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
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