
the Open Siddur Project ✍︎ פְּרוֹיֶּקט הַסִּדּוּר הַפָּתוּחַ
a community-grown, libre and open-source archive of Jewish prayer and liturgical resources
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בסיעתא דשמיא
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![]() Yehudah ben Shmuel haLeviYehudah haLevi (also Judah ha-Levi; Hebrew: יהודה הלוי and Judah ben Shmuel Halevi יהודה בן שמואל הלוי; Arabic: يهوذا اللاوي; c. 1075 – 1141) was a Spanish Jewish physician, poet and philosopher. He was born in Spain, either in Toledo or Tudela, in 1075 or 1086, and died shortly after arriving in the Holy Land in 1141, at that point the Crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem. Yehudah haLevi is considered one of the greatest Hebrew poets, celebrated both for his religious and secular poems, many of which appear in present-day liturgy. His greatest philosophical work was The Kuzari. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judah_Halevi |
Contributed on: 21 Sep 2021 by Aharon N. Varady (transcription) | Alice Lucas (translation) | Yehudah ben Shmuel haLevi | ❧
A rhyming English translation of the piyyut Adonai Negdekha kol Ta’avati. . . .
Contributed on: 11 Aug 2021 by Aharon N. Varady (transcription) | Franz Rosenzweig (translation) | Yehudah ben Shmuel haLevi | ❧
The text of Yehudah haLevi’s piyyut, “Al Ahavatekha Eshteh Gəvi’i,” with a German translation by Franz Rosenzweig. . . .
Contributed on: 06 Jun 2020 by Aharon N. Varady (translation) | Nina Davis Salaman (translation) | the Ben Yehuda Project (transcription) | Yehudah ben Shmuel haLevi | ❧
The physician’s prayer of Rabbi Dr. Yehudah ben Shmuel haLevi in the 12th century CE. . . .
Contributed on: 17 Feb 2021 by Isaac Gantwerk Mayer (translation) | Yehudah ben Shmuel haLevi | ❧
The poem Mi Khamokha v-Ein Khamokha, an epic retelling of the book of Esther in verse, was written for Shabbat Zakhor, the Shabbat before Purim, by the great paytan Yehuda ben Shmuel haLevi. It was originally written as a “geulah,” meant to be inserted into the prayer after the Shema in place of the verse beginning with “A new song…” But later Sephardic poskim ruled that it was forbidden to insert piyyutim into the Shema blessings, so in the communities that recite it today it is generally either read after the Full Kaddish as an introduction to the Torah service, or (for instance, in most Spanish and Portuguese communities) within the verse “Kol atzmotai tomarna” in the Nishmat prayer. Wherever you include it in your service, it’s a beautiful and intricately rhymed piyyut, and surprisingly easy to understand at that. It is presented here in a gender-neutral translation with all the Biblical verses cited, alongside a new translation that preserves the fourfold acrostic, two alphabetical and two authorial. –Isaac Gantwerk Mayer . . .
Contributed on: 13 Mar 2022 by Andreas Rusterholz (transcription) | Aharon N. Varady (translation) | Yehoshua Heshil Miro | Yehudah ben Shmuel haLevi | ❧
“Zweites Gebet vor Neïla” is an abridged, adapted translation by Yehoshua Heshil Miro of the piyyut by Yehudah haLevi “Barkhi Nafshi et Adonai.” There are seven stanzas missing near the end including the final stanza and a portion of the penultimate stanza. The translation was published in Miro’s anthology of teḥinot, בית יעקב (Beit Yaaqov) Allgemeines Gebetbuch für gebildete Frauen mosaicher Religion. It first appears in the 1835 edition, as teḥinah №48 pp. 83-85. In the 1842 edition, it appears as teḥinah №50 on pp. 86-90. . . .
Contributed on: 17 Jul 2022 by Herman Prins Salomon (translation) | Yehudah ben Shmuel haLevi | ❧
“Roshei am et hitasef umlekhim b’sodam” by Yehuda Halevi was translated by Herman Prins Salomon in “Yehuda Halevi and his ‘Cid’” and published in The American Sepharadi (1978), pp. 22-46. . . .
Contributed on: 06 Jun 2020 by Aharon N. Varady (translation) | Nina Davis Salaman (translation) | the Ben Yehuda Project (transcription) | Yehudah ben Shmuel haLevi | ❧
A piyyut that expresses the paradox of a divinity that is both “Beyond” and “Present.” . . .
Contributed on: 20 Jan 2020 by Aharon N. Varady (transcription) | Zalman Schachter-Shalomi | Yehudah ben Shmuel haLevi | ❧
An interpretive translation of Yehudah haLevi’s shabbat song, “Yom Shabbaton.” . . .