We’re entering the last week of Elul, the week when Ashkenazi Jews recite daily selichot (prayers of repentant), and when some Ashkenazi Jewish women, including professional feldmesterins, used to measure the cemetery daily or on Monday and Thursday. To mark this week, I’m sharing a translation of a prayer or rather a collection of prayers for “encircling” the cemetery from a 1930 Yiddish-Hebrew edition of the mayne loshn (ma’aneh lashon – the right response)—a cemetery prayer book based on a seventeenth century collection of cemetery prayers by Rabbi Yaakov ben Avraham Shlomo Sinna of Prague.

While the prayers in this book were originally written for men and many of them are still gendered for men to read recite them, other aspects of the book suggest it was mostly used by women, and we know from biographical and other information that this was the case in the modern period. In fact, the mayne loshn was particularly associated with professional women who used to lead prayers in the cemetery, and who were sometimes known as mayne loshn Jewesses. In Yiddish the phrase mayne loshn also became shorthand for eloquence, a sharp tongue or simply “cemetery language”- used to describe the skill these women had with words when they spoke to and about the dead.

I will write more about the Mayne Loshn in another post and share some examples of the other prayers found in it. If you are a Yiddish speaker or student of Yiddish, I will also be running a class on this book with the Workers Circle starting next month (details coming soon). For now, here are just a few notes about this particular prayer.

It seems like this prayer was originally not for measuring the cemetery, but walking around it, and this therefore seems to confirm something that was suspected by some ethnographers – that cemetery measuring emerged from a combination of the practice of grave measuring and another custom that involved walking around the circumference of the cemetery reciting prayers (something that was done to consecrate a cemetery, for example). The verb used here in Yiddish, arumringlen, along with other details suggest that this had become a prayer that was used for cemetery measuring or feldmestn. The prayers also use a Hebrew verb מסבב or מסבב זײַן in Yiddish – to encircle. There is nothing explicitly stating that these prayers were for the month of Elul, but the following prayer, which I will post tomorrow, is for people who measure the cemetery every day or every Monday and Thursday, and also contains prayers for Rosh Hashanah. As suggested above, all of this corresponds with what we know about the practice of feldmestn during Elul.

This prayer and the instructions that come with it provided me with some information that I didn’t have before about cemetery measuring. Firstly, the prayers should not be said while moving, but you should stop at different points as you measure to say these prayers — the end of each prayer is indicated with “amen”. Among these prayers are also a special prayer to be said when you arrive at the grave of a tsadik (a righteous person) or a rabbi or scholar. I imagine that this prayer could be said multiple times at graves of notable people who were buried on the edge of the cemetery. We know from other sources that there were also songs that were sung during cemetery measuring, which seem to have been sung during the movement.

These prayers are quite incredible in their length—they are 16 pages long—intensity and variety. In some places they quotes or paraphrase the bible or midrash, in others they reads more like an incantation. There are probably people who are far better versed in liturgy, scripture and indeed Kabbalah than I am who will read this and notice things I haven’t—I’d love to hear your thoughts.

The prayers support and illustrate a few things I’d already gleaned about cemetery measuring. Firstly, the ritual creates a boundary that protects the living from the place of death—in several places, the prayers ask for protection from death and particularly from a “strange”, bad or traumatic death. But it is also used to galvanise the dead, to ask them to pray for the living in the divine court where decisions are made about the fate of the living, and also to mobilise the ancestral chain and remind God of the promises he made to our biblical ancestors as a way of protecting the living from divine punishment. Cemetery measuring, which brings together all of the dead of a particular community, seems to have been seen as a particularly powerful way of achieving this. And, with each cemetery seen as a portal to the spirit world, the prayer also uses the act of encircling to call on not just the dead who are buried in that particular place, but all of the speaker’s ancestors all over the world.

These prayers also confirmed something that I’ve been doing instinctively but hadn’t seen reflected in a text before. We know that praying for the dead and even asking them to pray for us is supposed to bring them joy and be good for them, something that is stated explicitly here. But it can also be used to gather in and ask for healing for the dead who have not yet reached heaven, or for those who have died an unnatural death or “died for the sake of God name” i.e. been martyred or in this case killed for being Jewish. The act of encircling the cemetery adds weight to the words that ask for lost and traumatised souls to be brought in among the others, and to rest with them in the divine presence.

