A traditional prayer before studying classic texts of ḳabbalah, by a celebrated ḳabbalist of the 16th century, in pointed Hebrew with an English translation.

The piyyut, Yah Ribon, in Aramaic with an English translation.

The piyyut, Yah Ribon, in Aramaic with an English translation.

The piyyut, yah Ribon Olam, in Hebrew with an English translation.

The piyyut, yah Ribon Olam, in Hebrew with a rhyming English translation.

This translation by Rabbi David Aaron de Sola of “Yah Ribon” by Rabbi Yisrael Najara was first published in his Ancient Melodies of the Spanish and Portuguese Jews (1857).

A piyyut of divine-closeness by Yisrael Najara.

“Odeh La-Él” sings to the waking soul, calling on it to return to the service of the Divine.

In many eastern Sephardic and Mizraḥi communities, there is a custom that a poetic “ketubah,” or marriage-contract, is recited before the Torah service on Shavuot. This custom, based on the midrashic idea that the Torah is the ketubah for the marriage between the bride Israel and the groom God, is beloved by the ḳabbalists. By far the most commonly used Shavuot ketubah is that of the great paytan and meḳubal Yisrael ben Moshe Najara, who wrote the following some time in the sixteenth century. This is a new translation of Najara’s poem.

This translation of the piyyut for Shabbat by Shlomo Al-Qabets can be found in HaAvodah SheBaLev – the Service of the Heart (Kehilat Kol HaNeshama, Jerusalem, 2007).

A pizmon and table song sung on Shabbat and on Lag ba-Omer with English translation.

A (kosher-for-Passover) prayer for redemption from exile.

“Bore ‘Ad Anah” is a ḳinah recited in a number of Sephardic communities on Tishah b’Av (or in some cases on Shabbat Hazon, the Shabbat preceding Tishah b’Av), particularly in the Spanish-Portuguese and North African traditions. The author is unknown, but his name is likely Binyamin based on the acrostic made up of the first letters of the verses. In the kinah, the Children of Israel are compared to a wandering dove caught in a trap by predators, crying out its father, God. The ḳinah was likely written as a poignant response to the Spanish Inquisition, appropriate to Tishah b’Av since the expulsion of the Jews from Spain occurred on the 9th of Av in the year 1492. The version presented here was likely censored, as many manuscripts have the fifth verse presented in the following manner directly calling out their Catholic oppressors,” יועצים עליה עצות היא אנושה זרים העובדים אלילים שלושה אם ובן ורוח כי אין להם בושה גדול ממכאובי.” “They counsel against her and she languishes, the strangers who worship three idols, father, son and spirit, for they have no shame and great is my suffering.”

“Odeh La-Él” sings to the waking soul, calling on it to return to the service of the Divine.

Modeh Ani first appeared as an addendum in Seder ha-Yom (1599) by Moshe ibn Makhir of Safed. A slightly different formula offers a deep insight into who and what has returned to one’s self upon waking.

Modeh Ani, in Hebrew with English translation by Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi.

Chapter three of Rabbi Mosheh Cordovero’s Tomer Devorah, concerning the relationship between Wisdom and Empathy and its expression in the humane treatment of all living creatures.

Behold, a full text of the Megillah of Fustat, telling a story of a great miracle that happened in 1524 CE (5284 AM).

A full alphabetical acrostic version of the Barukh shèAmar prayer, part of the uniquely complex old Romaniote-rite Psuqei d-Zimra liturgy as found in as found in the 1523 Venice printing of the Maḥzor Romaniote.

The announcement of an upcoming new moon for Shabbat Mevorkhim, according to the old Romaniote rite as found in the 1523 Venice printing of the Maḥzor Romaniote. Featuring a long catena of prophetic verses of salvation, followed by an announcement of the date in Aramaic.

The Seder ha-Tamid, a Provençal (Nusaḥ Comtat Venaissin) siddur published in Avignon in 1766, has liturgical additions for an amazing five different local festivals — one for Avignon, and two each for Carpentras and Cavaillon. Here’s a series of piyyutim for the fifteenth of Kislev in Carpentras. On 15 Kislev 5273 (24 November 1512 Julian), a troop of armed men entered the Jewish quarter in Carpentras. While we don’t know much else beyond that, we do know that this was a terrifying enough occurrence to the Jews of Carpentras that when the armed men left, a holiday was declared with multiple piyyutim and a full recitation of Hallel.

