Friday, May 2, 2008

Do You Know The Words?

Know the WordsI was just catching up on the Life in Israel blog and caught a great pointer to a new Jewish music blog. It's called Know the Words and it wants to help us, well, know the worlds. Specifically, know the words to a repertoire of religious Hebrew language songs that get sung at traditional Jewish simchas. The lyrics are provided, many have audio clips, and lots of commentary on the spiritual qualities of the song. There's some serious work going into this blog, so I hope folks find it and take advantage if it.

For example, the author posted the song "Yamim Al Ye'mei Melech" (which, for the record, I don't know) as follows...
"יָמִים עַל יְמֵי מֶלֶךְ תּוֹסִיף, שְׁנוֹתָיו כְּמוֹ דֺר וָדֺר
Yamim al ye'mei melech tosif, sh'nosav kemo dor va'dor

"Days onto the days of the king may You add, may his years be like all generations." (Tehillim 61:7)

The Pashut explanation given by Rashi on this passuk is that Dovid Hamelech is asking Hashem that even if it has been decreed that he die young at the hand of his enemies, Hashem should remove that decree and grant him the full 70 years of every generation...."
The audio clips are turned off right now because of the Sefira period, but they'll be back up soon. I'm looking forward to it.

As an added bonus, the blog has a link to Yutopia.Yucs.Org's "Jewish Guitar Chord Archive."

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