The first time I measured a cemetery was in a Lithuanian shtetl where the cemetery had become a place of mass murder, and this was exactly what I prayed for. This summer I led two cemetery measuring workshops in Warsaw, one in Bródno cemetery which had been partially destroyed by the Nazis. That workshop quickly became more of a ritual, and, having read this prayer and others in the Mayne Loshn, I felt more confident in using the ritual of cemetery measuring as a way of asking for peace and healing for the victims of genocide whose bones rest there. I’m sharing here a few photographs of that cemetery and of the Jewish cemetery on Okopowa street, where we measured the tomb of Y L Perets, Sh. An-ski and Yankev Dinezon — three great writers, who we spoke to using with an adapted version of the prayer for rabbis and teachers included here.

These prayers start on p 9 of the book linked to above and finish on p 27. I have included page numbers and the Hebrew words marking the start of new paragraphs to help the reader follow along with both the Yiddish and the Hebrew. This is primarily a translation of the Yiddish, which is what most women would have read, but I have occasionally used the Hebrew to help me with things that don’t quite make sense. This is a very rough, literal translation, and I am excited to be working on some new translations and adaptations of this and other prayers in the Mayne Loshn with my comrade and collaborator, the bal-tkhines Rabbi Noam Lerman

Tkhines [supplications] and bakoshes [requests] that should be said one by one in particular places as one walks around the cemetery

When one encircles (מסבב זײַן) the cemetery one doesn’t say all the prayers at one grave, but some at one grave and some at other graves. One also doesn’t say the prayers while walking around, because you cannot speak with intention when you are moving in this way. For this reason we have divided the tkhines that should be said for all the dead into a few sections which can be said in several places in the cemetery

[Translators note: start with the first prayer before you start measuring. Start walking and unrolling the thread once you have said “Amen”. Stop when you come to a place where it makes sense to stop, or where you need to stop, and say the next prayer etc. When you come to the grave of a notable person, say the prayer for “rabbis and teachers”]. When you have completed the measurement, you can say the adapted version of Gitele the Gabete’s prayer for cemetery measuring, which can be found in this ritual guide.]

When walking around the cemetery you should say these tkhines:

You righteous ones, the strong foundations of the world, all you pure souls, may it be the will of our father in heaven, who created the heavens before he created the earth, that you may rest in honour and in peace from now and for eternity. And may you rest in your resting places in peace and may your glory become great. And in the bonds of life may your souls be bound to God, your God, the great and awesome one. And may your souls rest in the domain of God, blessed be his name, he is the creator of Israel, he is your God. May the merits of your Torah and the good deeds that you carried within you when you were alive stand by me and by my household and all of Israel. And when my time comes, when I am old and I must leave this world, may my portion be with you in the garden of Eden, and with all the other righteous and pious and with all my people. And there may we all have the honour to be protected by the wings of God in the secret place of the Most High, in the shadow of the Almighty.

יהי [p10] May it be your will God my God and the God of my ancestors, Lord of all lords, merciful God, to remember these righteous, pious, and holy ones who rest in this place, and for the sake of their merit and their righteousness take pity on me and on the whole Jewish people. And may their merit and their righteousness advocate for us before your throne of glory. And may you feel the desire of my heart and remove from me all fear and dread and terror. And may you remove all sickness from us and heal all our afflictions. For our needs are too great to explain to you with words, and our understanding falls short of the thoughts of our hearts and the brokenness of our flesh.

אנא [p11] I beg you lord of the worlds, merciful God, turn towards my plea and do not be silent to my tears, test my thoughts and grant me my rest, forgive me my sins, whether I committed them unknowingly or intentionally, for I have come here to encircle the graves of the righteous men and women who rest in this here place, that their merits and their righteousness should protect me and my children and my children’s children and all my people.

Lord God my God and God of my ancestors, I come before you now assured and supported in the knowledge of what you promised us in your Torah. I sustain and reassure myself with the knowledge that I will not return empty handed, as it is written in the Torah that God extends his grace to two thousand generations, to those who love him and to those who follow his commandments. This promise protects me and all my people, in the merit of all those whose lives have been taken for the sake of your holy name.

