“Refue tsu di dayges / A remedy for your worries”

Introducing the Joy of the Soul

Although not a household name today, in the 18th and 19th centuries, Elkhonen Kirkhhan’s Simkhes ha-Nefesh שמחת הנפש (Joy of the Soul) was a best-seller. His Yiddish classic (first published in 1707 in Frankfurt) was printed nearly twenty times throughout Europe, and of all the musar works (morality-guides) of the time attained a special place in the hearts of the Yiddish-reading masses. Part anthology, part moral guide, part inspirational, Simkhes ha-Nefesh comprises Yiddish paraphrases and folkloristic retellings of stories from the Talmud and medieval sources informed by his core message—niks zorgen zol / don’t worry; instead serve God with the simple joy of your divine soul. Despite the great popularity of his work, Kirkhhan felt that his Yiddish tales weren’t accomplishing their goal, and so in 1727 he published a second volume—this time comprising songs. It is here that we find what may well be the oldest extant Yiddish musical notation with accompanying lyrics, and the inspiration for the songs you are now playing. In fact, Kirkhhan’s second volume was doubly unique, because it was the first time that a Jewish writer had sought to fuse morality literature and laws with music. If the people aren’t becoming better Jews and better humans through reading, he reasoned, maybe they will do so through song. 

Having seen what great indecency occurs in communities,

And that they do not take to heart that all is vanity—

Books in Yiddish and the first part of Simkhes ha-Nefesh being without effect among many—

For to bring them diligently to read ethical instruction and laws is an art;

Of what avail is it to make edifying books

If they are not read, and awe of heaven is set aside because of worldly things?

I pondered such things with pain,

Therefore, I have made these hymns.

Many laws of everyday and Sabbath and festivals are portrayed in them

And set according to song and rhyme.

Also provided with musical notes, to make known,

Through the practice of a musician,

The right melody… (1)

Truth be told, Kirkhhan was mistaken about the success of his first literary endeavour. By the time he published the second volume in 1727, the first part of Simkhes ha-Nefesh was already in its fourth printing. 

About the author and his work

Frustratingly little is known about the author of Simkhes ha-Nefesh. Elkhonen Henele son of Rabbi Binyomin Wolf Kirkhhan (אלחנן הענלה קירכהן) was born in the tiny village of Kirkhhan, not far from Marburg in the second half of 17th century, perhaps around 1655, and died sometime after 1731. His father served as a shtadlan for the region, and his father-in-law was Rabbi Tsvi Hirsh Koidanover, the author of the extremely influential bilingual (Hebrew-Yiddish) mystical-musar compendium, Kav ha-Yashar (1705, 1709). Where he spent most of his life is unclear. He certainly spent time in the Kirkhhan area, also in Koidanov and Frankfurt, and travelled throughout Poland and Holland. That he was held in very high esteem is apparent from his marriage to Rabbi Koidanover’s daughter and from the fact that Rabbi Yonatan Eybeshutz, “Rabbi of the Three Communities” in his Ya’arot Dvash (drush 12) recommended that Simkhes ha-Nefesh be read daily by women and maidens. Aside from Simkhes ha-Nefesh part 1, published in Frankfurt in 1707, and part 2 published in Fürth in 1727, he also published a two-volume commentary on the Torah and Prophets (Offenbach, 1722, 1731) called Ḥiddushim me-sefer Elḥanan (Novellae from the book of Elḥanan), and composed an unpublished kabbalistic commentary to the prayers, titled Leqet Elḥanan: sodot ve kavanot al ha tefillah (Collectanea Elḥanan: Mysteries and Intentions About Prayer).

Elkhonen Kirkhhan’s fame and reputation, though, stem from his great Yiddish compilation—Simkhes ha-Nefesh part 1. Beloved by rabbis, teachers, and the general Yiddish reading public, Kirkhhan’s collection of Talmudic, Midrashic, and assorted medieval tales (drawn from Sefer ha-Ḥasidim, the Zohar, Shenei Luḥot ha-Brit, Kav ha-Yashar) enjoyed astounding success and remained especially popular in German lands through to the 1850s. The book was used as the basis of droshes/sermons by many rabbis and teachers for generations, and it is no exaggeration to say that his compilation contributed to the entry of traditional Jewish tales into Yiddish folklore. The success of the volume was not simply due to the selection of texts (his was by no means the first such compilation), but also because of his tender pedagogical sensibility and his warm and tender Yiddish style. Jacob Shatsky, for example, writes of his simple yet exalted tone, while Israel Zinberg notes his loving heart and remarkable grace. Both ascribe the success of the book to his being a folksmensh, a man of the people, namely, religious, but not ascetic; devout, yet good-hearted. Following Shatsky and Zinberg, Dovid Katz has highlighted the contrast between Kirkhhan’s work and that of his father-in-law, suggesting that where Kav ha-Yashar seeks to inspire awe through dread, Kirkhhan’s work, as its name suggests, seeks to inspire awe through joy. Though overstated somewhat, Simkhes ha-Nefesh certainly minimises discussion of punishment, and prefers to focus on reminding the reader of the sublime origin of the soul whose chief purpose is to worship God. 

