מוֹדה אֲנִי | Returning the body to the soul: an adaptation of Modeh Ani by Moshe ibn Makhir

Contributor(s):

Ya'qub Ibn Yusuf, Aharon N. Varady and Mosheh ben Yehudah ibn Makhir

Shared on:

ל׳ בשבט ה׳תשע״ג (2013-02-10) under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike (CC BY-SA) 4.0 International copyleft license

Categories:

Birkhot haShaḥar

Tags:

Wakefulness, Gratitude, thankfulness, waking, 21st century C.E., 58th century A.M., מודה אני Modeh Ani, מודים Modim

Last year around this time, I was sitting with Ya’qub ibn Yusuf in his bookstore, Olam Qatan (then at 54 Emek Refaim in South Jerusalem), asking if he might share some useful practice that I might share through the Open Siddur Project. He offered this thought which he had heard from someone else. (Unfortunately, Ya’qub could not remember who taught this insight. If you know its origin, please share in the comments.) He said,

I have difficulty with the idea of thanking God for “returning my soul to me” sheheḥezarta bi nishmati when I’m getting up with an awareness of trying to stay in touch with my dreams. It’s not my soul that’s been missing through the night; I’m returning to experience my body. So I much prefer what I heard someone suggest, that instead of saying nishmati (my soul), to say instead han’shamati (the embodiment of my soul). I thank God for returning me to my body — my soul was never missing! In the words of my Sufi teacher Murat Yagan, “I am a soul, and I have a body.”

Hebrew (source)	English (translation)
מוֹדָה\|מוֹדֶה אֲנִי לְפָנֶיךָ מֶֽלֶךְ חַי וְקַיָּם שֶׁהֶחֱזַרְתָּ בִּי הַנְשָׁמַתִי בְּחֶמְלָה רַבָּה אֱמוּנָתֶךָ‏׃	So thankful am I before you, Living and enduring Majesty, for you have returned to me the embodiment of my soul with compassion. So great is your faith!

Modeh Ani first appeared as an addendum in Seder ha-Yom (1599) by Moshe ibn Makhir of Safed. Translation is mine. Read more on Modeh Ani from Shmuel Gonzales at Hardcore Mesorah.

Ya'qub Ibn Yusuf

Ya'qub Ibn Yusuf is the proprietor of Olam Qatan bookstore in South Jerusalem. A really wonderful story of his personal journey can be found on youtube, here.

Aharon N. Varady

Founding director of the Open Siddur Project, Aharon Varady is a community planner (M.C.P.) and Jewish educator (M.A. J.Ed.) working to improve stewardship of the Public Domain, be it the physical and natural commons of urban park systems or the creative and cultural commons of Torah study. His work on the adoption of Open Source strategies in the Jewish community has been written about in the Yiddish Forverts, the Atlantic Magazine, Tablet, and Haaretz. Aharon Varady studied environmental planning and planning history at DAAP/University of Cincinnati, and the intersection of theurgy, experiential education, and ecology at the Davidson School of Education/JTSA. Here at opensiddur.org, he serves as hierophant, welcoming new users, adding new posts, and keeping the site up-to-date. If you find any mistakes in his translations or transcriptions, please let him know. Shgiyot mi yavin, Ministarot Nakeni שְׁגִיאוֹת מִי־יָבִין; מִנִּסְתָּרוֹת נַקֵּנִי "Who can know all one's flaws? From hidden errors, correct me" (Psalms 19:13). If you find his work helpful to your own or you'd simply like to support him, please consider donating via his Patreon account.

Mosheh ben Yehudah ibn Makhir

Rabbi Moshe ben Yehudah ibn Makhir was a kabbalist who flourished among the luminaries in 16th century Tsfat. He is best known for the author of the waking prayer "Modeh Ani" and for his work Seder HaYom, printed for the first time in Venice in 1599. He also founded a yeshiva in the village of Ein Zeitoun (near Tsfat).

Stable Link:

http://opensiddur.org/?p=5924

Featured Image:

I don’t Like Being Woken Up (Credit: Mac_NZ, license: CC-BY 2.0) (image)

Please reciprocate for any adaptation or redistribution of this work by (1) properly attributing the work to Ya'qub Ibn Yusuf, Aharon N. Varady and Mosheh ben Yehudah ibn Makhir, (2) clearly indicating the date you accessed the resource and whether any changes have been made (and if so, please be in touch with us and leave a comment below so that we might note your adaptation or improvement), (3) providing a link back to this source, and (4) specifying the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike (CC BY-SA) 4.0 International copyleft license under which this work was shared.

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The Open Siddur Project is a volunteer-driven, non-profit, non-denominational, non-prescriptive, gratis & libré 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.

This work was prepared and presented through the effort of Aharon Varady. Please consider supporting his work on this project through your patronage.

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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מוֹדה אֲנִי | Returning the body to the soul: an adaptation of Modeh Ani by Moshe ibn Makhir