A Sabbath song for light

[deborahjross]

From Rabbi Zoe Klein:

My favorite line of prayer in the Siddur is from lecha dodi (from the Friday night liturgy welcoming the Sabbath bride), where it reads, Hitor'ri, hitor'ri, ki va oreich, kumi ori, uri uri shir dabeiri... [Awake, awake, your light has come! Arise, shine, awake and sing...] At night, with darkness descending, it is often hard to muster the energy it takes to hope, and yet it is precisely at this time when we sing out, "Arise and shine, your light has come!" To me, this is the light of hope and of God's love. When I sing this ling of lecha dodi, I feel embraced and loved, even as the hour grows darker and darker.

On this and all nights, may your darkness be filled with the light of hope.

Comments

[kerkevik.livejournal.com]

Happy birthday again,

I've been looking for a translation site that offers free translation, in the abc alphabet :-) , so that I can create a character(s) for my Buffy fanfic that speaks Hebrew and/or Yiddish, because there have to be slayers amongst the girls who have needs of the services of a chaplain, or might be jewish.

If you can point me anywhere useful, I would be most grateful.

Hope you're having a good day,
Ray.

[rose-lemberg.livejournal.com]

I'm not Deborah, but unfortunately no free translation site will offer you accurate translations to Hebrew and/or Yiddish. Your best bet is to bribe a native speaker with honey cake and libations. Good luck!

[deborahjross.livejournal.com]

My first thought is to agree with Rose, with the additional caveat that modern conversational Hebrew is not the same as prayer book Hebrew or Biblical Hebrew. If there's a synagogue near you, check to see if there's a group that practices Yiddish. They might be delighted to help you (especially when plied with honey cake) if you know approximately what you want your character to say. The synagogue might also have members who've lived in Israel, even if Hebrew isn't their first language.

[rose-lemberg.livejournal.com]

I can help with the Hebrew :P Probably Yiddish too, but I am less confident in my conversational Yiddish than I should be.

[deborahjross.livejournal.com]

Ray, you are in excellent hands with Rose.

And I am an honorary Shadchan (matchmaker)!

[rose-lemberg.livejournal.com]

:D I do think that an Yiddish-speaking slayer would be very different from a Hebrew-speaking slayer.

[rose-lemberg.livejournal.com]

Happy birthday :) And yes, that's one of my favorites too (my all-time favorite is Tsama Nafshi).