Adon Olam

Source language

Hebrew

Original text

Author and date uncertain

New music and English words

Walter J. Kin

Adon Olam is a Hebrew hymn about God’s enduring sovereignty. Its author and date are uncertain: Jewish Encyclopedia explicitly calls both unknown. The modern release mentions the traditional attribution to Solomon ibn Gabirol, but that should remain an attribution, not a verified signature.

The hymn has multiple musical settings, so there is no single melody that every new performance must reproduce.

This recording gives the prayer new music by Walter J. Kin and English words adapted by him from the Hebrew. Kin also supplies the arrangement and production; Riglis Band performs it. Its connection with the earlier hymn is principally textual and devotional.

The release identifies the composition as new, rather than presenting it as the recovery of an ancient tune. No separate composition date is established here.

The English lyric moves from the scale of creation to the safety of one person. Its opening imagines the world before time, then places a speaking, listening God beside the singer. That movement makes a large theological subject approachable: the power that forms a universe can also hold an individual life.

The middle verse joins the prayer’s declaration of divine oneness with images of shelter and guidance. Kin adds the thought of people helping one another and of learning a song. These are distinctive choices in this English adaptation.

They make room for everyday responsibility and music within a text about trust, rather than following every line of the Hebrew in sequence.

The closing verse returns to a central image of Adon Olam: entrusting soul and body to God in sleep and waking. Across three short stanzas, the English version compresses the source while keeping that intimate ending. Listen for the change from describing the world to addressing personal fear and reassurance.

The selected performance is English; a Russian article explains it but does not constitute a Russian vocal recording.

Credits & rights

Performer Riglis Band

Music Walter J. Kin (RIGLI) - original setting

Lyrics English adaptation by Walter J. Kin from the Hebrew hymn; original author uncertain

Language English

Publisher Rigli Publishing (Walter J. Kin)

Rights owner Rigli Publishing

Licensing Rigli Publishing

Copyright In album collective work (verify deposit)

Free to sing, free to teach

These songs are free for synagogues, JCCs, museums, schools, yeshivas and families. For everyone else, free to start, and a modest fee later, so the songs travel and take root.

Questions, or a use we have not thought of? Write to doublesign28@gmail.com.

More about the wider Jewish Songs. For All project at havanagila.org.

Jewish Encyclopedia · Adon Olam

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