We start Kabbalat Shabbat with the song Yedid Nefesh, a piyut (poem) dating to the 16th Century, attributed to Eleazar Azkiri as a love song to God. “You who loves my soul”. I share the first and Fifth verses of the translation by Reb Zalman Schacter Shlomi z”l (Shared by the Open Siddur Project):
You who love my soul
Compassion’s gentle source,
Take my disposition and shape it to Your will.
Like a darting deer, I will flee to You.
Before Your glorious Presence Humbly, I do bow.
Let Your sweet love
Delight me with its thrill
Because no other dainty
Will my hunger still.
Help, my Lover, spread
Your canopy of peace.
Enfold all human beings
Give all pain surcease.
Your presence on this earth plane
Do make known to us
And we shall respond then
With song and with dance.
Rush, my love, be quick,
The time for love is now,
Let Your gentle favor
Grace us as of old…
Shabbat Shalom