A translation of Ḥad Gadya into Esperanto by Erin Piateski with a Hebraicization schema for Esperanto by Isaac Gantwerk Mayer. Piateski’s translation first appeared in her כוכב ירוק הגדה של פסח | Verda Stelo Hagado de Pesaĥo (2010).

Eḥad Mi Yodea has a place in Seder tables throughout Arda, and in many communities it was read in translation. This translation into Quenya is necessary for any good Lothlórien sedarim. But to be serious, Quenya was one of several languages developed by J.R.R. Tolkien. It serves as the sacred ancestral language of the Noldorin elves in the Middle-Earth legendarium. The editor here has developed this adaptation of the well-known seder table-song Eḥad Mi Yodea into Quenya, with thanks and credit to the experts at elfdict for their help. He has also transcribed it into a home-brewed transcription system into Hebrew script also used for his Min Yacincë translation of Ḥad Gadya.

A Judeo-Moroccan Arabic (Darija) adaptation of the Passover counting song Eḥad Mi Yodeaȝ, as found in Mahzor Moȝadé Hashem.

Eḥad Mi Yodéa is a counting-song that is a beloved part of Seders the world over. Counting up to 13, it is mostly written in Hebrew, but there are versions that can be found in many different languages. This translation is in the Judeo-Italian dialect of Siena, based on Geremia Mario Castelnuovo’s 1956 recording from Leo Levi’s collection of Judeo-Italian ethnomusicological recordings. A link to the original recording can be found here.

The text of the popular Passover song “Who Knows One?” in Hebrew set side-by-side with an Aramaic translation.

Eḥad Mi Yodéa is a counting-song that is a beloved part of Seders the world over. It is mostly written in Hebrew, counting up to 13, but there are versions that can be found in many different languages. This translation is in Bukhori, also known as Judeo-Tajik, as translated by the great Shimon ben Eliyahu Ḥakham (1843-1910), the chief rabbi of the Bukharan Jewish community in Jerusalem. His full translation of all liturgical additions in the month of Nisan for the Bukharan community can be found in חוקת הפסח Ḥuqat haPesaḥ (1904) – the source for this transcription on page 128-130 (see included). Shimon Ḥakham transcribed it into vocalized Hebrew script, which is included here alongside transliterations into Tajik Cyrillic and a Roman transcription.

This is a German translation of the first nine stanzas of the counting song popularly sung at the Passover seder, made by Paul Christian Kirchner in 1717.

The text of the popular counting song “Who Knows One?” in its original Hebrew, with a translation in Latin.

The text of the popular Passover song “Who Knows One?” in its original Hebrew and Yiddish, with a translation in English.

By a 16th century paytan named Yitsḥaq, this is a Purim parody of the Havdalah (and Yom Kippur) piyyuṭ “HaMavdil,” found in Israel Davidson’s classic work Parody in Jewish Literature (1907), pp. 36-37.

Ḥad Gadya has a place in Seder tables throughout the Jewish quadrant, and in many communities it was read in translation. This adaptation into tlhIngan Hol is very useful for when your universal translator is malfunctioning at a Seder on Qo’noS. Okay, but to be serious for a moment, while the many connections between the canon of Star Trek and the Jewish community are well known, one of the lesser-known ones is that the inventor of tlhIngan Hol (the Klingon language), Marc Okrand, is Jewish, and a substantial number of Klingon terms come from Hebrew or Yiddish. In honor of that connection, the editor has developed this adaptation of the well-known seder table-song Ḥad Gadya into tlhIngan Hol, as well as a home-brewed transcription system into Hebrew script called pIluy. The wildlife has also been adapted, so instead of a goat the story begins with one little targ. (Sure, they might LOOK like pigs, but who knows if they chew cud or not!)

This is the translation of Ḥad Gadya into Judeo-Valyrian with a Hebraicization schema for Valyrian by Isaac Gantwerk Mayer.

