Parshas Vayeitzei commences with the flight of Yaakov Avinu from Eretz Yisroel and concludes with his return home. His departure is marked by an angelic escort (Rashi 28:12), and his return consists of a similar celestial welcome (32:2). With all this talk about malachim, I couldn’t help but think of our own personal angelic encounters.
The Gemara in Shabbos (118b) says, that when a person comes home from shul, there are two Malachei HaShareis that escort him into his house. If everything is in order – his candles are lit, his table is set, etc. – the malachim give him a bracha. What do we say to these malachim?
– Shalom Aleichem: we greet the ministering angels, inviting them into our homes.
– Bo’achem L’shalom: we welcome our heavenly guests, messengers of the Supreme King of Kings.
– Borchuni L’shalom: as they are messengers of the Most High, we ask them to bless us with peace.
– Tzeischem L’shalom: and finally, after receiving their blessings, we invite them to leave.
Now, it’s always bothered me why we would bid such a fast farewell to these friendly malachim. After all, they just arrived, not to mention have just finished bestowing blessings onto our homes! I mean, if the malachim want to stay, would we really have a problem with that? Wouldn’t we prefer that they stick around, or at least stay as long as they’d like? Why, after just welcoming in, would we proceed to show them the proverbial door?
Truth be told, I’m not the only one who has struggled with this unusual practice, as many commentaries grapple with this exact question! Many ideas are discussed but I recently read a beautiful explanation from the works of Rav Shimshon Dovid Pincus zt’l that I thought I would share. He explained that when Shabbos begins, and we go out to greet the Shabbos Queen, what we’re actually doing is inviting the Shechinah into our homes. In fact, that is what Shabbos is! When Shabbos comes, Hashem’s Shechinah enters our homes!
This is the reason we dismiss the malachim the way we do. Chazal inform us that on a normal day of the week, every Yid has malachim who accompany and protect him – just as we see that Yaakov Avinu had in this week’s parsha. However, as Shabbos arrives and we bring these same malachim home with us from shul, we quickly sing them off with a “Tzeischem l’shalom” as we no longer require their protection. With our tables set and our candles lit and our households befitting the Divine, we are poised and now properly prepared to greet the actual Shechinah.
As Shabbos begins, we enter the presence of Hashem Himself!
While Reb Leib Sarah’s (1730-1791) was in Russia, he sensed that in a certain town in Hungary, there was a lofty soul which had to be cultivated, in order to enable it to reach the highest level of its spiritual potential. He told his wagon-driver to harness his horses in preparation for the long journey. By dawn, they had miraculously reached the township they sought, and after Shacharis, Reb Leib went for a stroll in the nearby woods.
There he found a boy of about eight, whose lean frame was only half-clothed with rags and tatters, tending to a flock of geese. The tzaddik struck up a conversation with the young soul and soon learned that he was the son of a poor widow. Reb Leib immediately went to seek out the woman and asked her to entrust him with her son. He promised to bring him up, and train him to be a respectable businessman. The widow consented.
Before leaving, Reb Leib gave her a certain sum for her own sustenance, then set out with the boy for a long journey, to the house of Reb Shmelke of Nikolsburg. When at last they arrived, Reb Leib said to his host: “I have brought you a lofty soul whose source in heaven is the Heichal HaShira v’Zimra – The Palace of Melody and Song; I hope that you will make of it what it needs to become.”
And so it was. The young lad grew up in the home of Reb Shmelke, and all the melodies and shepherd songs that he knew, he made holy. This inspired gooseherd would grow up to be the tzaddik celebrated as “the Sweet Singer of Israel,” Reb Yitzchok Eizik Taub zt’l – better known as the Kaliver Rebbe. Not only did the heilige Kaliver compose many niggunim, he would often reveal to his chassidim that the source of the various tunes that he taught were really from the Beis Hamikdash, but were lost among the nations over the years.
Believe it or not, today’s Shalom Aleichem might have been one of those tunes. It is sung by the magnificent Mordechai Ben David and was recorded for his highly acclaimed Just One Shabbos record way back in 1982. Cleverly interspersed with Cantor Israel Goldfarb’s classic, this is the very same niggun that the Kaliver Rebbe sang to serenade and send away his malachim, as he welcomed the Shechinah into his home on Leil Shabbos. And who knows? Maybe after you hear it, you, too, will use it to do the same.
Wishing all of you a heavenly Shabbos!
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