5. Watǝtfesāḥ Bəba`ǝleka

This is a specific piece for Bā’alā Maṣalat. It is based on Deuteronomy 16:14 and mentions the duty to rejoice during this holiday. One should rejoice not only with those who dwell in our house, but also with the needy who live outside. At the end of the text Shim’on is mentioned. He is supposed to bless Israel. Despite the mention of the specific holiday in which it is performed, this prayer does not include sentences of prescriptive nature based on Leviticus that usually characterize the Beta Israel prayers related to the liturgical calendar. Therefore the reference to Deuteronomy 16:14 could be interpreted as an indirect justification of this holiday. In fact, Sukkoth was not celebrated according to rabbinical traditions. Only after their modern encounter with the scholar Jacques Faïtlovitch after 1904 did the Beta Israel start to integrate the sukkah and the four species into their celebration of Bā’alā Matsalat.

This piece follows the hemiola pattern (A-A-AB/A-A-AB) and is accompanied by dancing. When the soloist, who systematically skips the last beat when he overlaps the choir’s part, does not perform the overlapping, the periodicity varies from 24 to 30 pulsations per hemiola.