Yedid Nefesh

Yedid Nefesh (Hebrew: יְדִיד נֶפֶש, lit. 'beloved of the soul') is the title of a piyyut. It is usually sung on the Jewish Sabbath.

Traditions and origin

Some sing it between Minchah (afternoon prayer) of Friday and the beginning of Kabbalat Shabbat (literally: receiving or greeting the Sabbath—a collection of psalms usually sung to welcome in the Shabbat queen, as it were, the restful contentment that descends from above during nightfall on Friday).

It is sung by many Jews during Seudah Shlishit (the third meal on Shabbat; the first is on Friday night, the second on Saturday lunch, and the third on Saturday before nightfall).

Many Chassidim say or sing it every morning before beginning to the Pesukei dezimra section of Shacharit in order to arouse their love of God in preparation for the praises of Pesukei d'Zimra.

This poem is commonly attributed to the sixteenth century Sephardic kabbalist, Rabbi Elazar ben Moshe Azikri (1533-1600), who first published it in Sefer Charedim (published in Venice 1601), but Azikri did not claim authorship of it and there have been other suggested authors (e.g. Judah Halevi, or Israel Nagara). The Hebrew Manuscripts at Cambridge University Libraries by Stefan C. Reif (1997, page 93) refers to an appearance of Yedid Nefesh in the Commentary On the Book of Numbers by Samuel ben David ben Solomon, a manuscript dated to about 1438—long before Azikri's birth. Azikri's philosophy centred around the intense love one must feel for God, a theme that is evident in this piyyut (see references). The first letters of each of the four verses make up the four letter name of God, known in English as the tetragrammaton.

Text

The words are as follows:

Transliteration	English translation	Original Hebrew
	Verse 1
Yedid Nefesh av harachaman,	Beloved of the soul, the Father of Compassion,	Template:Hebrew
meshoch avdechah el retzonechah,	draw Your servant to Your Will;	Template:Hebrew
ya'arutz avdechah kmo ayal,	Your servant will hurry like a hart	Template:Hebrew
yishtachave mul hadarecha,	to bow before Your majesty;	Template:Hebrew
ki ye'erav lo yedidotecha,	to him Your friendship will be sweeter	Template:Hebrew
minofet tzuf v'chol ta-am.	than the dripping of the honeycomb and any taste.	Template:Hebrew
	Verse 2
Hadur nae ziv ha-ōlom,	Majestic, Beautiful, Radiance of the universe,	Template:Hebrew
nafshi cholat ahavatecha,	my soul pines [lit: is sick for] for your love.	Template:Hebrew
ana el na refa na lah,	Please, O God, heal her now	Template:Hebrew
beharot lah noam zivach,	by showing her the pleasantness of Your radiance;	Template:Hebrew
az teetchazeik v'titrapei,	then she will be strengthened and healed,	Template:Hebrew
v'hayta lah simchat olam	and eternal gladness will be hers.	Template:Hebrew
	Verse 3
Vatik yehemu na rachamecha,	Enduring One, may Your mercy be aroused	Template:Hebrew
v'chusah na al bein ahuvecha,	and please take pity on the son of Your beloved,	Template:Hebrew
ki ze kama nichsof nichsafti,	because it is so very long that I have yearned intensely	Template:Hebrew
lir'ot b'tiferet uzecha,	to see speedily the splendour of Your strength;	Template:Hebrew
ana eile chamdah libi,	only these my heart desired,	Template:Hebrew
v'chuso na v'al titalom.	so please take pity and do not conceal Yourself	Template:Hebrew
	Verse 4
Higalei na ufros chavivi alai,	Please, my Beloved, reveal Yourself and spread upon me	Template:Hebrew
et sukat shlomecha,	the shelter of Your peace;	Template:Hebrew
ta'ir eretz mich'vodecha,	illuminate the Earth with Your glory,	Template:Hebrew
nagila v'nism'cha bach.	that we may rejoice and be glad with You;	Template:Hebrew
Maheir ahuv ki va moed,	hasten, show love, for the time has come,	Template:Hebrew
v'choneinu kimei olam.	and show us grace as in days of old.	Template:Hebrew

Notes on the text

The text above is the "conventional" text appearing in most Ashkenaz liturgies (including the ArtScroll siddur) down to our day. There have been, over the centuries, many variants in different published prayerbooks. The conventional text differs from the text first printed in 1601, and both the conventional and the 1601 texts differed from Azikri's manuscript (both the manuscript and the 1601 printing were in unpointed Hebrew).

Verse 3, line 2: בּן אהובך   bein ahuvecha, translated here as "the son of Your beloved" is, in other translations of the same text, rendered as "your beloved son" (or child) or "your loving son". Some Sefardic/Mizrahi prayerbooks rewrite this phrase as עם אהוּבך   am ahuvach, "your beloved people" (e.g. The Orot Sephardic Shabbat Siddur, ed by Rabbi Eliezer Toledano (1995) p. 571). But the first printing and Azikri's manuscript both have bein ahuvecha.

