Berosh Hashone - live at Jalopy

This song was collected by Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett as part of YIVO’s 1973-1975 Folksong Project: East European Jewish Folksong in its Social Context. The interview informant is Rose Cohen. Rose Cohen was born at the turn of the 20th century in Kyiv Gubernia (region). The daughter (and granddaughter) of a khazzonishe-ruv (Cantor-Rabbi?), her song repertoire includes Yiddish songs with Loshn-koyedesh (liturgical Hebrew) refrains. This song is one such, with an opening and closing refrain drawn from the High Holy Day liturgy. The liturgical text teaches that it is decided at this season, who will live through the coming year and who will not. It lists some of the ways that people who will survive will live, and it lists some of the ways those who will not, will pass. It is a prayer text that confronts us with our own mortality, and the limited extent to which we can control what we face from day to day. The liturgy closes with a refrain assuring us that repentance, prayer, and justice-oriented giving (charity) can give us the tools we need to navigate whatever the world throws at us. In Rose Cohen's song, however, we encounter a person who, having waited a long time for a better future to arrive, is now considering taking her fate into her own hands: ending her marriage.

Berosh Hashone
Transcribed, translated, arranged and performed by Ilya Shneyveys and Cantor Sarah Myerson
Video from YIVO’s Continuing Evolution: Yiddish Folksong Today concert, presented in collaboration with The Neighborhood: An Urban Center for Jewish Life, at the Jalopy Theatre in Brooklyn, May 22, 2022

On Rosh Hashone it is written,
And on Yom Kipper it is sealed,
How many will pass,
And how many will be born.

Oh, I waited and waited for the near future,
I thought it was near, and in the end it was far off.

I waited and waited, until this point,
And then there was a child, and two and three.

Oh, my three dear children,
Like shining stars,
Over you I am awash with my tears.

My three dear children, I’m consulting with you, should I divorce your father?

On Rosh Hashone it is written,
And on Yom Kipper it is sealed,
How many will pass,
And how many will be born.