## Rabbi Sacks on Siddur, Shabbat, Kiddush and Zemirot for Shabbat Evening

###### Rabbi Sacks on Siddur, Shabbat, Kiddush and Zemirot for Shabbat Evening 1
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**English Edition; Koren Publishers Jerusalem, 2017:**
SHABBAT AT HOME
Shabbat is a celebration of the Jewish home, and the home is the matrix of Judaism. The prophets compared the relationship between God and Israel with that between husband and wife, and between parent and child. The Hebrew word *emuna*, usually translated as “faith,” in fact means “faithfulness, fidelity,” the virtue born and sustained within the home. The love between husband and wife is the human redemption of solitude. The love between parent and child is the closest we come to immortality in this world, for it is through our children that we, and what we live for, live on.
Friday night is when, freed from the pressures of work, we can give time and loving attention to one another. It is also the time when we feel most profoundly the *Shekhina*, the Divine Presence, in the home. Our relationship to God and to those closest to us are both covenantal; that is to say, a mutual pledge of loyalty and love. Through the family and the quality of its relationships, divine blessings flow into the world.
Before the Friday evening meal, we enact sequentially the values on which the home is built: (1) lighting candles, symbolizing domestic peace; (2) blessing children, our responsibility and continuity; (3) welcoming angels, invisible signs of God’s protection; (4) praising the “woman of strength,” guardian of the home; (5) Kiddush, the dimension of holiness; (6) the blessing over bread, a symbol of sustenance as God’s gift; and (7) song and words of Torah, expressing our faith joyously.
BLESSING THE CHILDREN
The custom of parents blessing their children has its origin in the blessing Jacob gave to his grandsons: “By you shall Israel bless, saying: May God make you like Efrayim and Menashe.” (Gen. 48:20). The blessing for boys repeats this phrase. That for girls invokes the four biblical matriarchs: Sarah, Rebecca, Rachel and Leah. This is followed, in both cases, by the priestly blessing. It is a beautiful custom, symbolizing the continuity of the generations in a way that is both tender and deeply spiritual. In the only verse to describe why Abraham was chosen, God says: “For I have chosen him so that he may direct his children and his household after him to keep the way of the Lord by doing what is right and just” (Gen. 18:19). The bond between parents and children represents the continuity of the covenant across the generations.


###### Rabbi Sacks on Siddur, Shabbat, Kiddush and Zemirot for Shabbat Evening 9
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**English Edition; Koren Publishers Jerusalem, 2017:**
שָׁלוֹם עֲלֵיכֶם *Welcome*: A poem based on the Talmudic passage (*Shabbat* 119b) that states that two ministering angels accompany a person on Friday night on his way from synagogue to home. When they see the home prepared for Shabbat, they bless the family. The author of the poem is unknown, but it is first mentioned in mystical circles in the seventeenth century.


###### Rabbi Sacks on Siddur, Shabbat, Kiddush and Zemirot for Shabbat Evening 16
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**English Edition; Koren Publishers Jerusalem, 2017:**
אֵשֶׁת־חַֽיִל *A woman of strength*: This text, an alphabetical acrostic, is taken from the closing chapter of the book of Proverbs. In a series of scenes it describes an ideal woman: active, practical, a businesswoman as well as director of the household, involved in the welfare of strangers as well as her family, a woman of wisdom and kindness, “clothed with strength and dignity.” The word *ḥayil* in the opening phrase signifies strength, both moral and physical. Many of the commentators see the woman in this passage as a symbol of the Divine Presence (or Shabbat itself, personified as a bride). Without negating this allegorical meaning, the poem is also a hymn of thanks to the female head of the household for the blessings she brings to the family and
the home.


###### Rabbi Sacks on Siddur, Shabbat, Kiddush and Zemirot for Shabbat Evening 21
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**English Edition; Koren Publishers Jerusalem, 2017:**
**קִדּוּשׁ** *Kiddush:* In the Ten Commandments, we are commanded to “remember” the Shabbat day. This was understood to mean a verbal declaration, said over a cup of wine: hence Kiddush. The Friday night Kiddush contains three elements: (1) a biblical reading, referring to the first Shabbat when God completed creation and rested on the seventh day; (2) a blessing over wine; and (3) a blessing over the day itself.
It is our custom to begin the first paragraph with the last two words of the previous verse so that the first four Hebrew words of Kiddush*– Yom Hashishi Vayekhulu Hashamayim* – spell out the four-letter name of God. The previous words are said quietly. The blessing over the day recalls the two fundamental beliefs of which Shabbat is a reminder: creation and the exodus from Egypt.