From the recording Jewish Blues V.1
It’s the darkest night of the year in the Jewish calendar tonight. The first night of
Channukah. After lighting the first candle and reflecting on the miracles that are at work
in my life and the lights all around me, I sing Mao Tzur. I always felt like the traditional
melody of this song was too “military” sounding. Authored by a man named Mordechai,
it is undeniably a song of battle reflecting the enslavement of the Jewish people in Egypt,
Babylonia, and Greece.
It is the small victory during the Greek enslavement of the Jews that brings us to
the Chanukkah story. It is a tale of a temple’s defilement and the ensuing miracle
whereby one flask of oil lasted 8 days instead of only one single day. The story is told
more eloquently else where and I want to focus on the slavery and reworking of the
militant melody into what naturally yields into a blues tune.
So this blues is a reworking of the Art Scroll Translation of Mao Tzur (Rock of Ages)
Lyrics
Mao Tzur” (Revisited) Lyrics
O Mighty rock of My salvation
To Praise you is a delight
O Mighty rock of My salvation
To Praise you is a delight
When you’ve defeated our foe’s
We’ll celebrate your name this night
Troubles sated my soul
When with my grief my strength did fade
They had embittered my life
With hardship, the calf-kingdom’s plague
But with his great power
The lord freed us from the Pharaoh’s rage
When the evil Haman tried
To fall the towering cypress (mordechai)
It became a snare and stumbling block
Whose name was Mordechai
But you blotted out the enemy
And lifted the head of the Benjamite
To the holy Land he brought me
But there too I had no rest
For I had served the kinsmen
And drunk all they’re Sunday best
So I was lost
Exiled in the desert again
But at the end of seventy years I was saved
By your hand
Greeks gathered against me
Then In Hasmonean days
They breached the walls of my towers
And defiled my oils with their ways
But from one remnant of flasks
A great miracle kept the blaze
Bare your holy Arm
And hasten the end for salvation
Avenge the vengance of your servant’s blood
(from the wicked nation)
We’ve waited so long
And we can’t bear another flood