הָרַחֲמָן עַל שְׁנַת הַשְׁמִיטָה | A Haraḥaman for the Shmitah Year in the Birkat haMazon, by Rabbi David Seidenberg (neohasid·org)

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24 September 2014 under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike (CC BY-SA) 4.0 International copyleft license

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21st century C.E., 58th century A.M., eco-conscious, ecoḥasid, HaRaḥaman

This Haraḥaman (prayer to the merciful or compassionate One) for the Shmitah or sabbatical year can be added to Birkat haMazon (blessing after meals) during the whole Shmitah year, in order to remember and open our hearts to the sanctity of the land. Say it right before the Haraḥaman for Shabbat, since Shmitah is the grand shabbat, and right after the paragraph beginning with Bamarom (a/k/a, Mimarom).

Source (Hebrew)	Translation (English)	Transliteration (Romanized Hebrew)
הָרַחֲמָן הוּא יָשִׁיב לִבֵּינוּ אֶל הָאָרֶץ, לְמַעַן נֵשַׁב יָחַד עִמָהּ, בְּשָׁבְתָהּ, כָּל שְׁנַת הַשְׁמִיטָה.‏	May the merciful One turn our hearts toward the land, so that together we may dwell with her, in her sabbath-resting during the whole year of the Shmitah.	Haraḥaman hu yashiv libeinu el ha’arets l’ma’an neishev yaḥad imah b’shovtah kol sh’nat hash’mitah

For your festive meal, you can also print out this PDF and add the Haraḥaman prayer to your birkon (bentsher).

Recordings

Here’s a niggun (melody) by Nili Simḥai for the haraḥaman, sung by Rabbi David Seidenberg to the “Sosne Nigun” by Jonah Adels, z”l.

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=9418

Associated Image:

“Shmita sign.” A resident of Holon, Israel, announcing the fruits on the trees in his backyard are hefker (ownerless property) during the year of Shmita, and that anyone can enter and harvest them. עברית: תושב חולון מודיע כי הפירות על העצים בחצרו הם הפקר לרגל שנת שמיטה. (credit: Drork, Public Domain.)

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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)

The Hierophant

2014-09-24 at 8:14 am · Reply.

Where can we remind ourselves that we are living in the year of the Shmita, the year-long Shabbat for the Earth? Feeling satiated after eating is just the moment when one is liable to become self-satisfied and forget that one’s nourishment is due to the vast and complex interconnections of all rooted in and wovenby the Source of All life. This is the reason for blessings after meals, and this is why during the shmita year we must remind ourselves that the Earth too depends on our mindfulness, everyday for its welfare as the home for us and all our fellow human and non-human passengers on our Earth.