Yigdal

Written in his twenties, on the move

Every line of Yigdal comes from one list: the Thirteen Principles of the Rambam (Rabbi Moshe ben Maimon, also called Maimonides). He set them out in his commentary on the Mishnah (the first written collection of the Oral Torah). At the end of that commentary he signs off: he began it at 23 and finished it in Egypt at 30. Those, he writes there, were years of exile and wandering. He wrote parts of it on the road and parts on board ships at sea.

Who turned the list into a song?

The heading printed above Yigdal in Siddur Sefard says the poem is "attributed to" Rabbi Daniel ben Yehudah of Rome. Reference works date him anywhere from about 1300 to about 1400, more than a century after the Rambam wrote his list. The poet gave each principle exactly one line, in the Rambam's order: thirteen principles, thirteen lines. And every line ends in the same sound. Listen to the last word of each one: metziuto, le'achduto, kedushato. All thirteen end in "to."

Line 7 is two verses joined together

"No one like Moshe has arisen again in Israel" takes its words from the Torah's last tribute to him (Devarim 34:10). "A prophet who looked at His likeness" comes from what God says about Moshe in Bamidbar 12:8. The Gemara connects it to the burning bush, where "Moshe hid his face, because he was afraid to look at God" (Shemot 3:6). Rabbi Yonatan teaches that Moshe was rewarded for each part of that verse. For not looking, he earned "he looks at the likeness of Hashem."

End of days, or end of the right hand?

Line 12 says God will send the Mashiach (the Messiah) at "ketz hayamin," the last two words of the Book of Daniel. Yamin usually means "right hand." Rashi says that here it is just yamim, "days," with an n for the m: the end of days. Eichah Rabbah (the classic Midrash on Eichah, the Book of Eichah) reads it as "right hand." When the enemy tied the hands of Israel's fighters behind their backs, God, so to speak, put His own right hand behind Him. "When I free My children, I free My right hand."

Do not read it once

After listing the thirteen, the Rambam turns to the reader. Know them, he says. Go back over them many times and think them through carefully. If your heart tells you that you understood them after one reading, or even ten, "God knows it has misled you." He adds that he did not just write down what came to him. He wrote only after long study. A poem short enough to say every morning is one way to keep going back.

The Arizal did not say it

Rabbi Chaim Vital was the main student of the Arizal (Rabbi Yitzchak Luria, the 16th-century teacher of Kabbalah in Tzfat). He reports that his teacher did not say songs and poems by the later poets, "and especially" Yigdal. The reason he gives: those poets did not know the ways of Kabbalah. The Arizal did say the poems of the early authors, such as Rabbi Elazar HaKalir. This siddur prints Yigdal all the same. But if you see someone skip it, this may be why.

Alive means growing

Rav Kook (the first Chief Rabbi of the Land of Israel, who died in 1935) ties together two words in the first line: "be great" and "living." Life that only stays the way it is, he writes, is life in a borrowed sense. It just means not dead. Real life keeps growing. That is what he hears in this line: the world keeps stepping forward in knowing God, and every wonder of creation that a researcher uncovers adds more light. Now read the first three words again.

והתכונה של הגידול הבלתי פוסק זאת היא עצמיותה של תכונת החיים.

One, but not the number one

Tikkunei Zohar (a companion to the Zohar, the central book of Kabbalah) records what Eliyahu the prophet says to God. Nusach Sefard siddurim print it before the morning prayers. It begins: "Master of the worlds, You are one, but not in counting. You are higher than all the high, hidden beyond all the hidden. No thought can grasp You at all." The Shelah (Rabbi Yeshayahu Horowitz, a Kabbalist who died in 1630) explains Yigdal's second line by listing what this oneness is not: not one kind, not one body made of parts, not the number one.

רִבּוֹן עָלְמִין דְּאַנְתְּ הוּא חַד וְלֹא בְחֻשְבָּן, אַנְתְּ הוּא עִלָּאָה עַל כָּל עִלָּאִין, סְתִימָא עַל כָּל סְתִימִין, לֵית מַחֲשָׁבָה תְּפִיסָא בָּךְ כְּלָל

A mitzvah is weighed with all it caused

Kedushat Levi, the teachings of Rabbi Levi Yitzchak of Berditchev (an early Chassidic master who died in 1809), finds a hint in the line about reward and punishment. A good person is repaid "like his deed." A wicked one only "like his wickedness." When you give tzedakah, charity, God puts on the scale the poor person and the whole family you kept alive. A mitzvah is weighed together with everything it did. A sin, in God's great mercy, is weighed as the act alone and not what came of it.

נותן זה הפעולה עם זה המצוה בכף המאזנים להכריע לכף זכות... ברוב רחמיו אינו משלם כי אם על עבירה עצמה

Sure of all thirteen, understands nine

The Ramchal (Rabbi Moshe Chaim Luzzatto, an Italian Kabbalist who died in 1746) wrote a book as a conversation between the Soul and the Mind. It opens with the Soul saying it is sure of all thirteen principles but understands only nine. The four it believes without understanding: that God watches over the world, reward and punishment, the Mashiach, and the revival of the dead. Its reason: the big events of the world always seem to show the opposite. The rest of the book is the Mind's answer. Those four are the last four lines of Yigdal.

יש מהם שהם מאומתים לי וגם מובנים, ויש מהם שהם מאומתים לי באמונה, אך לא מבוארים מן ההבנה והידיעה

Thirteen is the number of "one"

The Shelah goes through Yigdal line by line and calls it "the praiseworthy song." At the end he adds it up: thirteen is the number value of echad, "one" (1 + 8 + 4). All thirteen, he writes, come together out of God's existence and oneness, "like a flame tied to a coal." Then he shows how. Everything that exists is rooted in God, so prophecy flows to people, like branches joined to their root. Everyone was fit for that connection. Only sins block it. And the Torah is the imprint of God, so just as He is forever, it is forever.

הרי י"ג עיקרים כמנין אח"ד... כשלהבת קשורה בגחלת

My friend's shul skips Yigdal. Is that a mistake?

No. It goes back to the Arizal (Rabbi Yitzchak Luria of Tzfat, the great teacher of Kabbalah, Jewish mysticism, who died in 1572). His student Rabbi Chaim Vital writes that the Arizal did not say songs composed by later poets, "and especially the song Yigdal." The Mishnah Berurah (a central commentary on daily Jewish law, written around 1900) records this: "he did not say Yigdal." The siddur of the first Chabad Rebbe, Rabbi Shneur Zalman of Liadi, prints Mah Tovu and Adon Olam at this point, and no Yigdal.

Why would anyone object to a song about the thirteen principles?

Two reasons are given. Rabbi Chaim Vital's: the later poets did not know the ways of Kabbalah, so they made mistakes in their wording. The Aruch HaShulchan (a code of law by Rabbi Yechiel Michel Epstein, from around 1900) writes that the kabbalists are not comfortable with Yigdal, and points to his own opening chapter. There he says the Rambam (Maimonides) grouped the foundations of the faith into thirteen, but "the truth is" that each of the 613 commandments, and every letter of the Torah, is one.

So should I say it or not?

The Mishnah Berurah's answer is not to change customs. Right after reporting that the Arizal did not say Yigdal, it adds what Rabbi Chaim Vital's son said about his father: when he led a congregation's prayers on the High Holidays, he said all the confessions and all the poems. "Let the wise hear," it says, and learn not to change customs. It also notes that the Shelah (a major work by Rabbi Yeshayahu Horowitz, early 1600s) argues at length, citing earlier authorities, that saying such poems is a mitzvah.

Where does Yigdal go in the morning?

At the start. The Aruch HaShulchan gives the order printed in siddurim for entering shul: Mah Tovu, Adon Olam, Yigdal, then the morning blessings. This siddur follows it. One source disagrees. Emek Berakhah, a book by the Shelah's father that the Shelah copies, says: if you washed your hands and have not yet said the blessing on washing, do not interrupt in between, "even with Adon Olam or Yigdal." Say those later, before Baruch She'amar, the blessing that opens the morning psalms.

Why do some shuls save Yigdal for Shabbat?

That custom is old too. Seder HaYom (Rabbi Moshe ben Machir's guide to the prayers, printed in 1599) describes people singing Yigdal after Shabbat morning prayers. He calls it "a good and fine custom": you accept the thirteen principles and say them with joy in honor of the day. Siddur Edot HaMizrach, a Sephardic siddur, prints it after Friday night prayers. Midrash Pinchas, from the students of the Chassidic master Rabbi Pinchas of Koretz, records that "the Rav" said Yigdal only on Shabbat, not on weekdays.

Can the prayer leader pick any tune for Yigdal?

On the High Holidays, no. The rule given at Adon Olam names Yigdal too. The Rema (Rabbi Moshe Isserles, who added Ashkenazi practice to the Shulchan Aruch) writes about Yom Kippur: do not change a city's custom, even in its tunes.

They're still singing Yigdal. Can I go over for my Shabbat blessing?

Better to wait. The Kaf HaChaim (a Sephardic law commentary from the early 1900s) discusses the Friday night custom of blessing children after the prayers, and of kissing the hands of rabbis and elders. He quotes an earlier book: people who come over while the other person is still saying Aleinu, Yigdal or Shalom Aleichem "are not doing well." Their lips are busy and they do not stop, so no blessing is received. It is better, he says, to come at a time when they are able to bless.