Rabbi Flow's manuscript of this song (reproduced in Chwat) varies in several spots from the conventional text. The Hebrew and English text used in the Koren Sacks Siddur (2009) followed this manuscript—although the Authorised Daily Prayer Book (4th ed. 2006, pages 576-577) translated and annotated by the same Rabbi Jonathan Sacks used the conventional printed text. The significant changes include: Verse 2, line 6, שׁפחת shifchas (your maidservant) replacing simchas (gladness, joy), and the pronoun "her" with "your", so the line would read "She will be your maidservant for eternity," mirroring the phrasing in Deuteronomy 15:17, והיה לך עבד עולם (he will be your slave forever), but in feminine. (This was also the reading in the 1601 first publication.)

Verse 3, line 4, both the manuscript and first printing omit m'heirah (speedily), but in line 6 חוּשׁה chushah (hasten) in the manuscript and 1601 publication was replaced in the later printings by v'chusah (take pity).

Verse 3, line 5, both the manuscript and the 1601 printing had אנא אלי Ana Eli instead of Eileh, so the line changes from "These are my heart's desire" to "Please, My God, [You are] my heart's desire". So the manuscript says, for verse 3 lines 4 & 5, "O, my Lord, [You who are] my heart's desire, hurry please." But the conventional printings (such as ArtScroll) have it, "My heart desired only these, so please have pity."

The 1601 printing indicated that the last line of each verse (in the printing above, the fifth and sixth lines of each verse) was to be repeated. Jacobson mentions an earlier (apparently circa 1870) prayerbook that similarly attempted to restore the text according to the 1601 printing, which met with such condemnation (mostly over the substitution of "maidservant" for "gladness", though both the 1601 printing and Azikri's manuscript support this) from influential Hasidic rabbis that the editor was forced to print replacement pages with the conventional (if erroneous) text.

Flow's handwritten manuscript of this poem was discovered (by the great scholar Meir Benayahu) in the library of Jewish Theological Seminary of America in the mid-20th century. As a result, the Siddur Rinat Yisrael (Ashkenaz ed. by Rabbi Shlomo Tal, 1977) p. 189 had the same Hebrew text as Koren-Sacks, namely the text of the handwritten original. In a subsequent commentary to his prayerbook, Rabbi Tal published a photocopy of that handwritten original (Tal, Ha-Siddur Be-histalsheluto, 1984, page 68). Tal also noted that a few earlier prayerbooks (Livorno 1910 and Jerusalem 1953) also printed versions that restored "maidservant" from the 1601 edition.

References

• Azikri, Elazar ben Moshe (Venice 1601), Sefer Charedim [1] (the original printed version is on page 45; in the flyleaf of this copy someone has pasted what appears to be two pages from the 1984 commentary on the Rinat Yisrael version with a photocopy of Azikri's handwritten copy. (This feature works in Internet Explorer but apparently not in some other browsers.)
• Chwat, Dr. Ezra (June 29, 2010). Who wrote the poem Yedid Nefesh
• Feldheim. The Essential Shiron-Birkon, p. 90.
• "Hasidic Musician" (Aug. 4, 2009). The Koren Siddur on Yedid Nefesh
• Jacobson, B.S. (1981) The Sabbath Service: An exposition and analysis of its structure, contents, language and ideas, Sinai Publishing, Tel-Aviv, pages 371-374.
• Rabbinical Assembly and United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism. Siddur Sim Shalom, p. 252
• Rothman Foundation. The NCSY Bencher, p. 51.
• Sacks, Jonathan (2009). The Koren Sacks Siddur, with introduction, translation and commentary by Rabbi Sir Jonathan Sacks. Koren Publishers, Jerusalem, pages 308-309 and 688-689. [2]
• Scherman, Nosson, Meir Zlotowitz, Sheah Brander. The Complete Artscroll Siddur (סדור קול יעקב), Mesorah Publications, p. 591.
• Scherman, Nosson, Benjamin Yudin, Sheah Brander. Artscroll Transliterated Linear Siddur, Sabbath and Festival (סדור זכרון אברהם), Mesorah Publications, p. 82.
• Siddur Rinat Yisrael - Hotza'at Moreshet, p. 180

External links

• Full transliteration and translation in an article on Shabbos afternoon and the third meal by Lori Palatnik for Aish.com
• Transliteration and translation of Zalman Goldstein and Chaim Fogelman's Ashkenaz-style recording for chabad.org
• Sephardi transliteration of the first verse
• Yedid nefesh YouTube

Recordings

• Recordings, text, translation, transliteration from The Zemirot Database
• Instrumental accompaniment to the first few lines
• Details of the first verse with audio from project z'mirot
• A polyphonic take on the traditional Ashkenazi tune, sung by Emilia Cataldo
• Video of a live performance of the song in the Moroccan Andalusian style by Binyamin Buzaglo and the Israeli Andalusian Orchestra (התזמורת האנדלוסית הישראלית).
• Yedid Nefesh sung to a Modzitz nigun
• Yedid Nefesh sung to a traditional Sephardi Tune.
• Multiple melodies of various sources.