Sitting around Shabbat Table

Our dining room table is an elongated circle, an oval of wood; mahogany, I think, maybe redwood. A legacy of my maternal grandparents, it’s old by contemporary American standards. I date it to the mid-nineteen twenties, though I may be off by a decade. When the children are home or when we have guests, my wife and I sit at opposite ends, but when it’s just the two of us we sit closer together, across the short axis. On Shabbat the candlesticks frame our view of each other between the glow of the shimmering lights. In the winter, when evening comes early, these provide the only source of illumination in the room that we allow to penetrate the darkness. We sing Shalom Aleichem, staring into each other’s eyes. It’s a song based on the Talmudic suggestion that two angels accompany the inauguration of Shabbat, a good angel and a bad. If the home is well prepared the good angel blesses the household and the bad angel is forced to say “Amen.” If the house is not well ordered, the bad angel curses and the good angel is forced to say “Amen.” But the hymn, at least in the form we have it, does not distinguish between good and bad angels, it speaks only of angels, and in my mind all of them are good. What else would HaShem create?

“We wish you peace, attending angels, angels of the most sublime, the King of kings, the Holy One, praised be He.

“Come to us in peace, angels of peace, angels of the most sublime, the King of kings, the Holy One, praised be He.

“Bless us with peace, angels of peace, angels of the most sublime, the King of kings, the Holy one, praised be He.”

And then reluctantly, ruefully:

“Take your leave in peace, angels of peace, angels of the most sublime, the King of kings, the Holy One, praised be He.”

When we finish singing I bless the boys if they are home and then kiss my bride of the past 35 years and thank her for being herself and for making us ourselves, for making our home the center of our lives. Then I chant two history lessons interrupted by a blessing. I sing in my off-tuned warble of the creation of Shabbat on the 7th day; I give thanks for the fruit of the vine and then I remind us of the exodus from Egypt. These two births, of Shabbat, marking the completion of creation and of the Jewish people, chosen, saved, for reasons we do not understand, inaugurate Shabbat in our house each Friday evening as we end one week and begin anew another.

So, when I, the rationalist, the student of Voltaire and Diderot sit at my oval Shabbat table, the gift of my grandparents, and someday our gift to one of our children, when we sing the hypnotically repetitious words of Shalom Aleichem, do I really think there are angels in the room, bringing peace? As I look into my wife’s eyes, reflecting back at me the flickering light of the candles she has just lit, as I see my children in their chairs, whether they are actually in the room or not, when I know that the week’s troubles are over, at least for a few hours in this sacred temple of which we have made our dining room, then yes, I do believe in the angels and I am glad they are there and just a bit sad when I sing the final verse:

“Take your leave in peace, angels of peace, angels of the most sublime, the King of Kings, the Holy One, praised be He.

As I write these words I am just back from our annual pilgrimage to the Tanglewood music festival. On Friday night we were not at our oval table, we were on the great lawn, waiting for the music to commence (Bach, Bach and Handel). To my right there was a family, a father, mother and daughter. The mother quietly, unobtrusively, blessed and lit the Shabbat candles and then together, soto voce, they sang Shalom Aleichem. The father blessed his little girl, aged around ten, and then said kiddush over the wine. After they passed around the cup, the mother said the blessing over the challah and together they ate their meal, as the glorious music engulfed us all. Should Shabbat be inaugurated any other way?