בּוֹרֵא פְּרִי הָאֲדָמָה | Blessing Over Vegetables, a rhyming translation and explanation by Jessie Ethel Sampter (1919)

Source Link: https://opensiddur.org/?p=51623

Date: 2023-06-13

Last Updated: 2025-04-21

Categories: Blessings Before Eating

Tags: 20th century C.E., 57th century A.M., blessings, earth, food, Pedagogical songs, rhyming translation

Excerpt: This paraliturgical supplement to the blessing before eating vegetation, vegetables, and fruit of the earth was written by Jessie Ethel Sampter and published in her Around the Year in Rhymes for the Jewish Child (1920), p. 84. . . .

Content:

Source (Hebrew)	Translation (English)
בָּרוּךְ אַתָּה יְיָ אֱלֹהֵֽינוּ מֶֽלֶךְ הָעוֹלָם בּוֹרֵא פְּרִי הָאֲדָמָה׃	Blessed art thou, O God our King, The Lord of life and everything. Creator of the fruits of earth, (For all things owe to Thee their birth.)

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This paraliturgical supplement to the blessing before eating vegetation, vegetables, and fruit of the earth was written by Jessie Ethel Sampter and published in her Around the Year in Rhymes for the Jewish Child (1920), p. 84.

Source(s)

 

Contributor: Aharon N. Varady (transcription)

Co-authors:

• 
  Name: Jessie Ethel Sampter
  Bio: Jessie Sampter (March 22, 1883 – 1938) was a Jewish educator, poet, and Zionist pioneer. Born in New York City to Rudolph Sampter, a New York attorney, and Virginia Kohlberg Sampter, she contracted polio at thirteen which prevented her from leaving home. Unable to attend school her family hired tutors. Later she audited courses at Columbia University. In her twenties she joined the Unitarian Church and began writing poetry. Her poems and short stories emphasized her primary concerns: pacifism, Zionism, and social justice. Around this time, she began spending time in the home of Henrietta Szold and began to appreciate the Eastern European Jews of New York City. She moved into a settlement house on the Lower East Side, then to a Young Women's Hebrew Association. Assuming the role of Hadassah's leading educator, she produced manuals and textbooks and organized lectures and classes, training speakers and leaders for both Hadassah and other Zionist organizations like the Federation of American Zionists (then the Zionist Organization of America). She composed educational manuals with Alice Seligsberg and edited a textbook on Zionism. In 1919 she settled in Palestine where she helped organize the country's first Jewish Scout camp. Sampter developed a strong commitment to assisting Yemenite Jews, founding classes and clubs especially for Yemenite girls and women. She adopted a Yemenite orphan. At the time of her death she had established a vegetarian convalescent home at Kibbutz Givat Brenner.
  Website: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jessie_Sampter
  Profile Link: https://opensiddur.org/profile/jessie-ethel-sampter
• 
  Name: Aharon N. Varady (transcription)
  Bio: Aharon Varady (M.A.J.Ed./JTSA Davidson) is a volunteer transcriber for the Open Siddur Project. If you find any mistakes in his transcriptions, please let him know. Shgiyot mi yavin; Ministarot naqeni שְׁגִיאוֹת מִי־יָבִין; מִנִּסְתָּרוֹת נַקֵּנִי "Who can know all one's flaws? From hidden errors, correct me" (Psalms 19:13). If you'd like to directly support his work, please consider donating via his Patreon account. (Varady also translates prayers and contributes his own original work besides serving as the primary shammes of the Open Siddur Project and its website, opensiddur.org.)
  Website: https://aharon.varady.net
  Profile Link: https://opensiddur.org/profile/aharon-varady-transcription

Featured Image:

Title: blessing over vegetables (Jessie Ethel Sampter 1920)
Caption: blessing over vegetables (Jessie Ethel Sampter 1920)