To the best of my ability, this is a faithful transcription of Psalms 150 from תהילים או לוס סאלמוס ; טריסלאד’אד’וס דיל לשון הקדש אין לה לינגואה ספרדית (Tehillim, or the Psalms, translated from the Holy language [Hebrew] into the Sephardic language, Estampado por Ǧ. Griffit 1852/3) from a digital copy made available by the collection of Sephardic Studies at the University of Washington. Please join me in making a complete transcription of this Ladino translation of Psalms. –Aharon N. Varady

The special Ladino diacritic appearing over some of the letters (e.g., שﬞ) is called a varika.

Transcription Source

Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi, z”l, included his translation of Psalms 150 in his Siddur Tehillat Hashem Yidaber Pi (2009). To the best of my ability, I have set his English translation side-by-side with the Hebrew verses comprising Psalms 150. I have replaced some anglicizations and removed capitalization for divine pronouns. –Aharon N. Varady

Source(s)

Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi, z”l, included his translation of Psalms 149 in his Siddur Tehillat Hashem Yidaber Pi (2009). To the best of my ability, I have set his English translation side-by-side with the Hebrew verses comprising Psalms 149. I have replaced some anglicizations and removed capitalization for divine pronouns. –Aharon N. Varady

Source(s)

Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi, z”l, included his translation of Psalms 148 in his Siddur Tehillat Hashem Yidaber Pi (2009). To the best of my ability, I have set his English translation side-by-side with the Hebrew verses comprising Psalms 148. I have replaced some anglicizations and removed capitalization for divine pronouns. –Aharon N. Varady

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Rabbi Arthur Waskow’s translation of Psalms 148 is shared from his “Eikhah — Lamentation for the Earth” service. I have set his translation side-by-side with the Masoretic text of the psalm. –Aharon Varady

Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi, z”l, included his translation of Psalms 147 in his Siddur Tehillat Hashem Yidaber Pi (2009). To the best of my ability, I have set his English translation side-by-side with the Hebrew verses comprising Psalms 147. I have replaced some anglicizations, removed capitalization for divine pronouns, and changed the translation of בהמות (behemot) from ‘beasts’ to ‘animals’. –Aharon N. Varady

Source(s)

Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi, z”l, included his translation of Psalms 146 in his Siddur Tehillat Hashem Yidaber Pi (2009). To the best of my ability, I have set his English translation side-by-side with the Hebrew verses comprising Psalms 146. I have added additional paragraph breaks and replaced some anglicizations. –Aharon N. Varady

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Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi, z”l, included his translation of Ashrei in his Siddur Tehillat Hashem Yidaber Pi (2009). To the best of my ability, I have set his English translation side-by-side with the Hebrew verses comprising Psalms 145 and additional verses. –Aharon N. Varady

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A modern translation of the Ashrei in alphabetic parallel to the Hebrew.

Source

https://opensiddur.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/Ashrei-Hebrew-and-Alphabetic-English-Sam-Seicol-2020.pdf

[In the translation, Adonai (lit. ‘my lord’) is provided as a traditional circumlocution for the Tetragrammaton. –ANV]

Ashrei (Psalms 145 with its opening and closing verses) was adapted by Aharon Varady from the 1917 JPS and other translations.

This extended list of introductory verses beginning with the word Ashrei is based on the nusaḥ of the Jews of England for Yom Kippur as found in the Ets Ḥayyim of Jacob ben Jehudah Ḥazzan of London (1287). Cf. The Etz Hayyim edited with notes by Israel Brodie (Mossad haRav Kook 1962), p. 76. I have omitted Psalms 137:8-9 from the list of verses presented in that nusaḥ because, aside from their containing the word “ashrei,” they are terrifying words to utter in almost any context, let alone prayer.

Poësis (from the Greek, ποίησις — a production or composition, such as a poem) seems to me a very helpful translation for the Hebrew מַעֲשֶׂה (a deed or act, such as a tale).

The text for the nun here is brought from the Chronicle of Gad the Seer (ch. 10), a work preserved by the Jews of Cochin, India. See the note brought there on that verse. The trōp for this verse was added by Isaac Gantwerk Mayer. (Thank you!)

