''Perek Shira'' (

Hebrew Hebrew (; ; ) is a Northwest Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Historically, it is one of the spoken languages of the Israelites and their longest-surviving descendants, the Jews and Samaritans. It was largely preserved ...

פרק שירה, lit. "Chapter of Song") is an ancient

Jewish Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...

text. There are a number of versions extant, some associated with the

Ashkenazic Ashkenazi Jews ( ; he, יְהוּדֵי אַשְׁכְּנַז, translit=Yehudei Ashkenaz, ; yi, אַשכּנזישע ייִדן, Ashkenazishe Yidn), also known as Ashkenazic Jews or ''Ashkenazim'',, Ashkenazi Hebrew pronunciation: , singu ...

tradition, some with the

Sephardic Sephardic (or Sephardi) Jews (, ; lad, Djudíos Sefardíes), also ''Sepharadim'' , Modern Hebrew: ''Sfaradim'', Tiberian Hebrew, Tiberian: Səp̄āraddîm, also , ''Ye'hude Sepharad'', lit. "The Jews of Spain", es, Judíos sefardíes (or ), ...

, and some with the

Mizrahi Jews Mizrahi Jews ( he, יהודי המִזְרָח), also known as ''Mizrahim'' () or ''Mizrachi'' () and alternatively referred to as Oriental Jews or ''Edot HaMizrach'' (, ), are a grouping of Jewish communities comprising those who remained i ...

tradition. It was first printed, with a commentary, in Moses ben Joseph de Trani's ''Bet Elohim'' (1576), but it is mentioned as early as the 10th century. It contains 85 sections, in each of which elements of

creation Creation may refer to: Religion *''Creatio ex nihilo'', the concept that matter was created by God out of nothing * Creation myth, a religious story of the origin of the world and how people first came to inhabit it * Creationism, the belief tha ...

, beginning with the celestial and ending with

dog The dog (''Canis familiaris'' or ''Canis lupus familiaris'') is a domesticated descendant of the wolf. Also called the domestic dog, it is derived from the extinct Pleistocene wolf, and the modern wolf is the dog's nearest living relative. Do ...

s, use biblical and rabbinic verses in order to sing God's praises. Use of Perek Shira used to be prevalent in the daily liturgy and medieval philosopher

Joseph Albo Joseph Albo ( he, יוסף אלבו; c. 1380–1444) was a Jewish philosopher and rabbi who lived in Spain during the fifteenth century, known chiefly as the author of '' Sefer ha-Ikkarim'' ("Book of Principles"), the classic work on the fundament ...

wrote that whoever recites Perek Shira is guaranteed a place in the

World to Come The world to come, age to come, heaven on Earth, and the Kingdom of God are eschatological phrases reflecting the belief that the current world or current age is flawed or cursed and will be replaced in the future by a better world, age, or par ...

Content

Though Perek Shira means "Chapter of Song", the book is actually organized into six chapters. Some of the utilized verses make mention of the speaker. For example, the song begins with the heavens who say, "the heavens speak of the glory of God, and of His handiwork the skies tell." () Others describe some characteristic or activity of the speaker, e.g., the book ends with the dogs who say "come, let us prostrate and bend our knees, and kneel before God our maker" (). The vast majority of the verses of Perek Shira are biblical, and most of these are from the book of

Psalms The Book of Psalms ( or ; he, תְּהִלִּים, , lit. "praises"), also known as the Psalms, or the Psalter, is the first book of the ("Writings"), the third section of the Tanakh, and a book of the Old Testament. The title is derived ...

, but there are also a few verses from the

Babylonian Talmud The Talmud (; he, , Talmūḏ) is the central text of Rabbinic Judaism and the primary source of Jewish religious law (''halakha'') and Jewish theology. Until the advent of modernity, in nearly all Jewish communities, the Talmud was the cente ...

, at least one from Kabbalistic literature, and a very few whose source is unknown. Some of the birds and animals listed are difficult to identify.A particular example is a winged creature called the ''retzifi'', whose song is the verse of ; the word does not appear in the Bible or Talmud. Slifkin's first edition (2001) identified this (as had many previous commentators) as the bat (although the Hebrew Bible uses the word ''atalayf'' _for the bat), and was followed in this by Scherman, but in his 2009 second edition, Slifkin had revised this to the laughing dove. It appears that all the creatures named are found in the Holy Land, the only exceptions perhaps being the elephant (whose song is ) - but elephants were brought into the Holy Land by foreign armies, as mentioned, for example, in the First Book of Maccabees; and the leviathan (whose song is ), presumably a mythic sea beast mentioned in the Bible. In modern times, Perek Shira does not often appear liturgically. However, there are many publishers who publish Perek Shira as a separate entity, anywhere from a

wallet A wallet is a flat case or pouch often used to carry small personal items such as paper currency, credit cards; identification documents such as driver's license, identification card, club card; photographs, transit pass, business cards and ...

-sized booklet to full-sized

coffee table book A coffee table book, also known as a cocktail table book, is an oversized, usually hard-covered book whose purpose is for display on a table intended for use in an area in which one entertains guests and from which it can serve to inspire convers ...

s complete with pictures illustrating each of the characters speaking to God.

References

External links

'Perek Shira' for android in Hebrew

Rabbi Nosson Slifkin's downloadable 2003 English translation with Hebrew text

Rabbi Eliezer Raphael (Lazer) Brody's downloadable 2011 English translation

Perek Shira transliterated, translated or in hebrew
{{Authority control Jewish texts Sifrei Kodesh

Content

See also

References

External links