Shalom Aleichem ( he, שָׁלוֹם עֲלֵיכֶם, 'Peace be upon you') is a traditional song sung by many Jews every Friday night upon returning home from synagogue prayer. It signals the arrival of the
Shabbat
Shabbat (, , or ; he, שַׁבָּת, Šabbāṯ, , ) or the Sabbath (), also called Shabbos (, ) by Ashkenazim, is Judaism's day of rest on the seventh day of the week—i.e., Saturday. On this day, religious Jews remember the biblical storie ...
, welcoming the
angel
In various theistic religious traditions an angel is a supernatural spiritual being who serves God.
Abrahamic religions often depict angels as benevolent celestial intermediaries between God (or Heaven) and humanity. Other roles include ...
s who accompany a person home on the eve of the Shabbat. The custom of singing "Shalom Aleichem" on Friday night before
Eshet Ḥayil and
Kiddush
Kiddush (; he, קידוש ), literally, "sanctification", is a blessing recited over wine or grape juice to sanctify the Shabbat and Jewish holidays. Additionally, the word refers to a small repast held on Shabbat or festival mornings after t ...
is now nearly universal among religious
Jews
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 ...
.
Sources
This liturgical poem was written by the kabbalists of
Safed
Safed (known in Hebrew language, Hebrew as Tzfat; Sephardi Hebrew, Sephardic Hebrew & Modern Hebrew: צְפַת ''Tsfat'', Ashkenazi Hebrew pronunciation, Ashkenazi Hebrew: ''Tzfas'', Biblical Hebrew: ''Ṣǝp̄aṯ''; ar, صفد, ''Ṣafad''), i ...
in the late 16th or early 17th century. A complete survey of extant manuscripts, compiled by Chaim Leiberman, is available in Kirjath Sepher vol. 38–9.
According to a homiletic teaching in the
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 ...
, two angels accompany people on their way back home from
synagogue
A synagogue, ', 'house of assembly', or ', "house of prayer"; Yiddish: ''shul'', Ladino: or ' (from synagogue); or ', "community". sometimes referred to as shul, and interchangeably used with the word temple, is a Jewish house of worshi ...
on Friday night—a good angel and an evil angel. If the house has been prepared for the Shabbat ("the lamp has been lit, the table set, and his couch spread"), the good angel utters a blessing that the next Shabbat will be the same, and the evil angel is forced to respond "
Amen
Amen ( he, אָמֵן, ; grc, ἀμήν, ; syc, ܐܡܝܢ, ; ar, آمين, ) is an Abrahamic declaration of affirmation which is first found in the Hebrew Bible, and subsequently found in the New Testament. It is used in Jews, Jewish, Christia ...
". but if the home is not prepared for Shabbat, the evil angel expresses the wish that the next Shabbat will be the same, and the good angel is forced to respond "Amen". The hymn is assumed to be based on this teaching.
Words
Variations and emendations
Mizrahi
''Mizrachi'' or ''Mizrahi'' ( he, מזרחי) has two meanings.
In the literal Hebrew meaning ''Eastern'', it may refer to:
*Mizrahi Jews, Jews from the Middle East
* Mizrahi (surname), a Sephardic surname, given to Jews who got to the Iberian P ...
and some
Sephardi
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 ), ...
traditions include a penultimate verse, beginning , "''In your rest for peace'' ..." and the final verse has a inserted in front of the צ which Koren claims does not change the meaning of the last verse. This is also present in Tikunei Shabbos, the earliest known printing of the poem; as is one before the of the second verse.
Elijah of Vilna (1720–1789) worried about the phrasing and warned singers to be careful not to pause between ''elyon'', Most High, and ''mee-melech'', from the king.
Moshe Yair Weinstock, among others, criticizes the final verse for rudely urging the angels on.
Yaakov Chaim Sofer
Yaakov Chaim Sofer (1870–1939) (Hebrew: יעקב חיים סופר) was a Sephardi rabbi, Kabbalist, Talmudist and ''posek''. He is the author of ''Kaf Hachaim'', a work of halakha that he came to be known by.
Biography
Sofer was born in Bagh ...
, in his work ''Kaf Hachayim'', (262:16) notes:
This position resolves a common complaint about the wording—namely, that it sounds like the speaker is shooing the angels away—and somewhat neatens the grammar, especially of the Sephardic tradition. The resultant text translates:
Rabbi Jacob Emden, in his prayerbook, ''Bet El'' (1745), criticized the use of the hymn on the grounds that supplications on the Sabbath and supplications to angels were inappropriate and the hymn's grammar—arguing that the inclusion of the prefix מִ at the beginning of every second line (i.e., ''
mee-melech'') was bad form, as it rendered the passage, "angels of the Most High, ''away from'' the King who rules over kings". He, therefore, deleted that מִ, thereby reducing ''mi-melech'' to ''melech'', and that deletion has been emulated in some other prayerbooks (apparently a small minority) such as
Seligman Baer
Seligman (Isaac) Baer (1825–1897) was a Masoretic scholar, and an editor of the Hebrew Bible and of the Jewish liturgy. He was born in Mosbach, the northern district of Biebrich, on 18 September 1825 and died at Biebrich-on-the-Rhine in March ...
's ''Siddur Avodat Yisroel'' (1868), the Orot Sephardic, and Koren's Mizrahi (but not Koren's Ashkenaz or Sefard) prayerbook, although it makes the musical meter a bit awkward.
Melodies
Many different melodies have been written for ''Shalom Aleichem''.
The slow, well-known melody for the song was composed by the American composer and conductor Rabbi
Israel Goldfarb
Congregation Baith Israel Anshei Emes ( he, בֵּית יִשְׂרָאֵל אַנְשֵׁי אֱמֶת, "House of Israel – People of Truth"), more commonly known as the Kane Street Synagogue, is an Women in Judaism#Conservative Judaism, egal ...
on May 10, 1918, while sitting near the
Alma Mater statue in front of
Low Memorial Library
The Low Memorial Library (nicknamed Low) is a building at the center of Columbia University's Morningside Heights campus in Manhattan, New York City, United States. The building, located near 116th Street between Broadway and Amsterdam Aven ...
at
Columbia University
Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhatt ...
, and first published later that year as ''"Sholom Aleichem—שָׁלוֹם עֲלֵיכֶם"'' in ''Friday Evening Melodies'' by Israel and his brother
Samuel
Samuel ''Šəmūʾēl'', Tiberian: ''Šămūʾēl''; ar, شموئيل or صموئيل '; el, Σαμουήλ ''Samouḗl''; la, Samūēl is a figure who, in the narratives of the Hebrew Bible, plays a key role in the transition from the bibl ...
. The famous Goldfarb song is often presumed to be a traditional
Hasidic
Hasidism, sometimes spelled Chassidism, and also known as Hasidic Judaism (Ashkenazi Hebrew: חסידות ''Ḥăsīdus'', ; originally, "piety"), is a Jewish religious group that arose as a spiritual revival movement in the territory of contem ...
melody. I. Goldfarb wrote in 1963, "The popularity of the melody traveled not only throughout this country but throughout the world, so that many people came to believe that the song was handed down from
Mt. Sinai
Mount Sinai ( he , הר סיני ''Har Sinai''; Aramaic: ܛܘܪܐ ܕܣܝܢܝ ''Ṭūrāʾ Dsyny''), traditionally known as Jabal Musa ( ar, جَبَل مُوسَىٰ, translation: Mount Moses), is a mountain on the Sinai Peninsula of Egypt. It is ...
by
Moses
Moses hbo, מֹשֶׁה, Mōše; also known as Moshe or Moshe Rabbeinu (Mishnaic Hebrew: מֹשֶׁה רַבֵּינוּ, ); syr, ܡܘܫܐ, Mūše; ar, موسى, Mūsā; grc, Mωϋσῆς, Mōÿsēs () is considered the most important pro ...
." In the Preface to "Friday Evening Melodies" the composers articulated the goal of avoiding the extremes of both the free-form emotive Eastern European musical liturgical style and the classical Western European musical structure of "
Israel Emancipated."
A modern, exuberantly joyful version of this melody has been popularized by Idan Yaniv and Kinderlach; it was released in September 2009.
As one of her last acts,
Debbie Friedman
Deborah Lynn "Debbie" Friedman (February 23, 1951 – January 9, 2011)Horn, JordanaBeloved US Jewish songwriter, Debbie Friedman, dies ''The Jerusalem Post'', January 9, 2011Fox, MargalitDebbie Friedman, Singer of Jewish Music, Dies at 59 ''The ...
shared her version of "Shalom Aleichem" with Rabbi
Joy Levitt Joy Levitt is an American rabbi and from 1987 to 1989 was the first female president of the Reconstructionist Rabbinical Association. Levitt is also the founder of the Jewish Journey Project, an initiative that attempts to replace individual synago ...
. Friedman believed it was this song that would become her legacy.
Another common melody, with a faster, more upbeat tempo was composed by Rabbi Shmuel Brazil.
References
External links
Recordings of four tunes to Shalom AleichemShalom Aleichem full song with vocalization and (transliterated) lyricsCommentaries on the Shalom Aleichem Liturgy
{{Shabbat
Hebrew-language literature
Jewish practices
Jewish belief and doctrine
Jewish liturgical poems
Jewish mysticism
Jewish prayer and ritual texts
Shabbat
Hebrew words and phrases in Jewish prayers and blessings
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