The shar-blat, title page, from the 1707 edition is instructive:

First, you will find herein a well-established remedy for worries, for the majority of the world is beset by worries which are harmful to your body and soul. Those who will read the remedy will find their worries lessen and depart. Secondly, you will find great consolations and pure arguments to show mortal man that one should not be sad about anything, for everything that befalls a person comes from God and is for good…. Thirdly, you will find great knowledge… concerning the soul’s relation with a person and that it was created to worship God…. Fourthly, you will find great ethical exhortation and rebuke…parables and stories…. Fifthly, you will find all the laws pertaining to the whole year which every Jew is required to keep…that all will know the correct way to worship God…and all the laws for blessings…. Sixthly, you will find abridged medical/health directives, just as the Gaon Rabbi Moshe son of Maimon writes about how a person who loves God and wants to make his soul and himself happy ought to behave.

One who reads within, the title page concludes, will “certainly be joyous.”

The introduction to the book tellingly begins with a paraphrase of a wonderful story found in the Babylonian Talmud, tractate Ta’anit, folio 22a. Rabbi Beroqa bumps into Elijah the Prophet in the market place and asks him who among those there will be worthy of the world to come. Elijah points out two brothers, and when Rabbi Beroqa inquires what they do to earn such a fate, they reply: “We are jesters and we cheer up the depressed.” In Kirkhhan’s retelling: Mir zenen lustig layt. Ven mir zeen layt di zorgen un troyeren, zenen mir zey mesameyakh / We are merry folk. When we see people who are worried and sad we make them happy.” He adds: “This is a general rule for a proper tsaddik: there exists no thing that he should worry about because he has a holy soul.” According to Kirkhhan, one who worries over matters of this world, material possessions in particular, cannot be whole with God. And so, “I have in this book brought many pure arguments to show people that they should not worry.” The second half of part 1 with its “miniature Yiddish Shulhan Arukh” generated considerable controversy, and one edition was even placed on the pyre in Vilna. Apparently, the idea that the average Jew, and what’s more, women too, might be able to find everything they needed to live a halakhic life in a single book without recourse to rabbinic gatekeepers was for some a bridge too far, and many of the subsequent editions omitted the section on laws. (2) 

Simkhes ha-Nefesh Part 2

The second part of Simkhes ha-Nefesh, published in Fürth in 1727, was unlike any other Jewish book that had ever been published in any language. Written in the vernacular, aimed at the folk-masses, fusing biblical narrative, history, rabbinic midrash, halakhah and ethical exhortation, and on occasion some contemporary realia, Kirkhhan produced thirteen songs complete with rhyming lyrics and musical notation. (Though it is tempting and romantic to think that Kirkhhan himself composed the melodies, it seems far more likely that the he drew upon and perhaps modified popular melodies that he had heard. As he writes in his introduction—a musician rendered Kirkhhan’s melody into musical notation.) The song book opens with three Shabbat songs (for Friday night, Saturday morning, and Saturday evening when Shabbat departs), and a Rosh Ḥodesh (New Month) song. These are followed by songs for the major festivals: a combined song for Rosh ha-Shanah and Yom Kippur, another combined song for Sukkot and Simḥat Torah, a piece for Ḥannukah, a Purim song featuring an extensive retelling of the Megillah, a song for Pesaḥ which follows the biblical narrative interspersed with rabbinic commentary, and finally, a Shavuot song focusing on the revelation at Mount Sinai, also marked by its integration of Talmudic midrash. These are followed by a song simultaneously for weddings and circumcisions, and a song for a bride with instructions on how she ought to behave with her husband. Most of the songs conclude with intense if somewhat formulaic messianic yearning. The final song with musical notation stands out among the collection. The song is a memento mori, an alphabetical exhortation to ethical-religious life and repentance in the face of inevitable death and judgment. Interestingly, this song appeared (without music, though he suggested it be sung to the tune of Ashlikh yagon va-anaḥah) at the end of the first part of Simkhes ha-Nefesh from 1707, suggesting that Kirkhhan may have begun composing his songs already then. Zinberg may well be correct in his assessment that as stand-alone poems, Kirkhhan’s lyrics have only “slight literary value.” He is equally correct in noting their importance for the history of meter and poetic forms of Yiddish folksong. More to the point, however, is Shatsky’s characterisation of the second part of Simkhes ha-Nefesh as of broad and enduring cultural-historical-literary significance. In truth, not only has Kirkhhan’s music never been the subject of serious ethnomusicological analysis, his lyrics have not been studied by scholars in any significant detail, nor have his exegetical and artistic strategies. Perhaps this little project will inspire. (Our bilingual songbook provides references to rabbinic literature, a preliminary effort in this direction.)

