Hine Ma Tov: A Song History

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Hine Ma Tov sets the opening verse of Psalm 133, a "song of ascents" attributed to David that praises the goodness and pleasure of kindred living together; the Hebrew word that this translation renders as kindred literally means brothers.[1] The Zemirot Database files the verse under Friday evening, the Sabbath day, the third Sabbath meal and Simchat Torah, and also places it in a category it labels Short/Ruach.[2] Leonard Bernstein ended his Chichester Psalms on the same verse; the work was commissioned by Chichester Cathedral in England, where Bernstein himself led the first performance on July 15, 1965.[3]

Pencil drawing of five women gathered around a piano, one seated playing while the others stand and listen

Friedrich Preller, Musicale at the Prellers', graphite, 1838. Friends making music together, shown in the spirit of the psalm; it has no connection to the song.

Theodor Seidl of the University of Würzburg names it, alongside Shalom Chaverim, as one of the religious rounds of modern Israeli folk music that spread rapidly around the world.[4] PJ Library calls one round setting popular and likens its staggered entries of a single phrase to an endless circle, and it adds that campers sometimes sing Rick Recht's slow rock setting at campfires or during Havdalah, the Saturday-evening ceremony that ends the Sabbath.[5] Other settings exist as well; the Freedman Jewish Sound Archive at the University of Pennsylvania, for example, catalogues one composed by Sergio Liberovici (1930–1991).[6] A syllabus from the 1962 Santa Barbara Folk Dance Conference presents a Hineh Ma Tov line dance, naming Dvora Lapson of New York City and Beth Fawkes of Chicago as its sources, calling it popular in Israel and tracing its steps and music to Yemenite influence.[7] A dance-notes page from a publication titled Popular Israeli Folk Dances credits a Hine Ma Tov dance to Rivka Sturman and lists its music simply as Jacobson, but the sources consulted here give no full name or date for that tune and do not show whether it is the one sung as a round.[8]

Judy House includes it twice in A Collection Of Jewish Music For The Mountain Dulcimer, as a chord/melody solo and as a round, in a book of Jewish songs, prayers, psalms and rounds arranged in DAD tuning, with a page on each song's history and meaning and a pronunciation key for the Hebrew.[9]

Our book that contains the song "Hine Ma Tov"

Sources

  1. Sefaria: "Psalms 133:1".
  2. Zemirot Database: "Hineh Mah Tov".
  3. Britannica: "Chichester Psalms".
  4. University of Würzburg (Theodor Seidl): "Haschiwenu Adonaj elächa – Kanon für drei Stimmen über Klagelieder 5,21".
  5. PJ Library: "PJ Library Soundtrack: Let's Be Friends".
  6. University of Pennsylvania, Freedman Jewish Sound Archive: "Liberovici, Sergio".
  7. Folk Dance Federation of California, South: "Hineh Ma Tov (Israel)", 1962 Santa Barbara Folk Dance Conference.
  8. Folk Dance Federation of California, South: "Hine Ma Tov (How Good It Is)", from Popular Israeli Folk Dances.
  9. Judy House: "A Collection Of Jewish Music For The Mountain Dulcimer".
  10. Image: Friedrich Preller, Musicale at the Prellers', graphite, 1838. The Cleveland Museum of Art.

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