I have come down this path to encircle the graves of the righteous men and the righteous women, that I might benefit from the merit and the righteousness that they demonstrated in their lives, and that this merit and righteousness should stand by me and by my children and my grandchildren. By their merit and by the covenant you made with our ancestors Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, may you protect me from all bad things and from bad encounters and from [p12] all fear and temptation, and from all bad illnesses and suffering, and from any strange death that is found among the nine hundred and three kinds of death that were created in the world. May you protect me from any danger that may befall me in any place, whether by day or by night, whether at home or in the fields, forests and valleys. And may you shield me with your great mercy from all enemies and violent people and vicious animals on my path, and from cowardice and trepidation, and from all bad things great and small, and from all corrupters.

And regarding all the things that I am not able to ask you, may it be your will and the will of your divine throne to answer the prayers that I would have asked, that no bad things should befall me or my household or my people or anyone who loves me, and that all good things should come to us, with your great mercy and help. May it be your will to grant the requests I have spoken with my mouth but also those that are in my heart, God my creator and my redeemer.

רבון  Lord all of all worlds, in the merit of those who rest here in this place and all the angels who watch over their souls, may they do right by me and may they help me with their prayers that you should grant me a long life, wealth, honour, joy, longevity, protection, luck, blessing and help, solace, income and sustenance, [p13] grace, and favour and mercy, in your eyes and in the eyes of all who see me. Grant joy to your whole community, build the city of Jerusalem, and forgive me all my sins. Save me from all shame and embarrassment and disgrace in my family, and from poverty and from suffering in the grave and from the law of hell and from bad illness. And may you not kill me with a strange death, but may I depart this world in old age with mercy and without suffering. And may you give me sons and daughters who are alive and well and will follow your commandments throughout their lives because they will live forever amen.

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 יהי May it be your will, God our God and God of our ancestors to receive us and accept our repentance before you, and may you hear our prayer and grant my request. May my merits outweigh my flaws. And subdue my bad inclinations so that I might follow your will with my whole heart. I have used all my strength, although it has pained me, to walk this path and to hear your great name, and to encircle and spread [prostrate myself] over the graves of these righteous people.

יהי May it be your will, God my God and God of my ancestors, that the merit of their Torah and their good deeds should stand by me and protect [p14] me and my children from all serious illness. May you include me among those who work hard to learn your Torah and keep your commandments and study your Torah until the time of the Messiah.

יהי  May it be your will God my god and god of my ancestors to accept with mercy my request that I put before you, and which I will continue to ask of you for the rest of time, for the sake of your great and blessed name, the esteemed and awesome name, and for the sake of the merit of all the righteous ones who rest here, and all who were martyred for the sake of your holy name. May they all rest in their resting places in joy. And may they be spared from hell and from the suffering of the grave.

[speaking to the souls] And by the authority of God, blessed be he, when I take my leave of you may I live for many years, along with my household and all the people of Israel. And when I leave this here world, may I be with you and with all righteous people in heaven.

And you, God blessed be he, the God of Israel, may you not turn me away from you empty-handed. Amen. Blessed is he who returns the souls to their flesh and [p15] Makes them rise again. Who brings them to heaven and favours them with life from the world to come.  Blessed is He who is reliable with His covenant and constant with his promise.

רבון  Lord of all worlds, accept the voice of my prayer, for your mercy and grace is great, that all the souls of the righteous ones who are buried here should be bound in the bundle of life, with the other righteous ones and with the souls of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and with the souls of all the righteous and the pious of the world. And if there is still a soul among them who has not yet gone completed process of judgement under the law, may you make this easier for him. Have mercy on him. And raise him up and bring him back to be among the righteous. Cover him in the shadow of your wings, so that he may be calm in the light of the shekhinah. And raise up the other righteous ones from one virtue to the next, protect them under your wings and allow us to benefit from their merit and the good deeds they did during their lives. I came here for the sake of your honor, to spread myself over their graves, and to pray for their souls [p16], that you might favour them to rise at the resurrection of the dead with all the other righteous and pious of the world. And spare them from the torment of the grave and from hell and from the other laws and divine decrees and reincarnations that may await them.  Build your city and give me sons and daughters to follow your commandments. And may you accept all the prayers I have said with mercy and with good will. And may you also sense and fulfill all the prayers of my heart. Amen.

