That Song Stuck in Your Head ...

Everyone has experienced it. You hear a song and it's instantly stuck in your brain. Sometimes the song is pleasant and it helps you through the day. Sometimes the song is annoying and you wish you could think of something else, anything else. But sometimes you hear a song and it simply enters straight into your soul and does something there that you can't explain.

I had that experience recently. I was checking out Jewlicious the other day and saw a post for a Youtube video. The video was really just a slide show of photos from Israel but the song in the background sounded familiar. I knew that I had heard parts of it before here and there on the radio or at work. However, I had never listened to the song the whole way through.

I listened to it and read a little bit about in the comments on Youtube. The song simply captured my imagination. It is what I would call hauntingly beautiful.

The song is "Kol Galgal" ( קול גלגל) or "The Voice of the Wheel." It's sung by a group called "Shotei Hanevua" (שוטי הנבואה) or "The Fools of Prophecy." Apparently the lyrics come from the Zohar, which is the text that forms the basis of Kabalah(the real kind not the Madonna and Britney version).

I wanted to find out the meaning of the lyrics and to get a good translation when I remembered that Tafat's aunt teaches a course on Kabalah. Posted below is the translation that she provided along with some notes on the meaning.

THE MUSIC (Voice) OF THE CHARIOT* WHEELS
RISES FROM THE EARTH TO THE SKY
HIDDEN MERKAVOT (Chariots) ARE ROLLING OVER AND OVER

A HEAVENLY VOICE LIFTS UP AND GOES DOWN,
SAILING AROUND THE WORLD........

THE SOUND OF THE SHOFAR DESCENDS
TO THE DEPTHS OF THE SEFIROT**
AND THE CHARIOT KEEPS ROLLING OVER...........

*THE CHARIOT is the divine Merkava that man builds with his inner contemplation and values

**THE SEFIROT are the degrees, the madregot in hebrew, 10 of them that are the lights and vessels between the finite and the Infinite.