What Is the Meaning of Baal HaSulam’s Nigun “Yedid Nefesh”?
“Yedid Nefesh” (“Beloved of My Soul”) is a prayer song written by Elazar ben Moshe Azikri, a Kabbalist who lived in Safed (Heb. Tzfat, a city in northern Israel known for its Kabbalistic inhabitants) between 1533 and 1600. Over time, the song was gradually incorporated into prayers that were commonly sung.
Beloved of the soul, Compassionate Father!
Draw Your servant to Your will.
Your servant will hurry like a hart, will bow before Your majesty.
To him Your friendship will be sweeter
Than the dripping of the honeycomb and any taste.
Majestic, Beautiful Radiance of the universe!
My soul pines for Your love.
Please O God, heal her now showing her the pleasantness of Your radiance.
Then she will be strengthened and healed
And eternal gladness will be hers.
All-worthy One, may Your mercy be aroused
And please take pity on the son of Your beloved.
Because it is so very long that I have yearned intensely to see the splendor of strength.
These my heart desires, and please take pity and do not conceal Yourself.
Please be revealed and spread upon me, my Beloved, the shelter of Your peace.
Illuminate the land with Your glory, we shall rejoice and be glad in You.
Make haste, do love, for the time has come, and pardon us as in days of old.
“Yedid Nefesh” expresses man’s complete devotion to the Creator. The purpose of our lives is to reach adhesion with the Creator, which means that we enter into a state of complete love and bestowal in our connections, which become vitalized by the positive unifying force of nature. Such an action will grant us intentions that lead us to the corrections of the spiritual states that this prayer describes.
In the wisdom of Kabbalah, we say that we spiritually progress until “our mouth and our heart (desires) become a single whole,” so that our lips will not speak against the wishes of our heart. The Creator awaits only the sincerity of our desires so as to fulfill them at once and bring us closer to Him.
You can listen to “Yedid Nefesh” here.