Kirkhhan claimed he was motivated to write the second part of Simkhes ha-Nefesh because Part 1—the moralistic collection of tales from the Talmud and other writings—was not achieving its desired goals. (As noted, Kirkhhan was mistaken—the book was a bestseller and was republished even in 1901.) A more direct motivation and context for the composition of Part 2 and the switch from Yiddish paraphrase of classics to innovative musical rhyme, fusing history, morality, and law, can be found in Kirkhhan’s assessment of village life in early 18th century, found towards the end of the second volume, an assessment which according to Zinberg, is the key to the entire work. Historians have noted that throughout the seventeenth century, Jews of central and Eastern Europe were progressively driven out of urban centres to villages where they found themselves living among non-Jewish peasants. Though perhaps an oversimplification, the result seems to have been an impoverishment of Jewish cultural, intellectual and moral life. An itinerant preacher, Kirkhhan spent much time amongst the Jews of the rural towns, villages and hamlets, and was an eyewitness to the “spiritual destitution of the masses.” No doubt an exaggeration—such was the nature of muser sforim—Kirkhhan lists in rhymed verse a litany of sins, covering every area of Jewish life.

I have experienced in yishuvim (small communities/villages) that old women are unable to keep the commandment of niddah (menstrual purity) properly. When they examine themselves and find a spot of blood, they pay it no attention and say nothing about it. Other women have the mikvahs (ritual immersion baths) constructed according to their own ideas. No one can be fully immersed in them, for the mikvah is small. When the barrel is full, there is scarcely any water in it. In many yishuvim women and unmarried girls go everywhere without chaperones. They are not concerned with sin, whether minor or major. They declare those things which are prohibited to be permitted. At Pesaḥ when one must purify the meat, they pronounce the blessing over non-kosher meat. There are also women who drink a great deal of non-kosher wine at weddings and circumcisions—as much as would be required to fill the ritual bath. And they joke and laugh with youths and men; as they act, so do their daughters. In the yishuvim on holy Rosh ha-Shanah one can see ḥazzanim (cantors/precentors), ignoramuses, and youths who know nothing of kavannah (devout intention) and cannot understand a single word. On Purim they read the blessing to the faithful in a megillah written on paper. Some construct their own horn mouthpieces which they place on the shofar. They blow through the mouthpiece just as do trumpeters and those who play forest horns, like the ones used for hunting hares. Most of the time the inhabitants of the yishuvim fulfil the duties of ritual slaughterers, despite the fact that they are completely illiterate. It is rare to meet someone who has a kosher slaughtering knife. They do not remove the spots from the lungs, and they cut them into pieces so as to derive maximum profit from the meat…. In the yishuvim there are people who behave like the devil. On the night of the seyder, they eat a lamb or a roasted goat. And in addition, they claim that it is necessary to offer a sacrifice for Pesaḥ. There are likewise many foolish people who say: “I wish to bless the sukkah.” They eat in their house and only bless ha-motsi in the sukkah. They believe that they have done their duty. …One can not begin to report all the ways people behave at weddings. In any case, one rarely hears holy words.… When a scholar delivers the sermon, whether it be on an important subject or not, it is like the work of the devil. No holy word may be spoken, for those in attendance will immediately fall asleep or at least become drowsy. Often the people make jokes and noise. The women and young girls let their voices be heard like prostitutes, and do not suffer themselves to be reprimanded, so that it is necessary to stop in the middle of the sermon. When the sermon is over, the impudent songs begin anew. The crowd rejoices, makes noise, and sings, stamps their feet and claps their hands and jumps on the tables. On the wedding night they make the same racket… Generally, the wedding takes place on Shabbat and, because of this, thousands of sins are committed…. In short, weddings in the yishuvim are not ceremonies where one carries out mitsvot, but rather nothing but mockery. In the yishuvim it is thought a burden to house a visitor who is ill: placed on a wagon or a cart, he has to wander from one village to the next. When the sick person is in serious condition, they send him forth, so that often he is found dead on the wagon, and sometimes the cart-driver puts the body out of the wagon and takes his money, so that he is found lying dead in a field.… With respect to calls to read the Torah, there is squabbling in the yishuvim. Everyone thinks: “I deserve the greatest honour.” …In the synagogue on Shabbat many chat about nonreligious topics or business dealings. They go to the synagogue late and first carry on their foolish chatter, and thus miss the moment of the recitation of the shema and the prayer. (3)

