to check off, but as a world to explore. Welcome to Shabbat Unbound, where over eight episodes, we're doing exactly that. One prayer at a time, with melody, meaning, and a little magic. I'm Miriam Terlinchamp, and together with Lex Rofeberg, we will invite Shabbat in by focusing on Psalm 96, Shiru L’Adonai. If this is your first time joining us, welcome. If you're already a regular listener, welcome. We're so glad you're here.
Lex: So in many communities when we sing, Shiru L’Adonai Shir Hadash, which means Sing to God a new song. It is sung every week, but it's not a new song. It's the same melody every time. And that always struck me as funny. So when we launched this series, Shabbat Unbound, we wanted to make sure that our Shiru L’Adonaii Melody would be one that felt new to most of our listeners, and so that meant I needed to find one that would be unlikely to have been used in many synagogues. So I went on a Google deep dive and found a beautiful melody from Jake Ehrlich from Congregation T’chiyah in Detroit, and he's a friend of Judaism Unbound, and I loved the melody, and so we decided to use this one for our Shiru L’Adonai episode.
You will note that when I sing the words, I sometimes say Havayha. Instead of Adonai. Havayah is another name for God. And it gets at God as breath. It gets at God's four letter name, YHVH, but the the letters are scrambled and mystics believe that the power of God's name can come through no matter if the letters are in the order of the name of God or in a different order. Adonai means my Lord. Sometimes we need metaphors of God that are not just Lord, but perhaps of breath. And so I bring that Havayah notion of God in this melody. So here is Jake Erlich. Shiru L’Adonai, Shir Hadash.
MUSIC OF SHIRU L’ADONAI
Shiru ladonai shir chadash; shiru ladonai kol ha'aretz.
Shiru ladonai barechu shemo; basseru miyom leyom yeshu'ato.
Sapperu bagoyim kevodo; bekhol ha'amim nifle'otav.
Ki gadol adonai umhullal me'od; nora hu al kol elohim.
Ki kol elohei ha'amim elilim; vadonai shamayim asa.
Hod vehadar lefanav; oz vetif'eret bemikdasho.
Havu ladonai mishpechot amim; havu ladonai kavod va'oz.
Havu ladonai kevod shemo; se'u mincha uvo'u lechatzrotav.
Hishtachavu ladonai behadrat kodesh; chilu mipanav kol ha'aretz.
Imru vagoyim adonai malakh; af tikkon tevel bal timot; yadin amim bemesharim. Yismechu hashamayim vetagel ha'aretz; yir'am hayam umlo'o.
Ya'aloz saday vekhol asher bo; az yerannenu kol atzei ya'ar.
Lifnei adonai ki va; ki va lishpot ha'aretz.
Yishpot tevel betzedek; ve'amim be'emunato.
Miriam: Before we get into Shiru L’Adonai, Psalm 96, I want to do a little bit of background on the Psalms. The Jews did not invent the literary style of the Psalms. We borrowed it and made it our own. There's a sprinkle of Canaanite hymns. There's some Mesopotamian cultural references and poetry. It then gets integrated into Jewish religious life, probably around the Temple Times.
AZ Idelson, who's a scholar of liturgy, says that the priests were offering sacrifices and also saying Psalms at the same time. There are lots and lots of stories of how we use the Psalms in our Jewish tradition. We recite them as an incantation. When you know a demon is present, the words are like a protective spell. Rabbi Nachman said that there were 10 Psalms we could say in a row that would protect us and clear our minds of impure thoughts. In the 15th and 16th century, there was a belief that if you were going to engage in partner swapping, if you recited the Psalms at the same time, it was not considered like licentious behavior, but rather, transferred the meaning of the sexual activity as a chance to reincarnate Shabbatai Tzvi, a Messianic figure at the time. Kabbalists, the mystics, included Psalms in their amulets and talisman. Their words were considered protective. Psalms were rarely studied. Psalms were used to invoke power.
