Yedid Nefesh

Yedid Nefesh (Hebrew: יְדִיד נֶפֶש y’did nefesh) is the title of a piyyut. It is usually sung on the Jewish Sabbath.

Some sing it between Minchah (afternoon prayer) of Friday and the beginning of Kabbalat Shabbat (literally: receiving or greeting the Sabbath—a collection of psalms usually sung to welcome in the Shabbat queen, as it were, the restful contentment that descends from above during nightfall on Friday).

It is sung by many Jews during Seudah Shlishit (the third meal on Shabbat; the first is on Friday night, the second on Saturday lunch, and the third on Saturday before nightfall).

Many Chassidim say or sing it every morning before beginning to the Pesukei dezimra section of Shacharit in order to arouse their love of God in preparation for the praises of Pesukei d'Zimra.

This poem is commonly attributed to the sixteenth century kabbalist, Rabbi Elazar ben Moshe Azikri (1533-1600), who first published it in Sefer Charedim (published in Venice 1601), but Azikri did not claim authorship of it and there have been other suggested authors (e.g. Judah Halevi, or Israel Nagara). The Hebrew Manuscripts at Cambridge University Libraries by Stefan C. Reif (1997, page 93) refers to an appearance of Yedid Nefesh in the Commentary On the Book of Numbers by Samuel ben David ben Solomon, a manuscript dated to about 1438—long before Azikri's birth. Azikri's philosophy centred around the intense love one must feel for God, a theme that is evident in this piyyut (see references). The first letters of each of the four verses make up the four letter name of God, known in English as the tetragrammaton.

The words are as follows:

Verse 1

Verse 2

Verse 3

Verse 4

The text above is the "conventional" text appearing in most Ashkenaz liturgies (including the ArtScroll siddur) down to our day. There have been, over the centuries, many variants in different published prayerbooks. The conventional text differs from the text first printed in 1601, and both the conventional and the 1601 texts differed from Rosen's manuscript (both the manuscript and the 1601 printing were in unpointed Hebrew).

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