Beyond the generalised and near total sense of abrogation of the law, both ritual and moral, Shatsky and Zinberg suggest that the key driver for Kirkhhan’s innovation was the popularity of ḥazzanim as singers of bawdy songs in taverns. (4) Kirkhhan’s anti-ḥazzan polemic was nothing new. Kirkhhan’s father-in-law’s magnum opus, Kav ha-Yashar (chap. 41) for example, pours forth its venom on the ḥazzanim who are deserving of a special admonition: “In most cases they pay great attention to the melody but give little thought to the actual prayer. Their only goal is to show off their voices. As a result, they swallow up or cut short the most important praises of the blessed Holy One.” What was new, though, was Kirkhhan’s response. If the village masses don’t follow the law, it can only be because they don’t know the law, and if they don’t want to read or listen to words of Torah, and they only want to sing and listen to performers, then let them learn Torah through singing! Ever the folksmensh, Kirkhhan reasoned that if he couldn’t beat them, he would join them, and so was born a new literary genre—the fusion of musar, narrative, midrash, law and song. As Shatsky writes: “He wishes to penetrate the masses not with tales and fables for reading, but with songs. With and through singing, he would become one of their own among the masses of the people. Let the religious rules, the stories and the parables be sung. Through singing, the people will become familiar with all the laws…” (5) A near contemporary of Kirkhhan, the composer George Frideric Handel is reported to have remarked: “My Lord, I should be sorry if I only entertained them; I wished to make them better.” The sentiment neatly encapsulates Kirkhhan’s turn to music and song. 

It would seem, though, that Kirkhhan’s literary experiment was a failure. Part 2 was never republished and did not leave much of an impact on the Jewish world.

Until now… fun unzere mayler tsu got’s oyern!

Soul Joy 1727

We are not the first to attempt to bring Kirkhhan’s song book to life—the allure of the oldest Yiddish musical notation is powerful! In 2014, Avishai Aleksander Fisz together with a specially assembled group of Baroque musicians (Di Tsaytmashin) released versions of twelve of Kirkhhan’s songs, and a search for “Elchonon Henle Kirchhain” on Spotify leads to some interesting examples of Kirkhhan’s tunes by another Baroque ensemble, Solomente Naturali (2015). Both versions are fascinating attempts to recreate the music wie es eigentlich gewesen ist (the way it actually was), to use the famous expression of Leopold von Ranke. Our approach has been very different. Though also inspired by the single line of melody on the page, we have been motivated by the question—what can these be for us now? And so, dear listener, you will not find here “baroque polyphony” (6) or “Lutheran chorales” (7) but rather contemporary interpretations spanning folk, grunge, rock, rap and more—befitting Kirkhhan’s innovative experiment. Kirkhhan’s deepest wish was that his work would be sung at home by the Jewish masses. That remains our wish too.