In the Psalms, there's no singular voice. There are many voices, and the content is really varied. It goes from praise to petition, to supplication to grief. The directionality is also different. Sometimes it's us to God. Sometimes it's God to humans. There's a whole play of voices and ways of engaging.
The Psalms are poetic expressions of a national mythology, telling our story and retelling it through the lens of the concerns of that particular moment. Some teach ideas, others values and a historicity that is both particular to the moment that it was transcribed as well as universal and relevant to our lives right now. Traditionally, there are six Psalms that we recite transitioning into Shabbat. There's one Psalm for each day of the week that leads to the seventh day Shabbat, the Sabbath. Shiru L’Adonai, Psalm 96 is the second of the series of Psalms used, and it represents Monday, Monday. It is amazing how Shiru L’Adonai weaves the ordinary Monday kind of vibe at energy, with sacred theology, thereby uplifting the ordinary into the extraordinary. It goes from Monday to Monday!
The Psalm starts with the line, Shiru L’Adonai Shir Hadash, Sing to God a new song. That's so interesting because this is the part of the Book of Psalms all about enthroned in God, God's ascension to power. Omnipotence. Omniscience. So how could anything be new to an all knowing everywhere at all times, kind of being? Well, that's where we get the second line, “Shiru L’Adonai kol ha’aretz” Sing unto God, all the earth, a new song.
What a gorgeous idea! What would surprise God the most? What would actually feel new to the Divine is the whole world singing as one. Want to really impress God? Then we should actually believe that all this God stuff is actually us stuff. That we're part of it all. And then to act like it with our every being, every life force as holy. And then the third line, another call, Shiru L’Adonai Basru l’yom yeshuato. Sing to God, bless their name and sing it out. Salvation, every day. Salvation's a heavy word. But maybe one way to read this is that by seeing Monday, the mundane, with new eyes allows us to wake the miracle of the every day and exercise that muscle of trying our best to see the old renewed. When you lean into the Mondays or the mundane with your beginner's eyes, the whole earth does feel like it flows through you.
That's what it means to have Sabbath. Suspending the false reality of consumerism and the pressure of more is more, and instead delighting in the other reality, the other truth of abundance to make holy, simple pleasures like naps and slow meals and board games. Singing these psalms play an integral part in shaping the Evening Sabbath service, one that focuses on transition or the movement into Sabbath.
In the mystical text, the Zohar, we read that during the week, strict judgment rules and all judgments are aroused. But on Shabbat, all judgments are suppressed and pleasure and joy abound. A holy breath of delight spreads through all those who observe the Sabbath, which. Yes, please. I'll take some breath and delight and suppress my judgments. It's just my damn spinning mind and the to-do list and the laundry, that's all in the way of that suspension of things. Some days the very prospect of Sabbath can let us release and enter into a mind frame of a holy breath of delight like the Zohar explains. But more often, transitioning into Sabbath mode requires work to release the work. Finding ways to ease our way into the Sabbath consciousness when our hearts and minds are preoccupied. That's the job of Shiru L’Adonai. Psalm 96. Shiru! As a call to action, Sing! That a call to sing sounds different depending on where you are in your journey to Sabbath mode. I'm going ask Lex to help me with this one for a little bit.
When we are joyfully running into Shabbat, we might sing:
Music: Shiru L’Adonai Shir Chadash
Or if it has been a painful week in Solace, we might sing:
Music: Shiru L’Adonai Shir Chadash
The U in Shiru is declarative and plural. So when we are in need of community of belonging. Of companionship, we might sing:
Music: Shiru L’Adonai Shir Chadash
The transition between the every day and the joy of Shabbat is called in with Psalm 96, allowing us an opportunity to look at our lives and see them anew and maybe. Surprising. God.
MUSIC OF SHIRU L’ADONAI
Shiru ladonai shir chadash; shiru ladonai kol ha'aretz.
Shiru ladonai barechu shemo; basseru miyom leyom yeshu'ato.