The up and down arrows for the lines beginning with ayin and peh indicate that before a certain date, an ancient letter sequence for the Hebrew ABGAD had established that the letter peh preceded the ayin. For more on this, read Mitchell First’s article “Pe before Ayin in Biblical Pre-Exilic Acrostics” (theotrah.com 2017). There, First writes, “acrostics in the fifth book of psalms, 111, 112, 119, 145…are all post-exilic and all naturally follow the ayin-peh order.” Thus the arrows here don’t indicate any historic reordering of the lines. Rather, they indicate how the lines might be reordered if the alternative ABGAD sequence were to be applied.

Source(s)

“The Cause” is used to translate the Divine Name YHVH, based on the philosophical idea of God as the Prime Mover and on the interpretation of the Name as a causative form of the copula – “causes to be.”

Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi, z”l, included his translation of “Yehi Kh’vod” in his Siddur Tehillat Hashem Yidaber Pi (2009). To the best of my ability, I have set his translation side-by-side with the verses comprising the piyyut.

“Yehi Kh’vod,” composed of remixed biblical verse, is first referenced in Masekhet Soferim 17:11 and appears in full in the Siddur Rav Amram Gaon. Seligman Baer notes that the piyyut contains the divine name 21 times — the same number as is found in Psalms 145. Given that “Yehi Kh’vod” immediately precedes Ashrei (Psalms 145 with its own introductory verses) in the Psukei D’zimrah/Zemirot section of the Shaḥarit service, this association between the two prayers appears significant.

In her article, “Biblical Texts in Jewish Prayer” (in Jewish and Christian Liturgy and Worship, ed. Albert Gerhards & Clemens Leonhard, Brill 2007, p.70), Ruth Langer uses the term “centos” to describe a novel remix of verses, where “one complete, unaltered biblical verse follows immediately after another, ordered according to the message of the new composition.” Shlomo Tal calls this a “Leket Psukim” (gleaning of verses). In My People’s Prayer Book vol. 3, Marc Brettler calls this prayer a “catena” (latin: chain) — “a chain of verses connected to one another thematically” however this term is more often used to refer to a form of Chrisitian biblical commentary. Besides “Yehi Kh’vod” in the Pesukei D’zimrah, examples of this form include the introductory verses to Psalms 145 (Ashrei), “va’anahnu lo neda” in Taḥanun, and the collection of verses found at the end of the Birkat Hamazon. Ruth Langner writes:

These biblical centos communicate in three different ways….The second method is characteristic of these centos in their most sophisticated forms. As in yehi khavod and va’anahnu lo neda, the verses generally relate one to the next by interlinking identical words or similar concepts from one verse to the next (underlined in the tables). It is the resulting chain of concepts that communicates the meaning of the composition. This technique has apparent precedent in the biblical period. Reuven Kimelman (‘Psalm 145: Theme, Structure, and Impact’, JBL 113, 1994) demonstrates that Psalm 145 also uses such chaining to communicate its message while organizing the verses according to its alphabetical acrostic. However, nothing suggests that Psalm 145 consists of verses culled verbatim from other compositions. In our prayers, this interlinking of concepts makes it impossible to construct an adequate narrative paraphrase of the cento’s message. However, the underlined words [see below PDF: Table B. Yehi Khavod] suggest that yehi khavod begins with a praise of God’s constant exaltation not only by the physical world, especially the heavens themselves, but also by all its inhabitants, over whom God reigns eternally. But because of God’s special redemptive relationship with Israel, this divine sovereignty over the nations results in God’s frustrating their plans, in favor of Israel’s protection.

[gview file=”https://opensiddur.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/Ruth-Langer-Biblical-Texts-in-Jewish-Prayers-Table-B.-Yehi-Khavod.pdf”]

Source(s)

Rabbi Shoshana Meira’s paraliturgical reflection on Ashrei, Psalms 145 with its opening and closing verses, was first published in her Siddur v’lo Nevosh (2014). Linear correspondence between the Hebrew source and the English by Aharon Varady.

Source(s)

This paraliturgical Ashrei was written in German by Rivka Jaussi. The English translation was offered by Aharon Varady.