![]() The Content Guidelines will make sure your post doesn't get removed.Ĭheck out the Wiki in general Other Cool Things Go Here.Ī glossary of common terms that you might see thrown around here.Ī fantastic translation plugin for most browsers. It goes into the regularly posted thread.Ĭlick here to filter out posts labeled Anti-SemitismĬlick here to filter out posts labeled PoliticsĬlick here for the Regularly Scheduled Politics Thread Use the report feature, do not reply, and message the mods.Don't fundraise or post surveys without prior permission.Don't make clickbait/editorialize titles.This is a non-denominational subreddit, we expect everybody to respect that. Rabbi Hara Person is the chief strategy officer of the Central Conference of American Rabbis and the publisher of CCAR Press.Here you can find resources of, by, for, and in general proximity to all things Jew~ish. Guard our going and coming, to life and to peace evermore. For You, God, watch over us and deliver us. Defend us against enemies, illness, war, famine and sorrow. Shield and shelter us beneath the shadow of Your wings. Guide us with Your good counsel for Your Name’s sake, be our help. Spread over us the shelter of Your peace. Grant, O God, that we lie down in peace, and raise us up, our Guardian, to life renewed. Text of the Hashkiveinu prayer (from Mishkan T’filah) And that for him, tomorrow might never come. The prayer allowed us to express the fear that our father would be left unprotected. Mishkan T’filah, the latest Reform prayerbook, takes a middle path, omitting the troublesome phrase while preserving the profound themes and imagery of the prayer.Īll the prayers in our siddur are imbued with interwoven strands of theology and history.īut they also are a form of poetry, a creative blend of language and meter that speaks to our innermost longings and doubts, the most intimate worries of our souls.ĭuring that liminal time in which my sister and I watched our father’s every breath and hoped for the gift of one more day, the words of Hashkiveinu enfolded and comforted us. It reappeared in later versions, but continued to pose a theological challenge because of a line that requests protection against Satan, an idea that - while arguably metaphorical - was deemed antithetical to Reform’s rationalist, modern worldview. The first Reform prayerbook eliminated it entirely, likely because it was seen as best-suited for personal home practice. Hashkiveinu has presented the editors of Reform prayerbooks with challenges since the movement’s beginning. And though we were loathe to say so aloud, we knew that we were also asking that, should he not awaken, for God to guard over him as he passed out of this world and into eternal life. We asked that he be restored to healthy wakefulness and that he be granted a tomorrow. We asked God to watch over him and to spread a canopy of peace over him like a warm blanket. Like parents saying the prayer for a child too young to recite it alone, we prayed in our father’s stead. In doing so, we were participating in the Jewish tradition of including Hashkiveinu not only as part of the communal evening prayers, but also as part of the personal bedtime Sh’ma. But as he hovered between life and death, we also sang Hashkiveinu. ![]() We sang his favorite songs from the 1970s: Simon and Garfunkel, Carole King, and Carly Simon duets from childhood road trips. When my father was lying in a hospital bed in a medically induced coma, my sister and I sat next to him and sang. It doesn’t get much more primal than that. We ask for God to watch over us and guard us as we sleep, enabling us to rest peacefully and wake up again in the morning restored to life. ![]() Some prayers focus on lofty themes that can feel removed from our daily lives, but Hashkiveinu gives voice to our deepest fears. There’s something profoundly comforting about the basic human terms in which this prayer speaks. The prayer envisions God as a guide and shelter during the night ahead and praises God for watching over us, delivering us, and being merciful. The Hashkiveinu prayer is part of a set of rabbinic readings that bracket the biblical text of the Shema during evening prayers on both Shabbat and weekdays. My Jewish Learning is a not-for-profit and relies on your help Donate
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |