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Hachnisayni Tachat Knafayich (Hebrew)
Take me under your wings,
Be mother and sister to me.
May your lap be a shelter for my head,
A nest for my desolate prayers.
At twilight, the time of compassion
Lean down and I will reveal to you a secret of my sorrows;
‘They say there is youth in the world…
Where is my Youth?’
Another mystery I will confess to you:
My soul is singed by flame;
‘They say there is love in the world–
Where is Love?’
The stars lied to me,
There was a dream–but it too is past;
Now I have nothing in the world–
Not a thing.
Take me under your wings,
Be mother and sister to me,
Be your lap a shelter for my head,
A nest for my desolate prayers.
This poem, as with many of Bialik’s finest works, recounts the desperate predicament of Russian Jews in the first decades of the 20th century as they faced savage pogroms, mass emigration, and privation. I found a deeply moving reference to this poem in a memorial account of Rabbi Abel of Dubossar (d. 1925):
I will never forget his visit to our house on Simchat Torah (holiday) 1921. As was typical of him, his conversation was sprinkled with wisdom and Torah. Suddenly he stopped talking and began to sing with a sweet voice Bialik”s “Hachnisini Tachat Knafayich” (Take Me under your wings). He sang with great emotion while hot tears fell from his eyes. We were startled by the depth of his soul. We sat like stone and could not move a muscle. We felt that this time the man had revealed the sense of suffering and tragedy that he felt so deeply but had kept hidden from everyone. Such a “Hachnisini” we never heard before nor in the days to come until this present time.
(All poetry translations on this site by Richard Silverstein)
