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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.
“הָרַחֲמָן עַל שְׁנַת הַשְׁמִיטָה | A Haraḥaman for the Shmitah Year in the Birkat haMazon, by Rabbi David Seidenberg (neohasid·org)” is shared through the Open Siddur Project with a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International copyleft license.
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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The Open Siddur Project is a volunteer-driven, non-profit, non-commercial, non-denominational, non-prescriptive, gratis & libre Open Access archive of contemplative praxes, liturgical readings, and Jewish prayer literature (historic and contemporary, familiar and obscure) composed in every era, region, and language Jews have ever prayed. Our goal is to provide a platform for sharing open-source resources, tools, and content for individuals and communities crafting their own prayerbook (siddur). Through this we hope to empower personal autonomy, preserve customs, and foster creativity in religious culture.
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
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.