בַּעָל חוֹבֵנוּ | Ba’al Ḥoveinu, a piyut for Seliḥot on the advent of the Shmitah year by Rabbi David Seidenberg (neohasid·org)

Contributor(s):

David Seidenberg and Neohasid·org

Shared on:

27 August 2021 under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike (CC BY-SA) 4.0 International copyleft license

Categories:

the Shmitah Year (Earth's Shabbat)

Tags:

21st century C.E., 58th century A.M., eco-conscious, סליחות səliḥot, שמיטה shmitah

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This short piyut touches on these four themes related to Shmitah: release of debts, the rights of the land, the rights of wild animals (who share our food during Shmitah), and the freeing of slaves. The piyut would fit as part of Seliḥot before Rosh haShanah and during Yom Kippur…(With thanks to Itsik Pariente for help with grammar.)

Source (Hebrew)	Translation (English)	Transliteration (Romanized Hebrew)
בַּעָל חוֹבֵנוּ, שְׁמֹט חוֹבוֹתֵינוּ! קוֹנֶה כָּל אָרֶץ, רַפֵּא שְׁדוּדָתֵינוּ! מַתִיר אֲסוּרִים, בְּהֵמָה וְאָדָם, הַמַּכְנִיעַ חַמָס, מִיָדֵינוּ שַחְרֵרָם! וְרָק אָז תְּתוּקַּן צִדְקוֹתֵינוּ.	Our creditor, release our debts, our sins! Possessor of all Earth, heal the one we have plundered! Liberator of the bound, animal and human — those oppressed by violence — from our hands free them! And only then will our righteousness be perfected.	Ba’al ḥoveinu, sh’mot ḥovoteinu! Ḳoneh kol arets, rapei sh’dudeinu! Matir asurim, b’heimah va’adam, hamakhni’a ḥamas, miyadeinu shaḥreram! V’raq az t’tuqan tsidqoteinu!

This piyut for Seliḥot on the advent of the Shitah year, “Ba’al Ḥoveinu,” was composed by Rabbi David Seidenberg and shared on the Open Siddur Project discussion group on Facebook. It can be accessed at neohasid.org.

Recordings

Melody by David Seidenberg

Melody by Ami Goodman

David Seidenberg

Rabbi David Seidenberg, founder of NeoHasid.org, teaches text and music, Jewish thought and spirituality, in their own right and in relation to ecology and the environment. With smikhah (ordination) from the Jewish Theological Seminary and from Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi, he has taught at over 100 synagogues, communities, retreats and conferences across North America (and a few in Europe and Israel). Rabbi Seidenberg's teaching empowers learners to become creators of Judaism through deep study and communion with texts and tradition. Areas of specialty include Kabbalah and Ḥasidut, Talmud, davenning, evolution and cosmology, sustainability, Maimonides, Buber, and more. Rabbi Seidenberg has published widely on ecology and Judaism and is the author of Kabbalah and Ecology: God's Image in the More-Than-Human World (Cambridge University Press, 2015).

Neohasid·org

NeoHasid.org, founded October 2005, was first created by Rabbi David Seidenberg to help folks integrate ḥasidic song, learning, and nusaḥ into their davenning and communities and to explore embodied Torah. It evolved to focus on eco-Torah and to share liturgy that honors our relationship with the Earth and/or expresses gender parity.

Stable Link: https://opensiddur.org/?p=38810

Associated Image:

wild horses, rainbow, released, feral, running (source: pxfuel, photo credit: n/a)

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ויהי נעם אדני אלהינו עלינו ומעשה ידינו כוננה עלינו ומעשה ידינו כוננהו׃ (תהלים צ:יז) · "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)