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This is a poetic rendering of the sixth blessing (of the Sheva Brakhot/7 Blessings) for a wedding. It riffs off of themes and language in the Hebrew text of joy, love, and companionship, and invocations of the Garden of Eden, creation, and eternity. Written originally for the wedding of friends; I hope you’ll feel free to adapt and rework it however suits your needs!
| Source (Hebrew) | Translation (English) |
|---|---|
שַׂמֵּֽחַ תְּשַׂמַּח רֵעִים הָאֲהוּבִים |
May you bask in outrageous joy in the radiant glow of your companion, your beloved, your friend — pure and perfect each moment in each other’s presence as if you were just created tasting eternity looking into his face, looking into her face |
כְּשַׂמֵּחֲךָ יְצִירְךָ |
May you laugh all of your laughter, and also cry all of your tears |
בְּגַן עֵֽדֶן מִקֶּֽדֶם. |
May you know the joy of gardens: gardens of flowers and fruit of bees and butterflies of vines and hummingbirds and clear ponds gardens of surprise and delight of challenge and struggle of growth and birth and death |
From the garden may you learn to be rooted in the good Earth to weather the stormy rains and calm sunny skies to make friends with those that crawl down below, those unseen ones who maintain the very foundations | |
May you dance and work and love and cry and look deeply until you can no longer tell the difference between this moment and paradise | |
בָּרוּךְ אַתָּה יְיָ מְשַׂמֵּֽחַ חָתָן וְכַלָּה׃ |
and give gratitude to the Source that renews your rejoicing over and over |
“הברכה שמח תשמח | Blessing for Joy: A Poetic Rendering of Sheva Brakhah no. 6 (Same’aḥ T’samaḥ), by Daniel Kieval” is shared through the Open Siddur Project with a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license.
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Diadasia Bee Straddles Opuntia engelmannii Cactus Flower Carpels (close-up) (credit: Jessie Eastland, license: CC BY-SA)
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The Open Siddur Project is a volunteer-driven, non-profit, non-commercial, non-denominational, non-prescriptive, gratis & libre Open Access archive of contemplative praxes, liturgical readings, and Jewish prayer literature (historic and contemporary, familiar and obscure) composed in every era, region, and language Jews have ever prayed. Our goal is to provide a platform for sharing open-source resources, tools, and content for individuals and communities crafting their own prayerbook (siddur). Through this we hope to empower personal autonomy, preserve customs, and foster creativity in religious culture.
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
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