Abendlied | Evening prayer [for the Bedtime Shema], by Lise Tarlau (1907)

Contributor(s):

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

Shared on:

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

Categories:

Bedtime Shema

Tags:

Teḥinot in German, German vernacular prayer, 20th century C.E., שמע shema, תחינות teḥinot, 57th century A.M., Jewish Women's Prayers

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Source (German)	Translation (English)
Abendlied.	Evening song.
Nun laß den Tag, o Vater mein, In Schlaf und Traum versunken sein; In Schlaf und Traum, der unsern Schmerz Zur Ruhe singt im müden Herz, Der uns zu fernen Ufern führt, Die nie des Leides fuß berührt; Doch eh das Dunkel mich umfängt, Mein Herz zuletzt noch Dein gedenkt.	Now let the day, O father mine, In sleep and dream be left behind; In sleep and dream that sings our pain To rest sings in the weary heart, That leads us to distant shores Which never sorrow’s foot touches; But before the darkness embraces me, My heart at last remembers thee.
Und wär’ für immer es zuletzt, Und wär’ mir heut’ mein Ziel gesetzt, Und sähe ich kein neues Licht, Und gäb’ es ein Erwachen nicht, Ich würde ohne Sorge sein, Denn, Vater, sieh, ich bin ja Dein. In welchem Schlaf Dein Kind auch ruht, Es weiß, es schläft in Deiner Hut.	And be it forever at last, And if today my goal were set, And if I saw no new light, And there would be no awakening, I would be without care, For, father, see, I am thine. In whatever sleep your child rests, He knows he sleeps in your keeping.
Was immer auch der Tag gebracht, Jetzt kommt der frieden, kommt die Nacht, Jetzt löschen alle Lichter aus Und stille wird’s im Erdenhaus; War unser Kummer noch so schwer, Bald fühlen wir die Last nicht mehr; Nichts bleibt, als daß ein Vater wacht Und uns behütet Tag und Nacht.	Whatever the day brought, Now comes peace, now comes night, Now all the lights go out And silence comes to earth’s house; Were our sorrow still so heavy, Soon we’ll feel the burden no more; Nothing remains but a father watching And protects us day and night.
שְׁמַע יִשְׂרָאֵל יְהוָֹה אֱלֹהֵינוּ יְהוָֹה אֶחָֽד׃ (דברים ו:ד)
Höre, Israel, der Ewige, unser Gott, ist einig einzig.	Hear, O Israel, the Eternal, our God, is the only one. (Deuteronomy 6:4)

“Abendlied” by Lise 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), page 29.

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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“Abendlied | Evening prayer [for the Bedtime Shema], 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