The Wikipedia entry about Shalom Aleichem includes an explanation of the origins and background of the custom of singing ‘Shalom Aleichem’ on Friday night prior to Kiddush, along with the Hebrew, English and transliterated text, a discussion about controversial aspects of the poem, and aa brief survey of some of the most well known melodies. Although this source mentions several customs unique to different communities within the Jewish world, it is best used as a a general overview of the topic.
Shalom Aleichem
Shalom Aleichem (« Peace be upon you ») is a traditional song sung by Jews every Friday night upon returning home from synagogue prayer. It signals the arrival of the Jewish Sabbath, welcoming the angels who accompany a person home on the eve of the Sabbath
Sources
This liturgical poem was written by the kabbalists of Safed in the late 16th or early 17th century.
According to a homiletic teaching in the Talmud, two angels accompany people on their way back home from synagogue on Friday night—a good angel and an evil angel. If the house has been prepared for the Shabbat (« the lamp has been lit, the table set, and his couch spread »), the good angel utters a blessing that the next Shabbat will be the same, and the evil angel is forced to respond « Amen ». but if the home is not prepared for Shabbat, the evil angel expresses the wish that the next Shabbat will be the same, and the good angel is forced to respond « Amen ».
The custom of singing Shalom Aleichem on Friday night before Kiddush is now nearly universal, even though certain rabbinical authorities have expressed misgivings. As has been noted by Rabbi David Bar-Hayim of Jerusalem, the 18th century Rabbi Jacob Emden in his Sidur Beth Ya’aqov prayer book pointed out many problems regarding this song (addressing requests to angels, expressions that do not make sense, etc.). A similar attitude to the singing of Shalom Aleichem is attributed to Rabbi Elijah, the Vilna Gaon. A further objection, Bar-Hayim explains, is that the song is based on a literal understanding of an Agadic (homiletic) statement (Babylonian Talmud Shabath 119b) which he views as misguided. Most rabbis, however, do not accept these arguments.
Words
The lyrics, in Hebrew, are as follows:
שלוֹם עֲלֵיכֶם מַלְאֲכֵי הַשָּׁרֵת מַלְאֲכֵי עֶלְיוֹן
מִמֶּלֶךְ מַלְכֵי הַמְּלָכִים הַקָּדוֹשׁ בָּרוּךְ הוּאבּוֹאֲכֶם לְשָׁלוֹם מַלְאֲכֵי הַשָּׁלוֹם מַלְאֲכֵי עֶלְיוֹן
מִמֶּלֶךְ מַלְכֵי הַמְּלָכִים הַקָּדוֹשׁ בָּרוּךְ הוּאבָּרְכוּנִי לְשָׁלוֹם מַלְאֲכֵי הַשָּׁלוֹם מַלְאָכֵי עֶלְיוֹן
מִמֶּלֶךְ מַלְכֵי הַמְּלָכִים הַקָּדוֹשׁ בָּרוּךְ הוּא☼
צֵאתְכֶם לְשָׁלוֹם מַלְאֲכֵי הַשָּׁלוֹם מַלְאָכֵי עֶלְיוֹן
מִמֶּלֶךְ מַלְכֵי הַמְּלָכִים הַקָּדוֹשׁ בָּרוּךְ הוּא
The song in Hebrew is transliterated as follows:
Shalom aleichem malachei ha-sharet malachei Elyon,
mi-melech malachei ha-melachim ha-Kadosh Baruch Hu.
Bo’achem le-shalom malachei ha-shalom malachei Elyon,
mi-melech malachei ha-melachim ha-Kadosh Baruch Hu.Barchoni le-shalom malachei ha-shalom malachei Elyon,
mi-melech malachei ha-melachim ha-Kadosh Baruch Hu.Tzeitchem le-shalom malachei ha-shalom malachei Elyon,
mi-melech malachei ha-melachim ha-Kadosh Baruch Hu.
The words to the song translate as follows:
Peace unto you, ministerial angels, messengers of [the] Highest,
from the King, king(s) of the kings — the holy, blessed He.[May] your coming [be] to peace, messengers of the peace, messengers of [the] Highest,
from the King, king(s) of the kings — the holy, blessed He.Bless me for peace, messengers of the peace, messengers of [the] Highest,
from the King, king(s) of the kings — the holy, blessed He.[May] your departure [be] to peace, messengers of the peace, messengers of [the] Highest,
from the King, king(s) of the kings — the holy, blessed He.
☼ NOTE: Mizrahi (not Sefard) tradition includes a penultimate verse, beginning בְּשִׁבְתְּכם לשׁלוֹם, « [May] your rest [be] for peace … » and the final verse has a בְּ inserted in front of the צ, which does not change the meaning of the last verse.
Rabbi Jacob Emden, in his prayerbook, « Bet El » (1745), criticized both the use of the hymn (on the grounds that supplications on the Sabbath and supplications to angels were inappropriate) and its grammar—arguing that the inclusion of the prefix מִ at the beginning of every second line (i.e., mee-melech) was bad form, as it rendered the passage, « angels of the Most High, away from the King who rules over kings ». He therefore deleted that מִ, thereby reducing mi-melech to melech, and that deletion has been emulated in some other prayerbooks (apparently a small minority) such as Seligman Baer’s « Siddur Avodat Yisroel » (1868), the Orot Sephardic, and Koren’s Mizrahi (but not Koren’s Ashkenaz or Sefard) prayerbook, although it makes the musical meter a bit awkward.
Melodies
Many different melodies have been written for Shalom Aleichem.
The slow, well-known melody for the song was composed by the American composer and conductor Rabbi Israel Goldfarb on May 10, 1918 while sitting near the Alma Mater statue in front of Low Memorial Library at Columbia University, and first published later that year as « Sholom Alechem—שָׁלוֹם עֲלֵיכֶם » in « Friday Evening Melodies » by Israel and his brother Samuel. The famous Goldfarb song is often presumed to be a traditional Hasidic melody. I. Goldfarb wrote in 1963, « The popularity of the melody traveled not only throughout this country but throughout the world, so that many people came to believe that the song was handed down from Mt. Sinai by Moses. » In the Preface to « Friday Evening Melodies » the composers articulated the goal of avoiding the extremes of both the free-form emotive Eastern European musical liturgical style and the classical Western European musical structure of « Israel Emancipated. »
Lately, a modern, exuberantly joyful version of this melody has been popularized by Idan Yaniv and Kinderlach.
As one of her last acts, Debbie Friedman shared her beautiful and haunting « Shalom Aleichem » with Rabbi Joy Levitt. Friedman believed it was this song that would become her legacy.
The Faster Common Traditional Melody was composed by Rabbi Shmuel Brazil.