Ḥad Gadya has a place in Seder tables throughout Arda, and in many communities it was read in translation. This translation into Quenya is necessary for any good Lothlórien sedarim. But to be serious, Quenya was one of several languages developed by J.R.R. Tolkien. It serves as the sacred ancestral language of the Noldorin elves in the Middle-Earth legendarium. The editor here has developed this adaptation of the well-known seder table-song Ḥad Gadya into Quenya, as well as a home-brewed transcription system into Hebrew script included here (PDF | ODT). This translation uses several fan-made terms, such as cuimacir for “butcher” and luhtya- for “extinguish”, as well as one original neologism, yacincë for “kid-goat.”

A translation of Ḥad Gadya into Esperanto by Erin Piateski with a Hebraicization schema for Esperanto by Isaac Gantwerk Mayer. Piateski’s translation first appeared in her כוכב ירוק הגדה של פסח | Verda Stelo Hagado de Pesaĥo (2010).

A revolutionary socialist, Yiddish adaptation of Ḥad Gadya in Aramaic, with Yiddish and English translations.

This is a German translation of the Passover table-song Ḥad Gadya as translated by Paul Christian Kirchner in 1717.

Ḥad Gadya has a place in Seder tables throughout the Jewish quadrant, and in many communities it was read in translation. This adaptation into the language of the Na’vi is very useful when celebrating liberation from the tyrannical RDA.

In our timeline, the Kaifeng Jewish community had originally spoken Persian as their lingua franca, before adopting the Kaifeng dialect of Mandarin that their neighbors spoke. But just change a little and all of history could be different! This is a translation of Ḥad Gadya in a timeline where Judeo-Aramaic was a little more prevalent in eastern Persia all those years ago. In this timeline, instead of speaking Judeo-Persian before adopting Chinese, the Kaifeng Jews spoke Aramaic. And this dialect of Aramaic, like many other languages spoken in the greater Chinese cultural sphere, underwent tonogenesis!

Ḥad Gadya has a place in Seder tables throughout the Jewish world, and in many communities it was read in translation. Probably not this one though, seeing as it was written more than five hundred years after the Tocharian language family went extinct. But maybe, in an alternate timeline, some of the Radhanites who traded along the Silk Road in the heyday of the Tocharians ended up settling in the Tarim Basin (in present-day Xinjiang/East Turkestan), and in this timeline where Tocharian survived the Jews of that region might sing something like this at their sedarim. This is a Tocharian B translation and Hebrew-script transcription of Ḥad Gadya. Unicode does not currently have Tocharian-script coverage, but in the event that it is ever introduced I’ll type it up!

A Luganda translation of Ḥad Gadya. Luganda is the vernacular language of the Abayudaya Jewish community of Uganda. Also included is a system for Hebrew transliteration of Luganda texts!

This is a translation of Ḥad Gadya into Guaraní, a vernacular language in Paraguay and central South America.

This is “Had Gadiâ | Un Cabri: La Légende de l’Agneau (Poésie chaldaico-provençale, chantée a la table de famille les soirs de Paques),” a translation of Ḥad Gadya into French by Dom Pedro Ⅱ (1825-1891), emperor of Brazil, as published in Poésies hébraïco-provençales du rituel israélite comtadin traduites et transcriptes par S. M. D. Pedro Ⅱ, de Alcântara, empereur du Brésil (1891), pp. 45-59. A note on the last page indicates the translation was made in Vichy, France on 30 July 1891.

Ḥad Gadya has a place in Seder tables throughout the Jewish world, and in many communities it was read in translation. The Caribbean island of Curaçao is home to the oldest Jewish community west of the Atlantic, and its local creole language of Papiamentu has substantial Jewish influence. This is a translation of Ḥad Gadya into Papiamentu, along with a transcription into Hebrew according to a new methodology for Papiamentu in Hebrew.

A Judezmo/Ladino translation of the popular Passover song, Ḥad Gadya.

A Judeo-Berber translation of the popular Passover song, Ḥad Gadya.

A Judeo-Tajik translation of the popular Passover song, Ḥad Gadya.

A Judeo-Tajik translation of the popular Passover song, Ḥad Gadya.

A Čveneburuli (Judeo-Georgian) translation of the popular Passover song, Ḥad Gadya.

A Yevanic (Judeo-Greek) translation of the popular Passover song, Ḥad Gadya.