O our God, You have loved us
O our God, You have loved us out of all nations,
chosen us from all peoples and shown us honor.
You have sanctified us as a holy people
and taught us the ten utterances of the Decalogue.
You have let us hear Your splendid voice, from heaven,
and informed us of Your holy Sabbath,
in memory of the six days of creation, on which You have permitted us [to labor].
You have graced us with kindness, mercy, and compassion from You.
You have bequeathed us a good and beautiful thing, the Sabbath, with love:
a delightful day, a holy day, a blessed day—a day of holy convocation and a day when our God is satisfied.
You have crowned us with a diadem, a tiara, a golden crown.
You have given us bread for two days.1
You have sanctified us from when it has been yet daytime [i.e., at the start of the Sabbath].
Your love for us is wonderful.
Your covenant between us is supported, held up.
It is a testimony between You and the Israelites, for our generations.
Glory and praise are fitting for You, O our King.
Acquit us and sanctify us at evening, morning, and noon, as we are accustomed.
Read scripture, expound the Torah, it is our holiness.
It is written: And call the Sabbath a delight, and the holy day of the Lord honorable (Isaiah 58:13), for He has glorified us.
It is a Sabbath unto the Lord, in all our dwelling place.
All day, our tongue will declare Your praise.
Your deeds of goodness and kindness are great to us,
and your miracles and consideration are too much for us to recount, to tell to our ears.
Your precious kindness in front of our eyes,
O God, You have performed for us,
in making awesome deeds we had not even hoped for.
Answer us with awesome deeds, with justice, O our God of rescue!
What can we give back to You, O our Rock?
For you have given us such compensation,
we shall exalt the beauty of the name of Your dignified kingship.
Each living person shall praise You, as we do.
His name is dignified and assigned awe in the utterance of our lips.
He endures forever, for all time, we praise Him:
Behold, this is our God, who we have hoped will rescue us!
For the Lord is our judge, the Lord is our lawgiver.
The Lord is our king—He will rescue us.
Notes
[The portion of manna that fell on Friday was a double amount, which was consumed half on Friday and half on the Sabbath, as in Exodus 16:22.—Trans.]
Published in: The Posen Library of Jewish Culture and Civilization, vol. 3: Encountering Christianity and Islam.