Sapperu bagoyim kevodo; bekhol ha'amim nifle'otav.
Ki gadol adonai umhullal me'od; nora hu al kol elohim.
Ki kol elohei ha'amim elilim; vadonai shamayim asa.
Hod vehadar lefanav; oz vetif'eret bemikdasho.
Havu ladonai mishpechot amim; havu ladonai kavod va'oz.
Havu ladonai kevod shemo; se'u mincha uvo'u lechatzrotav.
Hishtachavu ladonai behadrat kodesh; chilu mipanav kol ha'aretz.
Imru vagoyim adonai malakh; af tikkon tevel bal timot; yadin amim bemesharim. Yismechu hashamayim vetagel ha'aretz; yir'am hayam umlo'o.
Ya'aloz saday vekhol asher bo; az yerannenu kol atzei ya'ar.
Lifnei adonai ki va; ki va lishpot ha'aretz.
Yishpot tevel betzedek; ve'amim be'emunato.
Miriam: We pause now for a moment of healing. Understanding that so many things in our world are beyond our control, and I know it's very important to match that feeling of lack of control with intentional action, of bringing soup and writing cards and making phone calls. It is essential to be present with others in their needs and time for healing. And it's also important to spend time in the feels of it all. To call healing and specifically to our wounds. To open ourselves up to the difficulty of how long and circuitous healing can be for all of us struggling in all the ways that we need healing.
So let's send some prayerful and powerful energy to the places of physical pain, To ongoing ailments. To those of us wrestling with new information that changes our lives to those of us waiting to hear about a diagnosis. For those of us deep in the throes of loss and grief, for those of us feeling the great weight of the world on our spirits. May all of us be brought closer to healing.
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: Today we're concluding our episode with an offering of the oldest prayer in the Jewish tradition. It is the priestly benediction, which we see first in Numbers six in our biblical text, and it is the oldest version of any prayer we've ever had. When you go to the oldest fragments of the Torah, the Hebrew Bible, this still exists. At one point, this prayer was used to bless or call in priests, but it's really a prayer that can be said by anyone to anyone. One of the body motions of this prayer is for the person who is doing the blessing to raise their hands up above. And to spread their fingers wide so that they form the shape of a shin. The letter that begins the word Shema, of hearing, of listening, and to extend them outward. So I'm extending them out to you. Maybe you can also reach your hands out in this moment. Your hands open symbolically, like your heart, to receive blessing.
Yevarechecha Adonai Veyishereycha, May God bless you and keep you
Yaer Adonai Panav Eleycha Vichunecka May God's light shine upon you and be gracious unto you
Yisa Adonai Panav Eleycha Veyasem Lecha Shalom And when you feel that light upon you, may you find the courage to sing, to meet the moment, to transition into possibility, and to know that through this whole journey of becoming, you are not alone.
Miriam: And that's Shiru L’Adonai, a call to sing, whether you're arriving joyfully or dragging yourself into Shabbat mode with everything you've got. Thank you for easing into sacred time with us today, for remembering that the transition itself is holy, and that our mundane, mundane vibes can feel renewed with beginner's eyes. Next episode, we're diving into Ana BaKoach, a mystical prayer about power release and what it really means to let go. Until then, may your week hold moments of surprise that even God didn't see coming. Shabbat Shalom.
Miriam: Big thanks to Lippman Kanfer 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 Kaestner. Special thanks to our musicians Ric Hordinski on guitar, Andrea Summer on vocals. Matt Wiles on Bass and Joshua Suerkamp on drums. Special thanks to our featured composer of Shiru L’Adonai, Jake Ehrlich.
Check the show notes for bonus material. Lex did so many amazing things on our website, and if you wanna dig more into it, it's there for you. And if you love our podcast, wonderful. There is more. Please join us for our monthly live Shabbat Unbound events. You can find the next one on our website at www.judaismunbound.com/shabbat unbound.
We'd love to hear from you also, and you can find us at hello@judaismunbound.com.
