Devai Haser

Devai Haser is a piyyut by Dunash ibn Labrat (920/925 – after 985), whose first name is signed in the first verse by acrostic. Ashkenazi Jews incorporate the first stanza of the piyyut into the Birkat Hamazon for weddings and Sheva Brachot.^[1]

This piyyut, like Dunash's D'ror Yikra, was originally intended for the Sabbath; the content of the piyyut suggests that it is meant to be recited immediately before the Priestly Blessing.^[2] Some say that the practice of reciting the first stanza after weddings and sheva brachot owes to the general obligation to temper celebration with reminder of the destruction of the temple, à la "Let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth, If I remember thee not; if I set not Jerusalem above my chiefest joy."^[3] One 15th-century machzor describes the first stanza as "a song for weddings by Dunash ibn Labrat, in the metre of Adon Olam."^[4] Originally the stanza was recited responsively.^[5]