Creating contemporary songs that might appeal to modern sensibilities while simultaneously integrating the original line of melody and the original lyrics was not always straightforward. In the first instance, some of Kirkhhan’s songs extend for many pages and were they to be sung in their entirety would continue for over 20 minutes. Moreover, his desire to educate the masses on correct ritual behaviour meant that in some cases over half of his lyrics deal with halakhic minutia. Although his presentation of the correct manner of building an eruv is of historical interest, it doesn’t make for a great rock album! (8) Likewise, the laws for baking matzah and tips on how to make utensils kosher and so on. The melody line too often presented problems, as it wasn’t always clear how the notes were to be interpreted. On occasion, it seems that they needed to be read backwards to make any musical sense! Despite these considerable challenges, our process was ordered and systematic. First, Nathan created something that “looked” like a modern song from Kirkhhan’s long lyrics—omitting sections, re-ordering, finding a refrain etc. Gideon would then play the single line of melody from the 1727 edition. A discussion between Nathan, Gideon and Husky would follow: what genre might best fit the lyrics and melodic line? Clearly Purim would be joyous and cheeky, and Yom Kippur would be sombre and contemplative, but what genre suits Shavuot and the account of revelation at Sinai? What style should one employ for a song about our inevitable death? Once agreement on the desired “vibe” and “feel” was reached, Husky and Gideon then worked their magic, creating a contemporary alt-nay/new-old sound (here Leonard Cohen, there Pink Floyd, here Nirvana, there Beastie Boys), making sure to integrate the original melodic line. Three hundred years after his bold experiment, we hope Henele approves!

In most cases, we have preserved the original old central-western Yiddish with its occasionally bizarre syntax, though some word forms have been modernised (YIVO-ized) to make them understandable to today’s Yiddish speaker.

Gideon Preiss, Husky Gawenda, Nathan Wolski

Melbourne, Australia

תרפ"ב

Notes

 (1) From the introduction to Simkhes ha-Nefesh, part 2. Translation (slightly modified) in Israel Zinberg, A History of Jewish Literature, volume 7 (Old Yiddish Literature from its Origins to the Haskalah Period), trans. Bernard Martin (Cincinnati: Hebrew Union College Press, 1975), 288-289.  The Yiddish text can be found in Jacob Shatsky’s 1926 edition. See Jacob Shatsky, ed., Simkhes hanefesh: yidishe lider mit notn fun Elkhonon Kirkhhan (facsimile of 1727 edition) (New York: Max N. Maisel, 1926), beneath the rabbinic approbations; see also p. 32 in Shatsky’s introductory essay. 

The two major scholarly examinations of Simkhes ha-Nefesh are the aforementioned studies. See Shatsky, Simkhes, 9-50; Zinberg, A History, 207-217, 288-294. See also Jean Baumgarten, Introduction to Old Yiddish Literature, ed. and trans. Jerold C. Frakes (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005), 210-212; Dovid Katz, Words on Fire: The Unfinished Story of Yiddish (New York: Basic Books, 2004), 119-120. 

See also Shmuel Luria, Simḥat ha-Nefesh (n.p: Bnei Brak, 1990) for a recent Hebrew translation of Part 1 with annotations, and Elkhonen Kirkhhan, Seyfer Simkhes ha-Nefesh (Simhah La-ish: New York, 1996) for a modern Yiddish version.

See also https://seforimblog.com/2007/01/simchat-ha-nefesh-important-but-often/

(2) Zinberg, A History, 216-17.

(3) Translation (slightly modified) from Baumgarten, Introduction to Old Yiddish Literature, 211-212. For the Yiddish, see Shatsky ed. Simkhes ha-Nefesh, folios 17a-b.

(4) See Shatsky, Simkhes, 43-44; Zinberg, A History, 292.

(5) Shatsky, Simkhes, 44.

(6) Fisz in Yiddish Baroque Music: From the Book of the Rejoicing Soul (Brilliant Classics, 2016).

(7) Jean Baumgarten, “Listening, reading and understanding: how Jewish woman read the Yiddish ethical literature (seventeenth to eighteenth century),” Journal of Modern Jewish Studies 16 (2017), 267, note 26.

(8) Our desire to create, first and foremost, an enduring piece of art necessitated certain omissions and modifications.  We have combined all three Shabbat songs into one piece, and have omitted the Rosh Ḥodesh song. Alas, despite our best efforts, we were unable to make the wedding/circumcision song and the bridal song “work.” The latter was (unsurprisingly perhaps) far too patriarchal and moralistic. To our ears and hearts, the remaining songs—on Shabbat, the festivals, and the angel of death—form a coherent totality.

Acknowledgments

We extend our deepest gratitude to the Krystal Fund and the Jacob Kronhill Fund for supporting this project.

Our thanks also to Astrid Blees for transcribing the Old Yiddish text.