Bénissons is a French adaptation of the table song, Bendigamos, a hymn sung after meals according to the custom of Western Sepharadim, Jews who found refuge from the Inquisition of the Iberian Peninsula in occidental lands. It is similar in meaning to the Birkat Hamazon (Blessing after Meals). Bendigamos is said in addition to Birkat Hamazon, usually immediately after it. The text was contributed by the pioneering French pedagogue David Lévi Alvarès to the collection of songs of the Jewish-Portuguese community of Paris: Hymnes sacrées à l’usage des Israélites français, composées sur les airs hébraïques-portugais les plus connus (1825). (We have had difficulty locating a copy of this work. If you have access to, or own a copy, please contact us.) The text here is as found in “Les Juifs espagnols de Saint-Esprit” by Henry Léon in in Annales de la Faculte des Lettres de Bordeaux: Bulletin Hispanique (Tome IX, 1907), p.282 — where it is compared with Bendigamos.

Bénissons/Bendigamos probably originated among the Sepharadim who settled in Bordeaux, a Hispanophone rather than Lusophone community. (Find below, a recording of Bénissons — with thanks to the Jewish Community of Bordeaux.) From France, Bendigamos was probably brought to the Dutch West-Indies island of Curaçao in the mid-nineteenth century and from there brought to New York, Amsterdam, and some other Western Sepharadi communities. Alternatively, the song may have originated with Sepharadi Jews living in Spain, who then immigrated to Turkey, other locales in the Ottoman Empire, and the Netherlands. It may originally have been written as a secret way to say the Birkat HaMazon after practicing Judaism in Spain and Portugal was forbidden in the fifteenth century.

English translation of the French by Aharon Varady. (“Who can know all one’s flaws? From hidden errors, correct me.” — Psalms 19:!3)

Recording(s)

Source(s)

“Bénissons, a French table song for the Birkat haMazon (ca. 18th c.)” is shared through the Open Siddur Project with a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International copyleft license.

Joshua de Sola Mendes (transcription)

Joshua de Sola Mendis is the editor of S&P Central, a purely volunteer effort devoted to sharing information, interest and a sense of connection among Spanish & Portuguese Jewish communities around the world -- also known as Western Sephardim. With their special history, minhag, melodies, and cuisine, it is hoped that S&P and related communities will know more of one another and be able to share their knowledge and love of our mutual traditions.

David Lévi Alvarès

David Lévi Alvarès (October 7, 1794 - July 16, 1870) born in Bordeaux,, was a French teacher and pedagogue. One of the founders of historical education in France, he devoted himself to the teaching of young girls, opening a kindergarten in Paris in 1820 and founding a normal course for female teachers at the Hôtel de Ville in 1833.

Unknown Author(s)

Sometimes the best we can do in attributing a historical work is to indicate the period and place it was written, the first prayer book it may have been printed in, or the archival collection in which the manuscript was found. We invite the public to help to attribute all works to their original composers. If you know something not mentioned in the commentary offered, please leave a comment or contact us.

Aharon N. Varady (translation)

Aharon Varady (M.A.J.Ed./JTSA Davidson) is a volunteer translator for the Open Siddur Project. If you find any mistakes in his translations, 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 transcribes prayers and contributes his own original work besides serving as the primary shammes for the Open Siddur Project and its website, opensiddur.org.)

Works of related interest:

 

Prière de table d’un enfant | A Child’s Table Prayer, by Jonas Ennery & Rabbi Arnaud Aron (1852)

Bendigamos al Altísimo, a Spanish song for the Birkat haMazon

Ya Komimos (We have eaten), a piyyut for the Birkat haMazon in Ladino

צוּר מִשֶּׁלּוֹ אָכַֽלְנוּ | Tsur Mishelo Akhalnu, a paraliturgical Birkat haMazon (rhymed translation by Alice Lucas, 1898)

צוּר מִשֶּׁלּוֹ אָכַֽלְנוּ | Tsur Mishelo Akhalnu, a paraliturgical Birkat haMazon (translation by Sara-Kinneret Lapidot)

צוּר מִשֶּׁלּוֹ אָכַֽלְנוּ | Tsur Mishelo Akhalnu, a paraliturgical Birkat haMazon (translation by Nina Salaman 1914)

Étkezés utáni ima | Gebet nach dem Speisen | Prayer after the meal, a paraliturgical Birkat haMazon by Rabbi Arnold Kiss (1897)

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