יְדִיד נֶפֶשׁ | Yedid Nefesh, a piyyut transmitted by Elazar ben Moshe Azikri (ca. 16th c.) interpretive translation by Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi

Contributor(s):

Zalman Schachter-Shalomi and Elazar ben Moshe Azikri

Shared on:

כ׳ במרחשון ה׳תשע״ה (2014-11-13) under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike (CC BY-SA) 4.0 International copyleft license

Categories:

Kabbalat Shabbat, Birkhot haShaḥar

Tags:

interpretive translation, acrostic, פיוטים piyyutim, בקשות Baqashot, פתיחות Petiḥot, ידיד נפש Yedid Nefesh, 16th century C.E., 54th century A.M., Divine name acrostic

Source (Hebrew)	Translation (English)
יְדִיד נֶֽפֶשׁ אָב הָרַחֲמָן, מְשׁוֹךְ עַבְדְּךְ אֶל־רְצוֹנֶֽךָ, יָרוּץ עַבְדְּךָ כְּמוֹ אַיָּל, יִשְׁתַּחֲוֶה אֶל מוּל הֲדָרֶֽךָ, יֶעֱרַב לוֹ יְדִידוּתֶֽיךָ, מִנֹּֽפֶת צוּף וְכׇל־טָֽעַם׃	You who love my soul Compassion’s gentle source, Take my disposition and shape it to Your will. Like a darting deer I will flee to You. Before Your glorious Presence Humbly I do bow. Let Your sweet love Delight me with its thrill Because no other dainty Will my hunger still.
הָדוּר נָאֶה זִיו הָעוֹלָם, נַפְשִׁי חוֹלַת אַהֲבָתֶֽךָ, אָנָּא אֵל־נָא רְפָא נָא לָהּ, בְּהַרְאוֹת לָהּ נֹֽעַם זִיוֶֽךָ, אָז תִּתְחַזֵּק וְתִתְרַפֵּא, וְהָֽיְתָה לָּהּ שִׂמְחַת עוֹלָם׃	How splendid is Your light Which worlds do reflect! My soul is worn from craving For Your love’s delight. Please, good God, do heal her^[1] cf. Numbers 12:13. And show to her Your face, So my soul can see You And bathe in Your grace. There she will find strength And healing in this sight. Her joy will be complete then Eternal her delight.
וָתִיק יֶהֱמוּ רַחֲמֶֽיךָ, וְחוּסָה נָּא עַל בֵּן אֲהוּבֶֽךָ, כִּי־זֶה כַּמָּה נִכְסוֹף נִכְסַֽפְתִּי, לִרְאוֹת בְּתִפְאֶֽרֶת עֻזֶּֽךָ, אֵֽלֶּה חָמְדָה לִבִּי, וְחֽוּסָה נָּא וְאַל תִּתְעַלָּם׃	What pity stirs in You Since days of old, my God! Be kind to me Your own child Begotten by Your love. For long and longing hours I yearned for Your embrace To see my light in Your light Basking in Your grace. My heart’s desire is To harmonize with Yours Do not conceal Your pity Hide not that light of Yours.
הִגָּלֶה נָא וּפְרוֹס חָבִיבִי עָלַי אֶת־סֻכַּת שְׁלוֹמֶֽךָ, תָּאִיר אֶֽרֶץ מִכְּבוֹדֶֽךָ, נָגִֽילָה וְנִשְׂמְחָה בָּךְ, מַהֵר אָהוּב כִּי בָא מוֹעֵד, וְחָנֵּֽנוּ כִּימֵי עוֹלָם׃	Help, my Lover, spread Your canopy of peace. Enfold all human beings Give all pain surcease. Your presence on this earth plane Do make known to us And we shall respond then With song and with dance. Rush, my love, be quick, The time for love is now, Let Your gentle favor Grace us as of old…

“Yedid Nefesh” is a piyyut first published in the Sefer Haḥaredim (1588) of Rabbi Elazar Moshe Azikri (1533-1600). The authorship of the piyyut is not completely certain. A version of the piyyut “with noteworthy text, spelling and pointing” may be found on folio 146 (verso) of Samuel b. David b. Solomon’s Commentary On the Book of Numbers (ca. 1437 CE).^[2] Find Stefan C. Reif’s The Hebrew Manuscripts at Cambridge University Libraries: A Description and Introduction Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997, page 93. Reif attributes Yedid Nefesh to Azkiri. Presumably, the text must have been added to the 15th century manuscript sometime after the publication of Sefer Haḥaredim. It would be very nice to see a digitized image of this manuscript page from the CUL collection! Yedid Nefesh also appears in Moscow – Russian State Library, Ms. Guenzburg 320 as the last of “a polyglot of at least 24 different items written in different stages” (find Dr. Ezra Chwat, גילוי מילתא בעלמא Giluy Milta B’alma). Yedid Nefesh appears there under the following headline: ד’ בתים של שם בן ד’ ב”ה ששמענו מפי קדוש מכבוד החכם השלם מהר”ר גדליה בן לגאון המושלם המקובל [הא]לקי כמהר”ר משה קורדוברו זצק”ל”. Ezra Chwat: “This doesn’t necessarily qualify that Gedalia Cordovero (1562–1625, son of Moshe Cordovero, ReMaK), is the author. To be precise, it attributes to him the oral transmission.” Meir Benayahu in Yosef Behiri, 1991, p.544, “asserts that this witness must have heard the poem from Gedalia Cordevero after his descent [from Safed] to Italy in 1583. This would be a full five years before Ḥaredim was written (and 17 years before [it was] published). Having been transmitted orally for some time might explain some of the variants. In any case Gedalia Cordevero and Elazar Azkari are likely to have been well acquainted.” The piyyut has appeared with a number of variations in various siddurim.

