Yedid Nefesh

Yedid Nefesh (Hebrew: יְדִיד נֶפֶש, lit. 'beloved of the soul') is the title of a piyyut and zemer (Jewish hymn). It is usually sung on Shabbat.

This poem is commonly attributed to the sixteenth-century Sephardic kabbalist Rabbi Elazar ben Moshe Azikri (1533–1600), who first published it in Sefer Charedim (published in Venice 1601). Still, Azikri did not claim authorship of it, and there have been other suggested authors (e.g., Judah Halevi or Israel ben Moses Najara). Azikri's philosophy centred around the intense love one must feel for God, a theme evident in this piyyut (see references). The first letters of each of the four verses make up the four-letter name of God, known in English as the tetragrammaton. Various different textual readings appear in contemporary siddurim; the version printed in Siddur Rinat Yisrael and some other siddurim is the text that appears in Sefer Charedim.

There is a custom to sing 'Yedid Nefesh' between Mincha (afternoon prayer) on Friday and the beginning of Kabbalat Shabbat (literally: receiving or greeting the Sabbath—a collection of psalms usually sung to welcome in the Shabbat Queen. It is mentioned in the ArtScroll siddur. This custom is believed to have begun in the second half of the 20th century.

It is sung by many Jews during seudah shlishit (the third meal on Shabbat; the first is on Friday night, the second on Saturday lunch, and the third on Saturday before nightfall).

Many Hasidic Jews say or sing it every morning before beginning the pesukei dezimra section of Shacharit in order to arouse their love of God in preparation for the pesukei dezimra in Nusach Sefard siddurim.

The words are as follows:

The text above is the "conventional" text appearing in most Ashkenaz liturgies (including the ArtScroll siddur, with minor changes) down to our day. There have been, over the centuries, many variants in different published prayerbooks. The conventional text differs from the text first printed in 1601, and both the conventional and the 1601 texts differed from Azikri's manuscript (both the manuscript and the 1601 printing were in unvocalized Hebrew).

Verse 3, line 2: בּן אהובך (bein ahuvekha), translated here as "the son of Your beloved" is, in other translations of the same text, rendered as "your beloved son" (or child) or "your loving son". Some Sefardic/Mizrahi prayerbooks rewrite this phrase as עם אהוּבך (am ahuvakh), "your beloved people" (e.g. The Orot Sephardic Shabbat Siddur, ed by Rabbi Eliezer Toledano (1995) p. 571). But the first printing and Azikri's manuscript both have bein ahuvekha.