Shalom Aleichem (, 'Peace be upon you') is a traditional song sung by many Jews every Friday night upon returning home from synagogue prayer. It signals the arrival of the

Shabbat Shabbat (, , or ; , , ) or the Sabbath (), also called Shabbos (, ) by Ashkenazi Hebrew, Ashkenazim, is Judaism's day of rest on the seventh day of the seven-day week, week—i.e., Friday prayer, Friday–Saturday. On this day, religious Jews ...

, welcoming the

angel An angel is a spiritual (without a physical body), heavenly, or supernatural being, usually humanoid with bird-like wings, often depicted as a messenger or intermediary between God (the transcendent) and humanity (the profane) in variou ...

s who accompany a person home on the eve of the Shabbat. The custom of singing "Shalom Aleichem" on Friday night before Eshet Ḥayil and

Kiddush Kiddush (; ), , is a blessing recited over wine or grape juice to sanctify the Shabbat and Jewish holidays. Additionally, the word refers to a small repast held on Shabbat or festival mornings after the prayer services and before the meal. S ...

is now nearly universal among religious Jews. There are many tunes to the song, and many recite each stanza is recited 3 times.

Sources

This liturgical poem was written by the kabbalists of

Safed Safed (), also known as Tzfat (), is a city in the Northern District (Israel), Northern District of Israel. Located at an elevation of up to , Safed is the highest city in the Galilee and in Israel. Safed has been identified with (), a fortif ...

in the late 16th or early 17th century. A complete survey of extant manuscripts, compiled by Chaim Leiberman, is available in Kirjath Sepher vol. 38–9. According to a homiletic teaching in the

Talmud The Talmud (; ) is the central text of Rabbinic Judaism and the primary source of Jewish religious law (''halakha'') and Jewish theology. Until the advent of Haskalah#Effects, modernity, in nearly all Jewish communities, the Talmud was the cen ...

, two angels accompany people on their way back home from

synagogue A synagogue, also called a shul or a temple, is a place of worship for Jews and Samaritans. It is a place for prayer (the main sanctuary and sometimes smaller chapels) where Jews attend religious services or special ceremonies such as wed ...

on Friday night—a good angel and an evil angel. If the house has been prepared for the Shabbat ("the lamp has been lit, the table set, and his couch spread"), the good angel utters a blessing that the next Shabbat will be the same, and the evil angel is forced to respond "

Amen Amen (, ; , ; , ; , ) is an Abrahamic declaration of affirmation which is first found in the Hebrew Bible, and subsequently found in the New Testament. It is used in Jewish, Christian, and Islamic practices as a concluding word, or as a respons ...

", but if the home is not prepared for Shabbat, the evil angel expresses the wish that the next Shabbat will be the same, and the good angel is forced to respond "Amen". The hymn is assumed to be based on this teaching.

Words

Variations and emendations

Mizrahi and some

Sephardi Sephardic Jews, also known as Sephardi Jews or Sephardim, and rarely as Iberian Peninsular Jews, are a Jewish diaspora population associated with the historic Jewish communities of the Iberian Peninsula (Spain and Portugal) and their descendant ...

traditions include a penultimate verse, beginning , "''In your rest for peace'' ..." and the final verse has a inserted in front of the צ which Koren claims does not change the meaning of the last verse. This is also present in Tikunei Shabbos, the earliest known printing of the poem; as is one before the of the second verse. Elijah of Vilna (1720–1789) worried about the phrasing and warned singers to be careful not to pause between ''elyon'', Most High, and ''mee-melech'', from the king. According to Jacob Zallel Lauterbach (1873-1942) the words ממלך מלכי המלכים are not original. Some versions include ''melech'' instead of ''mi-melech''. Moshe Yair Weinstock, among others, criticizes the final verse for rudely urging the angels on. Yaakov Chaim Sofer, in his work ''Kaf Hachayim'', (262:16) notes:

