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Szol a Kakas Mar - The Rooster Crows (Hungarian Jewish Song of Hope)
Rabbi Yitzchak Isaac Taub, the renown rabbi of Kalev, penned several songs which grew into standards in the Hungarian Jewish scene. The songs' underlying themes - a thirst to commune with the Almighty, ingathering of the exiled Jews in the Land of Israel, and the rebuilding of the Beit Hamikdash (Holy Temple in Jerusalem). Rabbi Taub often picked up the melodies of Hungarian love songs from shepherds as he strolled the fields, and converted them to Jewish themes.
Born in Szerencz (Zemplen County, Northeastern Hungary), in 1751, Rabbi Taub attended yeshivot in Galicia before returning to Kalev in 1781, where he served as rabbi for 40 years up to his passing in 1821 (7 Adar, 5581, on the Jewish calendar). Rabbi Chaim Halberstam of Sanz used to say, "three miles from Kalev, you can already feel the holiness of the Tzaddik who dwells there".
Many Jewish concentration camp inmates sang his "Szol a Kakas Mar" for inspiration in their desperate state.
Szol a Kakas Mar
(version which Daniel B. Schwartz recalls his father sang, supplemental editing by Volvi Goldberger)
SZOL A KAKASH MAR- the rooster crows in the morning
MAJD MEGVIRAD MAR- the dew makes flowers bloom
ZOLD ERDOBEN SIK MEZOBEN- In the green forest, in the verdant meadow
SHETAL EGY MADAR- walks a little bird
DE MICSODA MADAR - what kind of bird is it?
DE MICSODA MADAR - what kind of bird is it!
KEK A LABA, ZOLD A SZARNYA- blue are its feet, green are its wings
ENGEM ODA VAR- that waits there for me
VARJ MADAR VARJ - wait little bird wait
TE CSHOK MINDIG VARJ - you must always wait
HA AZ ISTEN NEKEM RENDELT- If G-d destined you for me
TIED LESZEK MAR- I will be yours already
DE MIKOR LESZ OZ MAR - but when will it be already
DE MIKOR LESZ OZ MAR - but when will it be already
YIBONE HAMIKDOSH IR TZIYOIN T'MALEH - the Holy Temple will be rebuilt and Zion re-populated
OKOR LEZS OZ MAR- Then it will be already
DE MIJERT NINCS LESZ OZ MAR - but why isn't it already
DE MIJERT NINCS LESZ OZ MAR - but why isn't it already
UMIPNEI CHATOEINI GOLINI MARTZEINI - and because of our sins were we exiled from our homeland
EZ OZ NINCS OZ MAR.- that's why it isn't already
Another version to ending:
Vesham nashir shir chadash uvirnana naaleh,
(There shall we sing a new song, with joyous singing ascend),
EZ AZ IDO LEGYEL MAR - It's time, O let it be!".
Links
http://www.moshiach.net/blind/niggun/n-4.htm
http://www.shamash.org/listarchives/jewish-music/990427
http://www.mappamundi.com/songs/holo.html
© David Muskal, 2001