Am Grabe einer jungen Schwester | At the grave of one’s younger sister, a teḥinah by Lise Tarlau (1907)

Contributor(s):

Aharon N. Varady (transcription), Aharon N. Varady (translation) and Lise Tarlau

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9 January 2023 under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike (CC BY-SA) 4.0 International copyleft license

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Mourning

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Source (German)	Translation (English)
Am Grabe einer jungen Schwester.	At the Grave of one’s younger sister.
Junge Schwester! Früh gestorben, Ruhst du hier von keinem Leide, Denn dem Leid der letzten Stunde. Träumst vielleicht in enger Truhe Von den ungelebten Freuden, Von den ungelittnen Schmerzen, Die das Leben dir versagt.	Young sister! Prematurely dead, You rest here from any suffering, From the suffering of the final hour. Dreaming perhaps in a narrow chest Of the unlived joys, Of the unlived pains, Which life denies you.
Junge Schwester, lieblich warst du Und so teuer meinem Herzen, Daß zuweilen ich mich scheute Deine reine Stirn zu rühren, Wenn ich von dem Lärm der Straße Heimkam in das Haus der Eltern Und dein milder Blick mich traf.	Young sister, lovely you were And so dear to my heart, That at times I was afraid To touch your pure brow, When I came home from the tumult of the street When I came home to my parents’ house And your gentle gaze met me.
Junge Schwester, gerne lehnt’ ich Dann mein Haupt in Deine Hände. Du, die meines Bluts gewesen, Die mir ähnlich, mich verstanden, Und doch klar wie kühles Wasser Mich mir selbst im Spiegel zeigte, Schwester, welch ein Trost warst du!	Young sister, with pleasure I rested Once, my head in your hands. You, who have been my blood, Who resembled me, understood me, And yet clear as cool water Showed me myself in the mirror, Sister, what a comfort you were!
Junge Schwester, wenn das Leben Mir zu wild wird, wenn ich selber Mich im Taumel fast verliere, Flüchte wieder ich zu dir. Schläfst du auch den letzten Schlummer, — Daß du mir einst nah gewesen, Stärkt mich stets zu neuem Weg.	Young sister, when life Becomes too wild for me, when I Almost lose myself in the frenzy, I flee to you again. Even though you sleep your last slumber,— That you were once close to me, Always strengthens me anew.
Junge Schwester, wie ein lichtes, Zartes Bild in feinen Farben, Stehst vor meiner Seele du. Früh bist du den Weg gegangen, Den ich einst dir folgen werde, Und das unbekannte Dunkel Wurde so zur Heimat mir.	Young sister, like a bright, Delicate portrait in fine colors, You stand before my soul. Early you have gone the way, Which I will follow one day, And the unknown darkness Will too become my home.
Junge Schwester, Frieden hast du Mir geschenkt aus all der Fülle Deines friederfüllten Herzens. Friede werde selber dir! Schlafe still und keine Sehnsucht Möge deinen Schlummer stören, Bis der Herr dich einst erweckt!	Young sister, peace you have Given to me out of the abundance Of your peace-filled heart. May peace be yours! Sleep quietly and may no longing Disturb your slumber, Until the Lord awakens you!

“Am Grabe einer jungen Schwester” by Lisa Tarlau can be found in Rabbi Max Grunwald’s anthology of Jewish women’s prayer, Beruria: Gebet- und Andachtsbuch für jüdische Frauen und Mädchen (1907), pages 547-549.

The transcription of the German provided machine-readable text for machine translations by DeepL, which we then edited for accuracy and clarity. We welcome any/all corrections, improvements, and additional transcriptions and translations of this work’s contents. –Aharon Varady

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“Am Grabe einer jungen Schwester | At the grave of one’s younger sister, a teḥinah by Lise Tarlau (1907)” is shared by the living contributor(s) with a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International copyleft license.

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.)

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.)

Lise Tarlau

Lise Tarlau (also known as L'Ysaye/Isaye/Ysaye/Ysale, Lisa, Lize, Elizabeth, Luise, and Louise Tarleau; 1879-1952), was a writer born to a prominent Viennese Bohemian Jewish family, the daughter of Rabbi Dr. Joseph Samuel Bloch and Laura Lachmann. In an essay published in 1906, "The Religious Problem," she expressed enthusiasm for Zionism and a deep sympathy for East European, Yiddish speaking Jewry, praising them for having retained their own distinctive cultural identity and their own language. This posture was accompanied by harsh criticism of Western European Jewish cultural assimilation, writing that they have “lived as parasites on the creative possibilities of the dreams of beauty of other peoples” (as quoted in Peter Singer's Pushing Time Away, 2003). Before emigrating to the United States in 1908, nearly two dozen prayers she wrote were published in Beruria (1907), an anthology of teḥinot in German compiled by her sister's husband Rabbi Dr. Max Grunwald. A decade later in the US, Houghton Mifflin Company and Riverside Press published The Inn of Disenchantment (1917), a collection of her prose and several short stories. Tarlau's fiction also appeared in major magazines of the day, including The Nation (105:2725, September 20, 1917), The Atlantic Monthly (in 1919), and Harper's Magazine. In 1924, her short story "Loutré" was awarded second place in Harper's first ever short story contest. During World War II, she wrote a number of scripts for radio and film and worked as a translator for the US military. Several of her works were included in The Fireside Book of Romance (ed. C. Edward Wagenknecht, 1948). She died on October 9, 1952 in Kew Gardens, Queens, Long Island, New York.

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ויהי נעם אדני אלהינו עלינו ומעשה ידינו כוננה עלינו ומעשה ידינו כוננהו "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