Is Adon Olam For Kids or For Spiritual Seekers?

If you’ve been to any synagogue anywhere in the world, you’re probably familiar with at least one tune for Adon Olam, a brief Jewish song that has been sung at the end of nearly every Shabbat service around the world for at least the past 700 years. There are dozens of tunes for Adon Olam and, in many synagogues in North America, it’s most often led by young children.

 

So you’ll forgive me if I didn’t understand, at first, the deeper meaning of the five lines of Adon Olam (six in the Sefardic tradition). Actually, it never occurred to me that Adon Olam even had any particularly deep meaning. After all, the tune with which I am most familiar is a happy, clappy tune, not even remotely hinting at the depth of the text. Once I actually took the time to read the translation of the words in English, I was astonished. I realized there was a whole lot more going on with this little tune.

 

 

 

Rabbi Zalman Weiss, in his book Adon Olam: A Search for Meaning, wants to unpack the words of Adon Olam for today’s Jews. Rather than write an intellectual essay for a limited audience, he wrote a novel, intended for a much broader Jewish audience.

 

The novel’s main character, Yehudah Stark, is a teacher in a yeshiva in Jerusalem. Avi is an advanced student and Yehudah’s teaching assistant. Ovadiah Yashar, an 18 year-old non-religious American Jew, comes to the yeshiva after the murder of his father. His father’s last words were, “Ovadiah, never forget…Adon…Olam.” Throughout the book, Yehudah and Avi teach Ovadiah and three other yeshiva students the deeper meaning of the words of Adon Olam.

 

Adon Olam is commonly attributed to the 11th century Spanish poet and philosopher Solomon Ibn Gabirol. However, Rabbi Weiss asserts that it was actually written by the members of the Great Assembly 2500 years ago in response to a generation that was being pulled more deeply into idol worship. Nevertheless, according to Weiss, “The holy words of Adon Olam were given to us in an intensely concentrated and precise form. They were written in order to guide the Jewish people toward the Creator every day, no matter when, no matter what, no matter where, and no matter what would happen to them throughout the ages.”

 

This book was written to reveal the many layers of Adon Olam to its readers through the vehicle of the four yeshiva students and their teachers. It isn’t always easy reading. Some of the concepts packed into the text of Adon Olam are complex and the explanations offered by Weiss are often mystical. Nevertheless, if you can stay with the flow of the narrative, you’ll surely have a totally different level of appreciation for what is arguably the most well-known liturgical song in all of Judaism.

 

Adon Olam is available from Menorah Books as well as in ebook formats.