Hashkiveinu: A Prayer for Uncertain Times

Rabbi Joel Fleekop

Erev Rosh HaShanah 5772 — Wednesday, September 28, 2011

Every night, frequently at an hour much later than we had hoped, we begin my three year old daughter Yael’s bedtime ritual. Like many other families, the routine starts with a bath, then the reading of a story or two. She has her favorites which we have all by now memorized. Finally, with the lights now out, we sing Shema and Hashkiveinu.

The Hashkiveinu is known as the evening prayer, and is frequently said at bedtime – a custom familiar to our young people who spend time at Camp Newman over the summer.

My wife and I began singing Hashkiveinu with Yael at just about the time she started sleeping through the night – and thus moved from the co-sleeper next to our bed into the crib in her own room.

At first, I suspect the ritual was really for our benefit. Offering a prayer together helped reassure us that our daughter would be alright – even if we were walking across the hall to a master bedroom that now seemed strangely empty.

As the nervousness of new parenthood has worn off – and now with two kids who has the energy to be nervous – the ritual has taken on new meaning. It signals to Yael that the day is over, that it is time to go to sleep.

Falling asleep after a long day of playing and exploring the world is not usually too difficult for Yael. I gather the same is true for most three year olds.

But such is not always the case for adults. It is not that we aren’t tired. Life is more than exhausting. But sometimes it is hard to disconnect from the demands and especially the worries of life. That may be the reason the Hashkiveinu prayer was offered in the first place.

Beginning with the words, “Hashkiveinu Adonai Eloheinu L’shalom – Lie us down, Eternal our God, to peace,” the Hashkiveinu may be the prayerful predecessor to the sleeping pill. As Doctor Leonard Felder writes, “The Hashkiveinu prayer is an ancient Jewish remedy for overcoming stress and finding a creative way to unwind at night so we can have better dreams, a more relaxed and refreshing sleep.”

As part of the synagogue’s work in community organizing, I frequently ask congregants “what keeps you up at night.” Lately the answers I hear have been more personal and closer to home: the quality of a child’s school, job insecurity, shrinking retirement accounts, cuts to the public services we rely on.

There is an unusual Hasidic blessing that states, “May you have many worries.” The thought behind this peculiar wish is that if you have energy to worry about many things – then no one of those worries is too big to handle. Unfortunately, I am not so sure the logic holds these days. Not only are our concerns larger than they used to be, they seem interconnected: employment, healthcare, housing. If the wrong domino falls, we fear, all that our hard work has built could tumble.

With so many uncertainties racing in our minds, it is no surprise that demand for sleeping pills is increasing at a record pace. And perhaps, it is no surprise that we find new meaning in an ancient prayer that asks God for a night of peaceful sleep.

But the Hashkiveinu is more than just a prayer or meditation to help us get to bed. It offers guidance for how to spend our waking hours, especially during challenging times.

Following the prayer’s initial request it continues, “v’hamideinu malckeinu l’chaim - and raise us up, O Sovereign, to life.”

The Hebrew word for life, hayiim, is in the plural. This linguistic oddity is a reminder that life is lived in relationship. As the Book of Genesis declares, “it is not good for man to be alone.”

My daughter Yael reminds me of this every morning. Now in a toddler bed, she climbs in and out on her own. But in the morning, before she tosses off the covers, she calls for daddy and waits for me to enter the room. She insists on starting the day in relationship.

As parents we worry about all the material things we can’t provide our children. And of course there are things we wish we could give to our spouses, our parents, and our friends. But what our loved ones most value is us.

This is the message of one of my favorite Jewish stories. Taken from Midrash Rabbah Song of Songs, it tells of a couple from the town of Sidon. The pair have been happily married for ten years and are deeply in love. But there is one problem. After years of trying they remained childless.

Though he still loves his wife, the husband decides the best thing would be for them to divorce.

They meet with the rabbi – who asks that before they finalize their divorce, they host a great feast – so that their marriage can end like it began – in celebration.

Despite the unusual nature of the request, they follow their rabbi’s instructions. The night before they are to meet with the bet din and request their Jewish divorce, the couple invites friends and family over for a party.

As the night is coming to a close, the husband, who perhaps has had a bit too much to drink, offers his wife the choice of a parting gift. “Tonight, before you return to your father’s house, pick out anything you want from our home and take it with you.”

Not long after the husband falls asleep in the living room. We might even say he passed out.

With the guests gone and her husband sound asleep, the wife began to walk around the house, looking for the right thing to take. Finally she called for the servants. Lift up the couch – with everything on it – and take it to my father’s house.

When the sun rose the next morning, the husband woke in a state of confusion. “Where am I?” he wondered aloud.

His wife ran over to the couch. “You are in my father’s house. Remember last night? You said I could take anything from the house and bring it here. Of all our possessions – the only thing I want is you.”

The husband’s eyes filled with tears as he leaned over and kissed his wife.

They met with the rabbi that afternoon but instead of requesting a divorce, they asked for a blessing: a blessing that their wishes might be fulfilled, a blessing that they face life’s challenges together.

The importance and value of relationships is also the motivation for Bruce Feiler’s new book, The Council of Dads. Best known for the travel journal Walking the Bible, Feiler addresses a very different topic in his latest effort. Council of Dads documents the author’s battle with cancer.