יהי May it be your will, God our God and God of our ancestors to answer all the prayers that I have prayed before you today. Answer my prayer as you answered Abraham our father on Mount Moriah and Isaac his son who was bound on the altar, and as you answered Jacob at Bethel, and as you answered Joseph when he was imprisoned in Egypt and as you answered our ancestors as they stood by the Red Sea and as you answered Jonah in the belly of the whale and as you answered Elijah on Mount Carmel and as you answered all our pious, upright and just ancestors. Answer me and bless me and accept my prayer, and do more with me than what is destined according to the law. May my prayer be accepted as you accepted the incense of Aaron the priest [p17] which turned your wrath away from his people Israel, and as you accepted the prayer of Moses your servant and you proclaimed good things for him and forgave the sins of Israel as you spoke. So may you proclaim good things for me and may you pass over and forgive me my sins and bad deeds. And so it is written, and so the words that come out of my mouth will not come back empty, they will achieve what I desire and [the promises made by God to my ancestors] will make what I send him successful.

Save me and my household from poverty and from all troubles and bad illnesses and from strange death. And nourish me with the charm and grace that is found before your holy throne, and do not hide your shekhinah from me, [p18] and strengthen my heart to keep your mitsves and follow your Torah and your commands, and to understand the deep meanings and secrets of your Torah that I should be able to follow them. And may I not sin, whether over a commandment that is easy to follow or a difficult one. And let me know your ways so I might find favour in your eyes and in the eyes of all who see me, and that I should not be ashamed whether in this world or the next. And may I be on the day of my death as I was on the day of my birth – free of sin, both unwitting and intentional. And I turn to you in the hope that you will set me right and favour me with a good life of peace.

רבון Lord of all worlds and the lord of all souls, lord of their merit and all the righteous deeds that they did and  lord of all of the angels that are appointed over their souls. May they pray for us before you. And may their prayers and their merit help us that you should grant us long life, peace, wealth, honour, longevity, salvation and luck. May their prayers and merit help grant us pious children who will have no faults and who will live and endure for many days and will study your Torah and understand your secrets and keep your commandments.  Fulfill for us the promise you made through your prophet Isaiah,  “And I will make a covenant with them, says the Lord, blessed be he, my holy spirit [19] that is upon you, and my words that I have put in your mouth shall not depart from your mouth, nor from the mouth of your descendants, nor from the mouth of your descendants descendant, says the Lord, from now on and forever.”

Give us our portion with the righteous and just who rest calmly in your goodness. And accept our prayer with mercy, as if it were a sacrifice in the days of the temple. And no sin should hold back our prayer and may you build the temple soon and in our days, in the merit of all the righteous and pious dead who rest here, and for the sake of the security of our ancestors Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.

אלהי My God, I know that there are those who pray before you on the basis of the good deeds that they have done or the charity they have given. I have no righteousness, no grace, no virtue, no teshuvah, no repentance, no prayer, but I beg you not to turn your shekhinah from me, and do not treat us according to our sins. Do not cast me away from you, and when the time comes for you to take me out of this world, bring me into the world to come where I can rest in peace, and sit me with honour with the righteous and pious ones, and may my portion be with those who are granted life ‘til old age. And may you bring me again out of the abyss of the earth, that I [20] might praise you, God, for all the good you have done. May you steady me with your Torah, and may it be your will to accept the prayers I have spoken and those of my heart God my creator and resolver of all sin.

When you arrive at the grave of a tsadik or a rabbi, stop and say:

Peace be upon you, our master and teacher. With peace may you rest in your resting place, And may you not grieve over the troubles of your friends. May you dwell in the shadow of the holy one. Happy are you who followed your creator and taught your people righteous justice and good judgement, and this is good for you because your reward is great. And may the great and holy God himself soon bring you back to life and may you rise from the grave with all the other holy and righteous people. And may you be favoured with a place in the world that is always good and long lasting and to bask in the delights of the world to come, the Behemoth whose pasture is a thousand hills, and Leviathan, and the wine that was created at the beginning of the world. And just as you made efforts in this world to learn Torah, now may you go from one khavruse to another, from one yeshive to another, until you reach God himself.  May you have the honour learn new meanings of the Torah from God, blessed be he, who will reveal to you the secrets of the future.

And may it be the will of our father in heaven that I should be worthy, by your merit and in the merit of the other righteous and pious people, may God forgive my sins and misdeeds, because for the sake of your honour I have come here to praise God, blessed be he, the great and awesome. And I came here to spread myself on your grave and to beg you to pray for me, that he should save me from devastation and destruction [22] and pillaging, and harsh persecution, and dread, and fear and a strange or dishonourable death. And that he should bless and make successful all the actions of my hands and heal me from illness, and bless my bread and my water.

