חִשְׁקִי חִזְקִי
Ḥishqi Ḥizqi
“My Desire, my Strength” — a hymn for the Esnoga
Sung by Hazzan Daniel Halfon and family. A Western Sephardi home recording.
Text & translation
חִשְׁקִי חִזְקִי מִדֵּי יוֹם יוֹם, מַהֵר הָאֵר מַלְכִּי חָשְׁכִּי, רִמְשִׁי שִׁמְשִׁי עוֹד לֹא יִכְבֶּה, יָאִיר לִי אוֹר שִׁמְשֵׁךְ מַלְכִּי.
Ḥishqi ḥizqi midei yom yom, maher ha’er malki ḥoshki, rimshi shimshi od lo yikhbeh, ya’ir li or shimshekh malki.
My Desire, my Strength, day after day — hasten, my Sovereign, to light my darkness. My dusk, my sun shall be quenched no more; the light of Your sun, my Sovereign, will shine for me.
עוּרִי עוּרִי נֵבֶל עָשׂוֹר, בְּקוֹל זִמְרָה שִׁירִים שִׁירִי, יַרְחֵךְ זַרְחֵךְ לֹא יָבוֹא עוֹד, כִּי בָא אוֹרֵךְ קוּמִי אוֹרִי.
ʿUri ʿuri nevel ʿasor, bekol zimra shirim shiri, yarḥekh zarḥekh lo yavo od, ki va orekh kumi ori.
Awake, awake, O harp and ten-stringed lyre! With the voice of song, O sing your songs! Your moon, your radiance shall set no more, for your light has come — arise and shine!
About this song
Composed by Isaac Aboab da Fonseca (1605–1693), Ḥakham of the Portuguese community of Amsterdam, for the consecration of the new Esnoga in 1675, and set to music by Abraham de Casseres in the early eighteenth century.
Built throughout on Isaiah 60 — qumi ori ki va orekh, “Arise, shine, for your light has come” — it weaves the poet’s address to God with the prophet’s call to Zion to wake and shine.
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.