“Orah hee” was composed by Rabbi Jill Hammer in 2008 and first published at Tel Shemesh in romanized Hebrew and English translation. The piyyut celebrates the Divine Feminine and is patterned after the popular piyyut “Adir Hu.” Rabbi Hammer writes,

This song, “Orah Hi,” patterns itself after the traditional Passover closing song “Adir Hu,” which is an acrostic poem listing God’s many qualities of power, righteousness, oneness, sovereignty, and kindness. “Adir Hu” means “He is mighty.” The traditional song speaks of God in majestic terms, celebrating God’s power as part of the telling of the story of Passover, and praying for the rebuilding of the Temple.

This alternative version is written in the feminine. Like “Adir Hu,” it is a Hebrew acrostic, and it can be sung to the traditional melody. Almost all of its images come from the Bible, from rabbinic literature, and from Jewish mysticism. Yet this song does not dwell on God’s power and distance. Rather, it emphasizes God’s sharing in human joys and griefs, and God’s ability to renew life through the strength of the earth. These are traits that many modern Jews have chosen to ascribe to the Divine as they seek their own ways of understanding God as immanent, earthy and embodied. In this version, we can imagine God’s house as our entire world infused with the Shekhinah, the indwelling Presence. Singing Adir Hu and Orah Hi together creates a fuller picture of the Divine and the human.

We have added the full text in pointed Hebrew. –Aharon Varady

Recordings

“אוֹרָה הִיא | Orah Hee (She is light), a piyyut by Rabbi Jill Hammer (2008)” is shared through the Open Siddur Project with a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International copyleft license.

Aharon N. Varady (editing/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.)

Rabbi Jill Hammer, Ph.D.

Jill Hammer is the Director of Spiritual Education at the Academy for Jewish Religion. Jill is the author of two books: “Sisters at Sinai: New Tales of Biblical Women” (JPS, 01) and “The Jewish Book of Days: A Companion for All Seasons” (JPS, 06). She is the co-founder of the Kohenet Institute, a program in Jewish women's spiritual leadership. An essayist, poet, midrashist and ritualist, her work has been in publications including Zeek Magazine, The Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion, The Torah: A Women's Commentary, The Forward, The Jewish Spectator, and Lilith as well as on-line on many websites. Several of her divrei torah can be heard on soundcloud, thanks to the Romemu congregation.

Works of related interest:

 

תפילת גשם בזכות האמהות | Prayer for Rain in the Merit of the Matriarchs by Rabbi Jill Hammer

The Offering: A Tashlikh Prayer, by Rabbi Jill Hammer

בָּאנוּ חׇשֵׁךְ לְקַדֵּשׁ | Banu Ḥoshekh l’Ḳadesh (We come to sanctify the dark), by rabbis David Seidenberg and Jill Hammer

מי ששכנה… היא תשכן עמנו | Mē She’shakhna… Hē Tishkon Imanu – a plea for the Divine Presence to dwell with us in the name of Biblical Women, by Isaac

אַף אֹרַח מִשְׁפָּטֶיךָ | Af Oraḥ Mishpatekha — an Ofan for Shabbat Ḥazon by Rabbi Elazar ben R’ Yehudah of Worms

אדיר הוא | Awesome One: an Alphabetical English Interpretation of the piyyut Adir Hu, by Isaac Gantwerk Mayer

בּױגעזאנג | Baugesang (Building Song): an alphabetical Yiddish adaptation of the piyyut Adir Hu (1769)

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