Tonight, after sundown, we count the following day of the Omer:
Today is 48 days, which is 6 weeks and 6 days of the Omer
How to: the blessings and procedure for counting the Omer.
From Our Community:
Contributed by: Eva Kleederman. Gott Fun Avrom by Unknown.
I first heard this sung by a young friend and found it very affecting…..a Havdalah prayer in Yiddish, rather than Hebrew!….a direct address to God, rather than praise for the Sabbath!
Havdalah is normally understood as highly symbolic i.e., sanctification of Shabbos by wine, sweetness of Shabbos by spices, the “gathering in” for Shabbos by twisted candle, and the separation of Shabbos from the mundane by lighting, then extinguishing the twisted candle.
What strikes me about Gott Fun Avrom is the immediacy of the prayer; it is not symbolic, it is literal….a plea to God for protection, luck, blessings, health, success … and sung in the Jews’ own vernacular. It dates back at least to the early 1700’s, in Ashkenazi Western Europe, and there are several versions. In traditional Yiddish-speaking households, it is the penultimate prayer of the Havdalah service.
The singer here learned the prayer from Sheva Zucker, a well-known Yiddishist.
Click the Learn More link to see a wonderful clip from the 1939 film of Shalom Alechem’s story “Tevye” (of Fiddler on the Roof fame). In it, the mother sings Gott fun Avrom at the end of Shabbos. Learn More.