This position resolves a common complaint about the wording—namely, that it sounds like the speaker is shooing the angels away—and somewhat neatens the grammar, especially of the Sephardic tradition. The resultant text translates: Rabbi Jacob Emden, in his prayerbook, ''Bet El'' (1745), criticized the use of the hymn on the grounds that supplications on the Sabbath and supplications to angels were inappropriate and the hymn's grammar—arguing that the inclusion of the prefix מִ at the beginning of every second line (i.e., ''mee-melech'') was bad form, as it rendered the passage, "angels of the Most High, ''away from'' the King who rules over kings". He, therefore, deleted that מִ, thereby reducing ''mi-melech'' to ''melech'', and that deletion has been emulated in some other prayerbooks (a small minority) such as

Seligman Baer Seligman (Isaac) Baer (1825–1897) was a Masoretic text, Masoretic scholar, and an editor of the Hebrew Bible and of the Siddur, Jewish liturgy. He was born in Mosbach, the northern district of Biebrich, on 18 September 1825 and died at Biebric ...

's ''Siddur Avodat Yisroel'' (1868), the Orot Sephardic, and Koren's Mizrahi (but not Koren's Ashkenaz or Sefard) prayerbook, although it makes the musical meter a bit awkward.

Melodies

Many different melodies have been written for ''Shalom Aleichem''. The slow, well-known melody for the song was composed by the American composer and conductor Rabbi Israel Goldfarb on May 10, 1918, while sitting near the

Alma Mater Alma mater (; : almae matres) is an allegorical Latin phrase meaning "nourishing mother". It personifies a school that a person has attended or graduated from. The term is related to ''alumnus'', literally meaning 'nursling', which describes a sc ...

statue in front of Low Memorial Library at

Columbia University Columbia University in the City of New York, commonly referred to as Columbia University, is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Churc ...

, and first published later that year as ''"Sholom Aleichem—שָׁלוֹם עֲלֵיכֶם"'' in ''Friday Evening Melodies'' by Israel and his brother

Samuel Samuel is a figure who, in the narratives of the Hebrew Bible, plays a key role in the transition from the biblical judges to the United Kingdom of Israel under Saul, and again in the monarchy's transition from Saul to David. He is venera ...

. The famous Goldfarb song is often presumed to be a traditional

Hasidic Hasidism () or Hasidic Judaism is a religious movement within Judaism that arose in the 18th century as a spiritual revival movement in contemporary Western Ukraine before spreading rapidly throughout Eastern Europe. Today, most of those aff ...

melody. I. Goldfarb wrote in 1963, "The popularity of the melody traveled not only throughout this country but throughout the world, so that many people came to believe that the song was handed down from Mt. Sinai by

Moses In Abrahamic religions, Moses was the Hebrews, Hebrew prophet who led the Israelites out of slavery in the The Exodus, Exodus from ancient Egypt, Egypt. He is considered the most important Prophets in Judaism, prophet in Judaism and Samaritani ...

." In the Preface to "Friday Evening Melodies" the composers articulated the goal of avoiding the extremes of both the free-form emotive Eastern European musical liturgical style and the classical Western European musical structure of " Israel Emancipated". A traditional Moroccan Jewish melody is identical to the song ''El Rey Nimrod''. A modern, exuberantly joyful version of this melody has been popularized by Idan Yaniv and Kinderlach; it was released in September 2009. As one of her last acts, Debbie Friedman shared her version of "Shalom Aleichem" with Rabbi Joy Levitt. Friedman believed it was this song that would become her legacy. Another common melody, with a faster, more upbeat tempo was composed by Rabbi Shmuel Brazil.

References

External links

Recordings of four tunes to Shalom AleichemShalom Aleichem full song with vocalization and (transliterated) lyricsCommentaries on the Shalom Aleichem Liturgy
{{Shabbat Hebrew-language literature Jewish practices Jewish belief and doctrine Jewish liturgical poems Jewish mysticism Jewish prayer and ritual texts Shabbat Hebrew words and phrases in Jewish prayers and blessings Zemirot