From the sources by Eliezer Segal: Prayer, protection and peace

By Eliezer Segal

(AJNews) – The traditional Jewish evening prayers deal with such themes as the cycle of nature, the manifestation of divine love in the giving of the Torah, and past and future redemptions. It is not surprising that the service includes a prayer for protection during the night – a concern that was more urgently felt in earlier generations, before the introduction of electric lights, when the nocturnal environment could be quite threatening and perilous.

The wording of this section according to all the standard rites begins: “Enable us to lie down in peace,” and concludes by blessing the Lord “who protects his people Israel eternally.”

According to the practice that is now virtually universal, a different version of this blessing is substituted in the evening service for Sabbaths and festivals: “Blessed is the Lord who spreads a canopy of peace over us and over all his people Israel, and over Jerusalem.”

The origins of the distinction between the texts is actually quite straightforward. As we have learned from the Jerusalem Talmud and from the liturgical fragments preserved in the Cairo Geniza, the formula “who spreads a canopy of peace” was the prevailing rite in the land of Israel during the talmudic and Byzantine eras— on weekdays as well as on Sabbaths or festivals. Correspondingly, in Babylonia, “who protects his people Israel eternally” was recited at all evening services.

The earliest known record of a distinction between weekday and Sabbath texts is ascribed to Rav Natronai Ga’on, who stood at the head of the Sura Babylonian academy in the ninth century. In a responsum concerning additions to the evening prayers, he surveyed various customs that had developed in Jewish communities and scholarly circles. Among these was the practice of his own Sura academy to recite “who spreads a canopy of peace” only on Friday night. This was consistent with a longstanding receptivity of that institution to traditions emanating from the holy land.

Already in Natronai’s days, the customs for reciting this section of the evening prayers had fragmented into a confusing array of options, and he ascribed differing usages to: the rabbis of the Talmud, later rabbis, “the yeshiva,” “the academy of our rabbi,” “the other synagogues of Israel,” “the other localities of Israel,” and “all of Babylonia.”

Why should a different wording of the blessing be required for the Friday night prayers. After all, the basic sentiments of the two versions seem substantially identical.

Rabbinic commentators, especially in medieval France and Germany, have proposed specific explanations related to the kinds and degrees of heavenly protection that might be needed on different days of the week.

Rabbi Eleazar of Worms and other interpreters presumed that the “canopy of peace” version implied that there is less need for divine protection on the Sabbath. Several authorities cited a statement (apparently spurious) from the Jerusalem Talmud that the appeal to divine protection is necessary only on weeknights because our merits are then diminished by the fact that certain precepts are not in force at night. However, the holiness of the Sabbath obviates the need for such protection.

Rabbi Eliezer ben Nathan of Mainz took the opposite position, maintaining that Friday nights are more fraught with danger, in keeping with the Talmud’s admonition that one should not venture out alone on Friday or Tuesday nights, “because the arch-demon Agrat daughter of Maḥalat… goes out at these times.”

A compendium from the school of Rashi grouped this practice together with other customs designed to shorten the Friday night synagogue service, whether motivated by fears of encountering malevolent spirits, or for more tangible reasons; for example, to facilitate arriving home before the lamps go out, or out of consideration for people who have hardly eaten anything since Friday morning so they can enter the Sabbath with a hearty appetite. Rabbi Eliezer also pointed out that Jews walking outdoors on Friday nights were at a practical disadvantage because they were not allowed to carry torches or lanterns.

“It was for these reasons that the rabbis established the prayer ‘who spreads a canopy of peace,’ imploring that he stretch out and spread his serenity over us, so that we should not come to harm.”

When it comes to matters related to demons and malevolent spirits, we find ourselves in the realms of the Kabbalah as set out in the classic compendium of Jewish esoteric lore, the Zohar (Book of Splendour), first published in Spain in the thirteenth century.

According to the midrashic myth adapted by the Zohar, demons were the last living beings to be created on the first Friday. With the advent of the Sabbath at sunset, those beings were left incomplete, as disembodied spirits lacking physical bodies.

On Sabbath the demons are detained in an abyss to protect our world from their assaults. During the week humans must be steadfastly vigilant against their incursions, but the onset of the holy Sabbath changes all that. From the moment when the day is declared to be sanctified, the Sabbath itself (a kabbalistic symbol for the Divine Presence) begins to hover as a protective canopy of peace spread out over the world, preventing the hostile forces from inflicting harm upon the people of Israel.

Therefore, on Friday night there is no need to pray for the protection invoked in the blessing “who protects his people Israel eternally.” That blessing was ordained only for weekdays, when the world requires shielding; whereas on the Sabbath the canopy of peace is spread over the world, and it shields us from all sides, in both the upper and lower realms.

It is for this reason, the Zohar concludes, that when sanctifying the Sabbath, we recite the words “who spreads the canopy of peace over us and over all his people Israel and over Jerusalem.”

Of course in today’s precarious and hostile environment Jews should pursue all effective measures to ensure our security.

But any additional assistance from heavenly sources would certainly be a blessing.