L'kha Dodi - "v'ha'arev na" tune? (Reb Mordechai Dov-Ber Twerski)

from Friday Night with the Cambridge Egalitarian Minyan by Gal Chadash (the Cambridge Egalitarian Minyan)

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This is a great example of borrowing a tune written for a different text and singing it to L'kha Dodi. There are many others! (Ilan Lazarus once tried using the tune from the secular Sephardi song "A La Una Naci Yo" with Ladino lyrics.) Verse 3 mentions Jerusalem explicitly so there's a link with the song from which we learned this tune: Im Eshkocheich (If I Forget Thee, Jerusalem...), by the American male a cappella group Lev Tahor*. This idea came to Zach Eilon while preparing a Qabbalat Shabbat service on Kibbutz Hannaton in July 2009, or perhaps in the shower some years earlier.

* The tune was composed by Rabbi Mordechai Dov-Ber Twerski, the Hornosteipel Rebbe of New York, a scion of the Chernobil Chasidic dynasty. It was originally sung to "v'ha'arev na" from Birkat ha-Torah recited in shacharit (juicy technical info at vbm-torah.org/archive/tefila/67-03tefila.htm )

lyrics

refrain - verse 3 - refrain

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from Friday Night with the Cambridge Egalitarian Minyan, released April 1, 2010

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Gal Chadash Cambridge, UK

EgalMin is an inclusive, informal and active community which is famous for its alternative, egalitarian Kabbalat Shabbat services. Being a part of EgalMin means being part of a community which takes great joy in prayer and challenges itself to engage in learning, whilst also providing a social hub for its members and continuing to be an active part of the wider JSoc community. ... more