אֱלֹהַי נְשָׁמָה | Elohai Neshamah, a rhyming translation by Alice Lucas (1898)

Contributor(s):

Aharon N. Varady (transcription), Alice Montefiore Lucas (translation) and Unknown

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13 March 2021 under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike (CC BY-SA) 4.0 International copyleft license

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Elohai Neshamah

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19th century C.E., 57th century A.M., אלהי נשמה Elohai neshamah, rhyming translation

Source (Hebrew)

Translation (English)

אֱלֹהַי, נְשָׁמָה שֶׁנָּתַֽתָּ בִּי טְהוֹרָה הִיא,
אַתָּה בְרָאתָהּ, אַתָּה יְצַרְתָּהּ,
אַתָּה נְפַחְתָּהּ בִּי,
וְאַתָּה מְשַׁמְּרָהּ בְּקִרְבִּי,
וְאַתָּה עָתִיד לִטְּלָהּ מִמֶּנִּי,
וּלְהַחֲזִירָהּ בִּי לֶעָתִיד לָבֹא.

My God, the soul Thou gavest me is pure,
Created, formed by Thee,
And breath’d into me.
Within the body’s veil it will endure,
Until Thou call it hence
To live again through Thy beneficence

כָּל זְמַן שֶׁהַנְּשָׁמָה בְּקִרְבִּי
מוֹדֶה אֲנִי לְפָנֶיךָ יְיָ אֱלֹהַי וֵאלֹהֵי אֲבוֹתַי,
רִבּוֹן כָּל הַמַּעֲשִׂים,
אֲדוֹן כָּל הַנְּשָׁמוֹת.
בָּרוּךְ אַתָּה יְיָ
הַמַּחֲזִיר נְשָׁמוֹת לִפְגָרִים מֵתִים:

While I yet live, my lips shall still recall
That Thou art King and Lord,
Ruler of all, whose word
Creates and forms, sustains and governs all.
Bless’d for evermore
Art Thou, who dost the dead to life restore.

Alice Lucas’s rhyming translation of Elohai Neshamah (the blessing over our animating breath of life), was first published in her The Jewish Year (1898), page 182, under the title “Morning Prayer.” Linear correspondence between the Hebrew source and the English by Aharon Varady.

Source(s)

Aharon N. Varady (transcription)

Aharon Varady (M.A.J.Ed./JTSA Davidson) is a volunteer transcriber for the Open Siddur Project. If you find any mistakes in his transcriptions, please let him know. Shgiyot mi yavin; Ministarot naqeni שְׁגִיאוֹת מִי־יָבִין; מִנִּסְתָּרוֹת נַקֵּנִי "Who can know all one's flaws? From hidden errors, correct me" (Psalms 19:13). If you'd like to directly support his work, please consider donating via his Patreon account. (Varady also translates prayers and contributes his own original work besides serving as the primary shammes of the Open Siddur Project and its website, opensiddur.org.)

Alice Montefiore Lucas (translation)

Alice Julia Lucas (née Montefiore) (2 August 1851 – 25 March 1935) was a British Jewish poet, translator, and communal worker. Alice Julia Montefiore was born in 1851, the elder daughter of Nathaniel M. Montefiore and Emma Goldsmid. Alongside her brother Claude Montefiore, she studied Judaism under Solomon Schechter at the Hochschule in Berlin. On 24 April 1873 she married barrister Henry Lucas, who later served as treasurer and vice-president of the United Synagogue. In 1900 she helped establish the Jewish Study Society, modelled after the Council of Jewish Women, of which she served as the first president. Lucas also sat on the women's committee of the Westminster Jews' Free School and its preparatory nursery, the Jews' Infant School.

Unknown

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ויהי נעם אדני אלהינו עלינו ומעשה ידינו כוננה עלינו ומעשה ידינו כוננהו׃ (תהלים צ:יז) · "May the pleasantness of אדֹני our elo’ah be upon us; may our handiwork be established for us — our handiwork, may it be established." (Psalms 90:17)

אֱלֹהַי נְשָׁמָה | Elohai Neshamah, a rhyming translation by Alice Lucas (1898)

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