Given an uncertain prognosis, most of the book focuses on Feiler’s concern for his twin daughters, Eden and Tybee. He worries how they will respond as he endures a year of surgeries and draining treatments, but more than anything, he worries about the possibility of his young daughters going through life without him.

An accomplished author married to a successful woman, his girls will be fine financially. But who will teach them all the things he’d learned in life? All the things he hoped to share with them as they grew?

To pass along these lessons Feiler recruits six men from various stages of his own life’s journey to be part of his council of dads. As he writes, “I believe my daughters will have plenty of opportunities in their lives. They’ll have loving families. They’ll have each other. But they may not have me. They may not have their dad. Will you help be their dad?”

Thankfully Feiler’s treatment was successful and after a very long year, life is back to normal. But the energy spent creating the Council of Dads was not wasted. As he describes, several of the men became a comforting presence in the girl’s life – offering them support during this year of uncertainty. But perhaps more importantly, they were there for Bruce. The memoir is in many ways a record of their love and friendship: the jokes they told, the secrets they shared, the kindnesses extended, and the tears shed on one another’s shoulders.

The support of friends and family are a big part of how Bruce Feiler made it through, what he calls the biggest challenge of his life. For us as well, relationships are invaluable.

As we face the trials of these uncertain times and the tribulations that are part of everyone’s life, it is relationships that sustain us. With the words, vhamideynu malkeinu l’chaiim – Raise us up, O Sovereign to life – to relationships – the Hashkiveinu reminds us of this truth.

The prayer urges us to find shelter in the support of friends and family. At the same time it asks we remain open to the world and responsive to the needs of others.

Following the Hashkiveinu’s opening request to lie down in peace and rise up to life, we ask of God, “ufros aleinu sukkat shlomecha – spread over us a sukkah of your peace.” On Shabbat and holidays, this image is repeated in the chatimah – the prayer’s closing blessing: “Baruch Atah Adonai hapores sukat shalom – Blessed are you God who spreads forth a sukkah of peace.”

The image of a sukkah of peace is certainly beautiful. At family services we try to express this sentiment by holding tallitot over the heads of the children present, as together we sing Hashkiveinu.

A sukkah of peace is a beautiful image, but it is also a curious choice.

The great scholar of Jewish liturgy, Ismar Elbogen traces the Hashkiveinu to the Talmudic period. As confirmed by the prayer’s acknowledgment of pestilence, sword, famine, and sorrow, this was a time of great upheaval and uncertainty. In a world of such difficulties, why request divine shelter in a structure as fragile and incomplete as a sukkah? Why does the prayer not ask, as Rabbi David Saperstein suggests, for a palace or castle of peace?

The answer lies in the sukkah’s unique qualities.

With a roof, that by definition, must offer more shade than sun, a sukkah offers a degree of comfort and protection from the harshness of the elements. But unlike a windowless castle, a sukkah remains open to the world.

That is something especially difficult for individuals and societies to maintain in an age of uncertainty.

From the fortress like cities of the ancient and medieval worlds to the backyard bomb shelters of the 1950s and 1960s, there is no dearth of examples of people attempting to erect walls between themselves and the challenges of their times.

Today is no exception. Many have turned their focus inward in hopes of weathering the current storm. We see this in the realm of charitable giving where, as reported in the Wall Street Journal, recent years have seen the sharpest decline on record. And we see it in the political discourse of our country.

Taking cues from a scared and hunkered down electorate, politicians in Sacramento and Washington talk less and less about conquering poverty, improving failing schools, and protecting the environment. The prevailing logic seems to be that we should take shelter now, and when things get better, we can concern ourselves with the problem of others.

But for Jews charged with the work of repairing the world – Tikkun Olam, such an approach is unacceptable. As we search for security in these difficult times we should, in the words of Rabbi Jill Borodin, “be sensitive to the fine line between a shelter that helps protect us and a shelter that walls us off.”

Seeking to protect enrichment programs at our children’s schools from budgetary cuts should not blind us to the 30% of students who never graduate high school.

Worries about maintaining benefits promised by Social Security and Medicare does not justify silence in the face of proposals to scale back children’s health programs, Medicaid, and benefits for those desperately seeking work.

And the struggle to balance our family budgets in the face of increasing prices and stagnant wages does not excuse toleration of an economic reality in which 46.2 million Americans live below the poverty line, a figure set at a shockingly low $22,314 for a family of four.

The Talmud, Masechet Gittin, teaches “even one who receives tzedakah must give tzedakah.” Even as we work to ease our own worries we must be responsive to the needs of others.

And so in requesting shalom, peace, the Hashkiveinu speaks in terms of a sukkah, a structure whose canopy provides needed shelter yet remains open enough to see the stars, open enough to see a better tomorrow.

When our worship concludes this evening, and after I have a chance to wish you all a Shanah Tovah, a happy new year, I will return home to my wife, two daughters, and the dog.

The dog will greet me at the door, but I suspect the girls will be fast asleep. Nevertheless, on this, the first night of the Jewish New Year – a night filled with uncertainty and fear but also opportunity and hope, I will take a moment to sing Hashkiveinu.

Haskiveinu Adonai Eloheinu L’shalom – We promise our loved ones that we will do our best to protect and provide for them.

V’Hamideinu Malcheinu L’chayim, That they will be the center of our lives. That we will be there to support them, just as we know they are there to support us.

Ufros Aleinu Sukkat Shlmoeicha –that even as we seek the shelter we need in the present, we will continue to work toward a better future: for us, for our children, and the world.