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| LECHAYIM, my brethren, Lechayim, I say! | |
| Health, peace and good fortune I wish you to-day. | |
| To-day we have ended the Torah once more, | |
| To-day we begin it anew as of yore. | |
| Be thankful and glad and the Lord extol, | 5 |
| Who gave us the Law on its parchment scroll. | |
| The Torah has been our consolation, | |
| Our help in exile and sore privation. | |
| Lost have we all we were wont to prize, | |
| Our holy temple a ruin lies. | 10 |
| Laid waste is the land where our songs we sung; | |
| Forgotten our language, our mother tongue; | |
| Of kingdom and priesthood are we bereft, | |
| Our faith is our only treasure left. | |
| God in our hearts, the Law in our hands, | 15 |
| We have wandered sadly through many lands; | |
| We have suffered much, yet behold we live | |
| Through the comfort the Law alone can give. | |
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| Come, my dear brethren, come, let us look! | |
| Quick let us ope an historical book! | 20 |
| See, all the tales and the chronicles old, | |
| They tell but of robbers and bandits bold. | |
| World-wide is the scene of our story, and still | |
| ’Tis traced with a sword-point instead of a quill; | |
| The ink is of blood, mixed with tears of distress, | 25 |
| In exile, not Leipzig it passed through the press; | |
| No gilding it shows, and in iron ’tis bound, | |
| Where we met not with suffering and fierce oppression | |
| For the sake of the Torah, our sole possession. | |
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| In the very beginning, a long time ago, | 30 |
| We held up our heads with the best, as you know; | |
| When householders sitting at home we were, | |
| Nor needed the strangers’ meal to share. | |
| May none have to bear at the hands of men | |
| What we from our neighbors have borne since then. | 35 |
| How bitter alas! was the lot we knew | |
| When our neighbours to our landlords grew. | |
| And we were driven by fate unkind | |
| Our lodgings beneath their roof to find. | |
| How did we live then? How did we rest? | 40 |
| Ask not, I pray you, for silence is best; | |
| Like cabbage heads, hither and thither that fall, | |
| With the holy Law we traversed through all. | |
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| Two thousand years, a little thing when spoken, | |
| Two thousand years, tormented, crushed and broken, | 45 |
| Seven and seventy dark generations; | |
| Filled up with anguish and lamentations. | |
| Their tale of sorrow did I unfold | |
| No Simchas Torah today we’d hold. | |
| And why should I tell it you all again? | 50 |
| In our bones ’tis branded with fire and pain. | |
| We have sacrificed all. We have given our wealth, | |
| Our homes, our honors, our land and our health. | |
| Our lives—like Hannah her children seven— | |
| For the sake of the Torah that came from Heaven. | 55 |
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| And now what next? Will they let us be? | |
| Have the nations then come at last to see | |
| That we Jews are men like the rest, and no more | |
| Need we wander homeless as hithertofore. | |
| Abused and slandered wherever we go! | 60 |
| Ah! I cannot tell you, but this I know | |
| That the same God still lives in heaven above, | |
| And on earth the same Law, the same Faith, that we love. | |
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| Then fear not, and weep not, but hope in the Lord | |
| And the sacred Torah, his holy word. | 65 |
| Lechayim, my brother, Lechayim, I say. | |
| Health, peace and good fortune I wish you to-day, | |
| To-day we have ended the Torah once more, | |
| To-day we begin it again as of yore. | |
| Be thankful and glad and the Lord extol, | 70 |
| Who gave us the Law on its parchment scroll. | |
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