קְבֵלְתָּא דְּלִבָּאִי | Qevelta de-Liba’i (My Heart’s Lament), by Asher Hillel Burstein

Contributor(s):

Asher Hillel Burstein

Shared on:

29 July 2022 under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike (CC BY-SA) 4.0 International copyleft license

Categories:

Self-Reflection

Tags:

heartbreak, lamentation, זמירות zemirot, Aramaic, 21st century C.E., 58th century A.M.

Qevelta de-Liba’i (“My Heart’s Lament”) is a melancholy song I wrote in Targumic Judeo-Aramaic in 2010. This piece is an existential peek into an old man’s private moment. He looks in the mirror and waxes wistful, longing for his bygone youth.

TOGGLE COLUMNS (on/off):

ADJUST COLUMN POSITIONS: select the column header cell and drag it where you want. show me!

COPY INDIVIDUAL COLUMN(S): use CopyTables, a browser extension.

TABLE HELP

Source (Judeo-Aramaic)

Translation (English)

אֵימָא לִי טַלְיָא, אֵימָא
אֵימָא לִי טַלְיָא.
מִי חֲזֵיתָא אַפַּי יוֹמָא דֵּין?
מִי חֲזֵיתָא אַפַּי?
אִינְּהוּ אִיעֲצִיבוּ לַחֲדָא
אֲרֵי בְּחַרְתְּ אַחֲרִינָא.
וְיָתִי, וְיָתִי
תָּרֵיכְתְּ מִלִבָּךְ.

Tell me, boy, tell me
Tell me, boy.
Have you seen my face today?
Have you seen my face?
It has become very sad
Because you have chosen another.
And me, and me
You have driven from your heart.

אֵימָא לִי טַלְיָא, אֵימָא
אֵימָא לִי טַלְיָא.
שְׁבַקְתְּ יָתִי יְחִידַי בְּעָלְמָא
שְׁבַקְתְּ יָתִי יְחִידַי.
וּזְמַר דִּילִי הֲוָה לִילָלָא
עֵינִי זַלְגָּת דִּמְעָן.
בְּרַם לִמְחַר יְקוּם לִי נְהוֹר
וְעֲתִיד שִׁמְשָׁא לְאַנְהָרָא.

Tell me, boy, tell me
Tell me, boy.
You have left me alone in the world
You have left me alone.
And my song has become a lament
My eye sheds tears.
But tomorrow a light will rise for me
And the sun will yet shine.

Qevelta de-Liba’i (“My Heart’s Lament”) was written by Asher Hillel Burstein in Targumic Judeo-Aramaic in 2010.

. Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike . 4.0 . International .

“קְבֵלְתָּא דְּלִבָּאִי | Qevelta de-Liba’i (My Heart’s Lament), by Asher Hillel Burstein” is shared through the Open Siddur Project with a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International copyleft license.

Asher Hillel Burstein

Asher Hillel Burstein is a cantor, poet, singer-songwriter, and teacher. Besides his education in various yeshivot, a bachelors degree in Hebrew, an MFA in Fiction Writing, and a masters in Jewish Studies, he is working on a third masters degree in Secondary English Education while finishing up his doctorate in Creative Writing.

Pocket Pinterest Reddit 𝕏 Facebook Telegram WhatsApp SMS Email

Works of related interest:

"Orchard at Sunset" (credit: "Public Domain Pictures", license CC0)

אֵלִי כְּבוֹדִי: זמר לסעודה השלישית | Eli Kevodi (My God, My Glory), a hymn for the third sabbath meal by Asher Hillel Burstein

חֲנִינָא בֶּן דּוֹסָא | Ḥanina ben Dosa, a song by Asher Hillel Burstein

Ḥai Olamim (Life of the Worlds): Journeys in Jewish Sacred Music (Richard Kaplain 2003)

קִינָה לְחֻרְבַּן גַּן עֵדֶן | Qinah leḤurban Gan Aden, an eco-lament by Richard Kaplan (2003)

The Cunard liner Lusitania speeding past the Fastnet lighthouse, probably outward bound for New York on her maiden voyage, painting by Norman Wilkinson (1907)

Prayer for Our Country, a lament on the necessity of war by Rev. Harry Emerson Fosdick (1917)

[Field by night] (credit: n/a, license CC0)

Молитва про захист наших сердець від ненависті | תפילה לשמירה על ליבנו משנאה (בזמן המלחמה) | Prayer to Protect Our Hearts from Hatred in Wartime, by Miriam Klimova (2022)

An illustration of Seraḥ later titled (on postcards) "Shirat bat Tsiyon," originally published at the beginning of the chapter "Lieder des Lebens" (Songs of Life) in Lieder des Ghetto (1902) by Ephraim Moses Lilien

סֶֽרַח בַּת־אָשֵׁר | Seraḥ bat Asher, a Havdalah Song by Isaac Gantwerk Mayer

Star-forming region S106 (captured by the Hubble Space Telescope)

Asher Yatsar (The One Who Forms), by Rabbi Elliot Kukla

prev next

Comments, Corrections, and QueriesCancel reply

Stable Link: https://opensiddur.org/?p=45905

Associated Image:

A beam of light being dispersed by a prism. (credit: LucasVB, license: CC BY-SA)

(This image is set to automatically show as the "featured image" in shared links on social media.)

Source Data: XML | JSON

Re-formatted: HTML | ODT

Terms of Use: Be a mentsch (a conscientious, considerate person) and adhere to the following guidelines:

Properly attribute the work to Asher Hillel Burstein.
Clearly indicate the date you accessed the work and in what ways, if any, you modified it. (If you have adapted the work, let us know so that the contributor might consider endorsing your revision.)
Provide the stable link to this resource: <https://opensiddur.org/?p=45905>.
Indicate that the original work was shared under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike (CC BY-SA) 4.0 International copyleft license. (To redistribute or remix this work in any format, modified or unmodified, you must refer to the terms of the license under which the work is shared.)

Additional Notes:

The views expressed in this work represent the views of their creator(s) and do not necessarily represent the views of the Open Siddur Project's developers, its diverse community of contributors, patrons, or institutional partners.
We strongly advise against printing sacred texts and art containing divine names as these copies must be regarded with reverence, complicating their casual treatment and disposal.
If you must dispose of a printed sacred text (one containing Divine Names), please locate the closest genizah (often established by a synagogue) and contact its custodians for further instructions. We also recommend using Morah Yehudis Fishman's Prayer for Adding a Work to the Genizah.

Support this work: The Open Siddur Project is a volunteer-driven, non-profit, 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. If you like what you've found here, please help keep our project alive and online with your financial contribution.

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