El Malei Rachamim
In the Eastern Ashkenazi liturgy, the prayer is usually chanted by a chazzan for the ascension of the souls of the dead on the following occasions: during the funeral; at an unveiling of the tombstone; Yizkor (Remembrance) service on the four of the Jewish festivals, Yom Kippur, Shemini Atzeret, and the last day of Pesach and Shavuot; on the Yahrzeit on a day when there is public reading from the Torah, or the closest date before the Yahrzeit; and on other occasions on which the memory of the dead is recalled.
In the Sephardi liturgy, a similar prayer called Hashkavah is recited by the reader of the Torah on Mondays and Thursdays.
[2] The recitation of the prayer in both Ashkenazi and Sephardi liturgies is usually accompanied by pledges for the donation of charity in memory of the deceased.
ה' הוּא נַחֲלָתָם, בְּגַן עֵדֶן (תְּהֵא) מְנוּחָתָם, וְיָנוּחוּ בְּשָׁלום עַל מִשְׁכָּבָם, וְיַעַמְדוּ לְגורָלָם לְקֵץ הָיָּמִין, וְנאמַר אָמֵן׃ Merciful God who dwells above, provide a sure rest on the wings of the Divine Presence, amongst the holy and pure and heroic who shine as brightly as the sky, to the souls of the soldiers of the Israel Defense Forces and the underground fighters who fell in Israel's wars, and all the fighters in the nation's battles who gave their lives to die for the sanctity of Hashem who, with the help of the God of Israel's battles, brought about the establishment of the nation and the State and the reclamation of the land and the City of God, and all those who were murdered in the Land and outside it by the murderers of the terrorist groups.
לָכֵן בַּעַל הָרַחֲמִים יַסְתִּירֵם בְּסֵתֶר כְּנָפָיו לְעוֹלָמִים, וְיִצְרוֹר בִּצְרוֹר הַחַיִּים אֶת נִשְׁמוֹתֵיהֶם, ה' הוּא נַחֲלָתָם, בְּגַן עֵדֶן תְּהֵא מְנוּחָתָם, וְיַעֶמְדוּ לְגוֹרָלָם לְקֵץ הַיָּמִין, וְנֹאמַר אָמֵן׃ Merciful God, who dwells above, provide a sure rest upon the Divine Presence's wings, amongst of the holy and the pure, whose shining resembles the sky's, all the souls of the six million Jews, victims of the European Holocaust, who were murdered, slaughtered, burnt and exterminated for the Sanctification of the Name, by the German Nazi assassins and their helpers from the rest of the peoples.
The Everlasting is their heritage, the Garden of Eden shall be their resting room, and they shall rest peacefully upon their lying place, they will stand for their fate at the end of days, and let us say: Amen From this prayer, the poet Yehuda Amichai wrote his poem "El malei rachamim",[5] starting with the words:
