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Lyrics
Come my beloved we greet the bride
We're the crew we stand side by side
Hands up hearts up welcome the light
We greet Shabbat we welcome the bride
Guard and remember spoken as one
We're one people and God is one
For praise and beauty for love and song
We turn together where we belong
Wake from the dust city rise and shine
Dress in your beauty the crown is fine
Lift up your head we're not alone
Hope is awake and we're going home
Do not be ashamed do not be afraid
We were made small but we'll be remade
Right and left open wide your way
Kindness and joy will lead today
Come in with peace O Shabbat bride
Enter with joy and stay inside
Queen of our week in gentle light
Bless us with rest and hold us tight
Come my beloved we greet the bride
It's Shabbat now we welcome the bride
Behind the song
The song’s story
Welcoming the Sabbath bride
Rabbi Shlomo Halevi Alkabetz wrote Lecha Dodi in sixteenth-century Safed. Its refrain welcomes Shabbat as a bride. The poem belongs to the practice of greeting sacred time as a beloved presence, not merely marking the end of a working week.
National Library of Israel
A poem with many melodies
The National Library of Israel dates its first printing to a Sephardic prayer book published in Venice in 1584. The poem has since received many settings. Its continuity lies in a text and an act of welcome; there is no single melody that explains all its musical lives.
National Library of Israel
Our new English setting
Walter J. Kin wrote new music and adapted the Hebrew into English for this recording. Come My Beloved brings that older invitation into a contemporary musical voice. It is not an Olga Anikina adaptation, and its music should not be credited as an anonymous inherited tune.
Our recording & notes
About this recording
The release identifies Rabbi Shlomo Halevi Alkabetz’s Hebrew Lecha Dodi as its source. Walter J. Kin created an English adaptation and original music for this contemporary setting.
The words welcome Shabbat as a bride, call a community to stand together and move from fear toward renewal. A familiar act of welcome becomes a song for voices joining side by side.
Why we consider this song Jewish or Jewish-themed
We consider this directly Jewish religious repertoire: its source is a Hebrew Shabbat hymn, and the English words still welcome the Sabbath bride and speak of one people and one God.
For us, contemporary language does not have to remove the source’s meaning. The invitation to welcome rest together can remain clear to a newcomer while retaining the song’s named tradition.
Credits & source
- Source text
- Lecha Dodi by Rabbi Shlomo Halevi Alkabetz of Safed, in Hebrew
- Music and English words
- Walter J. Kin (RIGLI); original music, English adapted from the Hebrew
- Arrangement and production
- Walter J. Kin (RIGLI)
- Performance
- RIGLI and the Riglis Band
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