Welcome to A Song of Zion, our weekly check-in and virtual minyan for Jews on Daily Kos. This is an open thread, and we treat it as a safe space for Jewish folks here. Non-Jews are welcome but we ask that they listen more than speak. No squabbling, please: if you want to fight, please step outside.
This Bialik version is the only waltz-time shabat melody I’ve ever learned, although hopefully readers may know of and bring more. What felt even more unique about it when I first heard it sung by a friend (male) in the 1970s, was an attenuation of that meter at certain points: midway in the first two lines of each verse (the underlined, italicized syllables), evoking a poignant uncertainty, as if the peace of sabbath drawing near represents a larger, wistful wish for the more profound peace still out of reach.
HaChamah Mairosh HaEla- -noht Nistahlka . . .
Boh'ooh Vi- -netzeh Likraht Sha- bat Hamalka . . .
In the below gently accompanied performance, that uncertain attenuation is slightly blurred by attenuation in two more lines. (After that, waltz-time prevails.) Possibly, the musical term for this is fermata: maybe an actual musician can tell us, or someone educated in Hebraic liturgy, because I’ve noticed that related modifications of pacing seem to be characteristic of Judaic music among Ashkenazim, Sephardim, and Mizrachim ... possibly among Betà Yisra’el and Bené Yisra’el and more of our communities as well. Besides in other cultures too, of course. Not everyone adheres rigidly to meter the way western music tends to!
For now, it might be interesting to imagine a more personal voice or voices, floating a capella on erev shabbat dusk, unconstrained by proper meter, and even try it ourselves, to hear and feel that hopefulness, that tikva, so heartfelt to us all.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G9EpuHbJCZg
This Hebrew text, the English transliteration, and translation, come from this public domain source which offers a print link (the lines are arranged a little differently there — I adapted the image so the transliteration matches the Hebrew). Here’s also a Jewish Virtual Library article on the poem’s author, plus a wik article.
Other titles for this poem/song, and the various other melodies, include, “HaChamah”, “HaChama Mairosh”, “Bo’ee Shabat”, “Shabat HaMalka”, and perhaps others. (There also are other shabat songs with similar titles and different lyrics, and wedding songs with Bo’ee Kallah in the title, nothing to do with shabat.)
There used to be a lovely, light and lilting instrumental of this melody here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7jvYKqkiesI but it’s no longer available, alas.
Shabbat shalom
