A Little Shabbat Music

The music of Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach has continued to grow in popularity, even in the years since his sudden death in 1994. In particular, Carlebach's musical settings of the traditional Friday night Kabbalat Shabbat service have been embraced by mainstream Orthodox synagogues across the globe. The following song, taken from the second half of the Lecha Dodi prayer--in which the Shabbat is greeted as if it were a bride--is an example of Carlebach's Kabbalat Shabbat service.

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The words of the prayer, translated into English, are as follows:

Feel not ashamed, be not humiliated.
Why are you downcast? Why are you disconsolate?
In you will My people's afflicted find shelter
As the city is built upon its hilltop.

Come my Beloved to greet the bride--The Sabbath presence let us welcome!

May your oppressor be downtrodden
And may those who devoured you be cast far off.
Your God will rejoice over you
Like a groom rejoices over his bride.

Come my Beloved to greet the bride--The Sabbath presence let us welcome!

Rightward and leftward you shall spread out mightily,
And you shall extol the might of God,
Through the man descended from Peretz,
Then we shall be glad and mirthful.

Come my Beloved to greet the bride--The Sabbath presence let us welcome!

Enter in peace, O crown of her husband,
Even in gladness and good cheer,
Among the faithful of the treasured nation
Enter, O bride! Enter, O bride!

Translation adapted from "The Complete Artscroll Siddur."