Life Is Born

by Shoshana Jedwab

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Life Is Born celebrates the grand rhythms and four elements of the natural world with an infectious danceable melody.

This single is my version of the meditative, earth-based chant adapted by Rabbi Jill Hammer.

Life Is Born began when Jill Hammer wanted to create a prayer that celebrated the four elements in an authentically Jewish way. She adapted a hypnotic Jewish prayer niggun (wordless spiritual melody) she encountered at the Leader Minyan in Jerusalem.

Her lyrics for Life is Born are based on the words of Ecclesiastes 1:4-7, which describe the constant movement of the elements: the earth’s presence through cycles of birth and death, the rising and setting of the sun, the whirling of the wind and the flowing of the rivers to the sea.

The final lines of the song are inspired by a poem by Nelly Sachs from the collection “O the Chimneys” (1967) in which the poet writes “So ending flows to beginning.” The song’s end is also inspired by the first words of Ecclesiastes, “hevel havalim,” which is usually translated “vanity of vanities” but can also mean “breath of breaths.” The way “Holy of Holies” means a place of great holiness, “breath of breaths” could mean the Great Breath—the breath of life that fills all beings.

The niggun that Life Is Born draws upon is itself an adaptation of the traditional agrarian Russian folk song, I Sit On A Rock.

This song came alive in Kohenet community as a daily spiritual practice, as well as a Sukkot holiday mantra.

lyrics

Lyrics by Jill Hammer, Ecclesiastes 1:1, 1:4-7 and Nelly Sachs

Life is born and life moves on
and the earth has held and will hold it all.
The sun rises and the sun sets
and returns again to rise and fall.
The wind turns south and the wind turns north,
turning, turning, returning still.
The rivers run from the clouds to the sea
and become the rain, and the sea is never filled.
So the beginning moves to the end
and the end flows on to begin again.
The one at the end is the one who begins
and the breath of breaths is within all things.

credits

released September 30, 2023
Life Is Born
© 2023 Shoshana Jedwab
℗ Shoshana Jedwab and Daniel Ori

Produced by Daniel Ori
Mix: Daniel Ori
Vocals: Shoshana Jedwab
Cover Photo: Shoshana Jedwab
Graphic Design: Rabbi Shir Meira Feit
Artist Strategy: Sarah Chandler ~ Shamir Collective

Mastered by Jeremy Loucas at Sear Sound, NY
Vocals recorded at Sherwood Ridge Studio, Pomona, NY

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about

Shoshana Jedwab New York, New York

Shoshana Jedwab is a concert performer, singer/songwriter, prayer and ritual leader, hand drummer, drum circle facilitator, and sacred text teacher.

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discography

Life Is Born

Sep 2023
Torah Orah

Jun 2022
Openings

Oct 2020
Where You Go

Jan 2018
I Remember

Jun 2016

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