Source(s)

Yedid Nefesh (JTSA MS3541, fol.5v)

Yedid Nefesh (Moscow – Russian State Library, Ms. Guenzburg 320, page spread 283)

yedid nefesh – sefer haḥaredim 43a (Venice 1597)

Notes[+]

Notes
1	cf. Numbers 12:13.
2	Find Stefan C. Reif’s The Hebrew Manuscripts at Cambridge University Libraries: A Description and Introduction Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997, page 93. Reif attributes Yedid Nefesh to Azkiri. Presumably, the text must have been added to the 15th century manuscript sometime after the publication of Sefer Haḥaredim. It would be very nice to see a digitized image of this manuscript page from the CUL collection!

. Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike . 4.0 . International .

“יְדִיד נֶפֶשׁ | Yedid Nefesh, a piyyut transmitted by Elazar ben Moshe Azikri (ca. 16th c.) interpretive translation by Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi” is shared by the living contributor(s) with a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International copyleft license.

Zalman Schachter-Shalomi

Rabbi Dr. Zalman Meshullam Schachter-Shalomi, affectionately known as "Reb Zalman", (28 August 1924 – 3 July 2014) was one of the founders of the Jewish Renewal movement. Born in Żółkiew, Poland (now Ukraine) and raised in Vienna, he was interned in detention camps under the Vichy Regime but managed to flee the Nazi advance, emigrating to the United States in 1941. He was ordained as an Orthodox rabbi in 1947 within the ḤaBaD Hasidic movement while under the leadership of the sixth Lubavitcher Rebbe, Yosef Yitzchok Schneersohn, and served ḤaBaD communities in Massachusetts and Connecticut. He subsequently earned an M.A. in psychology of religion at Boston University, and a doctorate from the Hebrew Union College. He was initially sent out to speak on college campuses by the Lubavitcher Rebbe, but in the early 1960s, after experimenting with "the sacramental value of lysergic acid", the main ingredient in LSD, leadership within ḤaBaD circles cut ties with him. He continued teaching the Torah of Ḥassidut until the end of his life to creative, free and open-minded Jewish thinkers with humility and kindness and established warm ecumenical ties as well. In September 2009, he became the first contributor of a siddur to the Open Siddur Project database of Jewish liturgy and related work. Reb Zalman supported the Open Siddur Project telling its founder, "this is what I've been looking forward to!" and sharing among many additional works of liturgy, an interview he had with Havurah magazine in the early to mid-1980s detailing his vision of "Database Davenen." The Open Siddur Project is proud to be realizing one of Reb Zalman's long held dreams.

Elazar ben Moshe Azikri

Rabbi Elazar ben Moshe Azikri (אלעזר בן משה אזכרי‎‎‎, also Elazar Azkari) (1533–1600) was a Jewish kabbalist, poet and writer, born in Safed to a Sephardic family who had settled in the Land of Israel after the expulsion from Spain. Rabbi Elazar studied Torah under Rabbi Yosef Sagis and Rabbi Jacob Berab, and is counted with the greatest Rabbis and intellectuals of his time: Shlomo Halevi Alkabetz, Yosef Karo, Moshe Cordovero, Isaac Luria, Israel Najara, etc. In 1588 Rabbi Elazar founded the "Sukat Shalom" movement who acted to arouse in Jews the devotion to religion. Rabbi Elazar died in 1600 and was buried in Safed. Rabbi Elazar's Book, the Sefer Ḥaredim (ספר חרדים), printed after his death in 1600, is considered as one of the main books of Jewish deontology. The famous piyyut (liturgical poem) Yedid Nefesh (ידיד נפש) was first published by Rabbi Elazar in Sefer Ḥaredim. He also wrote a commentary on Tractate Bezah and Berachot of the Jerusalem Talmud. (via wikipedia)

Stable Link:

https://opensiddur.org/?p=10031

Associated Image:

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

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

Please reciprocate for any adaptation or redistribution of this work by (1) properly attributing the work to Zalman Schachter-Shalomi and Elazar ben Moshe Azikri, (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.

Support this work:

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.

☁

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