And may he protect me from all enemies and and from violent people, and should give to me and to all of Israel a good gift and a good livelihood for the sake of your merit. And he should give me a portion, that I may attain a place in the world to come, and proclaim good things for me and let me hear good things. And may he grant me long days and years of life in calm and security and not place my soul with sinners. And may he not take me away [23] from the world halfway through my life but he should let me live out my days to a good age. And may he multiply my intelligence and understanding and graciousness and mercy, and grant me mercy before him and before his throne and in the eyes of all who see my face. And may I love and fear God with my whole heart, which should bend to do his will, and may he hear my prayer and not turn me away empty handed from him.

After this, you should turn your face to the sky and say:

 אנא I beg you Lord of the worlds, merciful God who is full of compassion. Even though I have been lacking, and sinned, and done wrong and impure deeds. I have sullied my actions both in this life and in my previous incarnations with such actions that cannot be understood. But listen to me God and forgive me, accept my prayer and see to it that you do not conceal yourself from me. God, help and make upright this being that you formed. Favour me, for what am I without you, you brought me this far and created me with your great mercy. And when I have done bad deeds and corrupted [24] may you not punish me with your great wrath and sentence me to suffering. Because if you did do this, it would have been better if you had never created me and I had never entered the world. Because you can see at the start of something what its end will be. For this reason you are merciful with your law, and it is in your nature to hold back your wrath both for evil and for good, and to deliver it with measure so that the world can continue to exist. For God is good to all and is merciful to all his creations, and the people of Israel rejoice in their creator.

And when my deeds have caused a distinction between one kind of holiness and another kind of holiness, it is you that should choose, and bring one holiness to the approach the other and renew.  Make us return to you God and we will return. And we will praise you in the world. And when you cover yourself in cloud so that our prayer cannot reach you, drive away this trouble maker for this is Satan, and let the fighter come out who writes denunciations, and lament and make us rejoice with one joy after another. May your right hand help me and answer me and may this be your will. And may I not suffer any shame, blemish or blasphemy. And my stammering speech, this means [25] that I cannot speak correctly, for my tongue is full of dishonourable things. May my words be permitted to come before you as if I were a righteous and skilled public speaker who multiplies words of praise and adorns you with the crowns of their words. May my words be to you like the song az yashir, which Moses sung  by the sea, and like King David and his musicians, as if I had in mind the great secrets of the most high, as if were singing holy songs with the angels who praise and sing to you. And may my awkward words and my stammering be like a sweet song of praise.

I came here with wisdom to encircle the graves of the righteous ones who have pious souls, so that the dead might also pray for mercy for me, which also benefits them. For it often happens that one soul is separated from another or that one soul is joined to another like a branch to a tree, or like a string that is joined to a chain. And now the dead inherit life from the living, to illuminate their existence. And you God who forgives sins, let your ears and your eyes be open to hear and accept the prayers of your servants, the souls and the spirits. And as for the human, who is affected by his senses and his strengths, here his prayer, which comes from a hard servitude and a short breath. Do not turn me away from here empty handed, illuminate us with your shkhinah, and may my speech and the words of my mouth be successful before you, God my creator who redeems me from all sin.

יהי May it be your will God my God and God of my ancestors [26] to bless all the work of my hands that it may be enough. And with your full hand may you satisfy my hunger and may you fill my house with good treasurers and bless my path with success, for by your hand are delivered all living things. May my food be delivered by your hand and not by the hand of a human because they are hard and bitter and they shame their faces with shameful deeds, so with your great mercy may you send me more nourishment with your good and full hand. And may my actions lead to blessing and not to poverty, to life and not to death. And may you favour me that God’s name should not be desecrated through me. And may I be among those who help and always do good things for other people, and may you guide my footsteps down the righteous path before you. And may you give me grace and loving kindness and favour in your eyes and in the eyes of all who see me. For you are yourself a gracious and merciful God. And you show much loving kindness to those who call on you in truth, and may you not turn me away empty handed. In the merit of the righteous ones our teachers and our masters who are buried here and in the whole world. In the merit of their holy Torah and through their innovations by which they renewed the Torah and their good deeds that they accomplished in the world. May they all act for us as advocates before you [27] and before your throne of glory, that you may fulfil the request and answer the longing that I, your servant, have brought before you, and that I should not turn back empty handed.