בָּרוּךְ הַבָּא
Barukh Haba
“Welcome” — Psalm 118
Sung by Rabbi Jonathan Cohen and family. From the family’s recordings of Western Sephardi home singing.
Text & translation
בָּרוּךְ הַבָּא בְּשֵׁם יְיָ, בֵּרַכְנוּכֶם מִבֵּית יְיָ.
Barukh haba b’shem Adonai, berakhnukhem mibeit Adonai.
Blessed is the one who comes in the name of God; we bless you from the House of God.
אֵל יְיָ וַיָּאֶר לָנוּ, אִסְרוּ־חַג בַּעֲבֹתִים עַד־קַרְנוֹת הַמִּזְבֵּחַ.
El Adonai vayaʾer lanu, isru ḥag baʿavotim ad karnot hamizbeaḥ.
God is the Lord, who has given us light; bind the festival offering with cords, up to the horns of the altar.
אֵלִי אַתָּה וְאוֹדֶךָּ, אֱלֹהַי אֲרוֹמְמֶךָּ.
Eli atah v’odeka, Elohai aromemeka.
You are my God, and I will praise You; my God, I will exalt You.
הוֹדוּ לַיְיָ כִּי־טוֹב, כִּי לְעוֹלָם חַסְדּוֹ.
Hodu l’Adonai ki tov, ki l’olam ḥasdo.
Give thanks to God, who is good; whose love endures for ever.
About this song
The verses of welcome from the Hallel (Psalm 118:26–29), set to what is arguably the flagship melody of the Spanish and Portuguese Jews. The same broad, processional tune carries Barukh haba in Hallel, the Song of the Sea on Shabbat morning, and the table-song Bendigamos after the meal.
London preserves the melody in its older, unadorned form; in the Amsterdam Esnoga a choral descant rises over its closing phrase. To open a gathering with it is to be welcomed in the most recognizably Western-Sephardi voice there is.
In the living tradition
These are not museum pieces. The same songs are sung today at Kehillah Kedoshah Zikhron Zvi, the egalitarian Western Sephardi congregation of the Hudson Valley — the community at the endpoint of the Program’s Sephardi Liturgy project.