This month I will be continuing my monthly in-home musical sessions with the topic of Shabbat Zemirot, songs written specifically to be sung during the Sabbath. It will be hosted by Susan and Steve Rabinovitz on Sunday evening January 20 at 7:00 pm. My thanks to Ruth and Joel Shayne for their hospitality last month with “Journey through Israel in Song,” as we sang along Israeli video sing-a-long tapes and discussed the up coming Congregation B’nai Moshe trip to Israel in the Fall. If you are interested in hosting future sessions in your home, please contact me.

At the Rabinovitz home we will be sharing our favorite Shabbat Zemirot melodies and discussing the meanings of many of the famous poems. I hope to record and then prepare a B’nai Moshe Zemirot song book and CD from this session and make it available to all the members of the congregation. If you would like to have your special choice included, make sure to attend this session. Please RSVP to the Rabinovitzs.

Tzur Mishelo is one of the most well known of the Shabbat Zemirot. It is used as an introduction to Birkat Hamazon, the Grace after meals for all three of the Shabbat meals. The refrain, (The Rock from Whom we have eaten, bless Him, my faithful friends. We have eaten our fill and left over – according to God’s word) by inviting everyone to join in thanking God for food, approximated the “Zimun”, the call to say Birkat Hamazon. The first three stanzas of the poem follow the first three blessings as ordained by the Torah and the fourth stanza represents the cup of wine over which we traditionally recite Birkat Hamazon.

The idea of Birkat Hamazon comes from our father Abraham whose life was about spreading the belief in the God of our people. He was well known for his hospitality. According to Berieshit Rabba, a commentary on the book of Bereishit, when people would thank him for the food and drink which he graciously had given them, he replied that they should thank God, ‘the Rock from Whom we have eaten.’