שַׁחַר אֲבַקֶּשְׁךָ
Shaḥar Avakeshkha
“At dawn I seek You” — Ibn Gabirol
Sung by Rabbi Jonathan Cohen and family. From the family’s recordings of Western Sephardi home singing.
Text & translation
שַׁחַר אֲבַקֶּשְׁךָ צוּרִי וּמִשְׂגַּבִּי, אֶעְרֹךְ לְפָנֶיךָ שַׁחְרִי וְגַם עַרְבִּי.
Shaḥar avakeshkha tzuri umisgabbi, eʿerokh l’fanekha shaḥri v’gam arbi.
I’ll seek You at day’s dawning, O my Rock Who rescues me; I’ll unfurl my prayer before You, in the morning and at eve.
לִפְנֵי גְדֻלָּתְךָ אֶעֱמֹד וְאֶבָּהֵל, כִּי עֵינְךָ תִרְאֶה כָל מַחְשְׁבוֹת לִבִּי.
Lifnei g’dullatekha eʿemod v’ebbahel, ki einkha tir’eh khol maḥsh’vot libbi.
Before Your boundless greatness I will stand and I will quail, for Your eyes do penetrate my heart and all my thoughts You see.
מַה זֶּה אֲשֶׁר יוּכַל הַלֵּב וְהַלָּשׁוֹן לַעֲשׂוֹת, וּמַה כֹּחַ רוּחִי בְּתוֹךְ קִרְבִּי?
Mah zeh asher yukhal halev v’halashon laʿasot, umah koaḥ ruḥi b’tokh kirbi?
What could my heart or my tongue do, existing on their own? And what strength would I have without Your Spirit placed in me?
הִנֵּה לְךָ תִיטַב זִמְרַת אֱנוֹשׁ, עַל כֵּן אוֹדְךָ בְּעוֹד תִּהְיֶה נִשְׁמַת אֱלוֹהַּ בִּי.
Hinneh l’kha titav zimrat enosh, al ken od’kha b’od tihyeh nishmat eloah bi.
But lo, You love the songs of humankind, so then I’ll give You praise for all the days Your Spirit dwells in me.
Singing translation by Marc Michael Epstein.
About this song
A reshut — a poetic prelude to the prayer Nishmat kol ḥai — by Solomon ibn Gabirol (Shelomoh ben Yehudah ibn Gabirol; Málaga, c. 1021/22 – Valencia, c. 1058), the great Hebrew poet and Neoplatonic philosopher of al-Andalus. In the Western Sephardic rite it precedes Nishmat on the morning of Yom Kippur.
Hazan Abraham Lopes Cardozo preserved the melody as it was sung at Amsterdam’s weekday mornings before the Second World War; in the Cohen household it has become the piece that opens the Shabbat table’s singing — a quiet, searching overture before the louder joy that follows.
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.