Torah for Christians: Shabbat II

TORAH FOR CHRISTIANS

 SEASON THREE    EPISODE SIX 

SHABBAT II

           For many Christians, the Sabbath means an hour-long service, maybe a bit longer, and a Sunday School class. Then you go for brunch.

          For Jews, it’s three services, one of which lasts 3 hours, if you are lucky. And we’ve done this for centuries. 

          Let’s find out why. I’m Rabbi Jordan Parr and this is Torah for Christians.

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          Welcome to Torah for Christians. I’m Rabbi Jordan Parr.

          As we learned last week, Shabbat is the most important of the many Jewish holidays. It is a weekly occurrence, celebrating God’s commandment to one one day a week a day for rest. But for us, much of our Shabbat rituals and routines occur in the Sanctuary.

          There are three major services on Shabbat. The first is the Friday Evening Service, called in Hebrew, Kabbalat Shabbat, welcoming Shabbat. On Shabbat Morning, we hold our Morning Service, called Shaharit, literally the Dawn Service. And then, on Shabbat Afternoon, is the Mincha Service, a brief but beautiful service.

          Each of these three services has a particular theme. Kabbalat Shabbat, the Evening Service, is an echo of Creation when God commanded rest for humanity. Shaharit, the Morning Service, echoes Revelation, the moment when Israel stood at Sinai, ready to receive the Torah. More on that later. Finally, the Minha, Afternoon Service, echoes Redemption, when God delivers Israel and sends the Messiah to earth.

          Back to Kabbalat Shabbat, the Evening Service. When the sun sets on a Friday night, Shabbat begins. In the synagogue, we celebrate the start of Shabbat by singing Psalms 95-99 and then Psalm 29, “Ascribe to the Eternal God’s majestic glory; worship the Eternal in sacred splendor.” Depending upon the custom of the congregation, some or all these Psalms are sung, usually in Hebrew, using many different melodies.

          In Jewish lore, Israel is personified as a bride and Shabbat is a symbolic marriage between God and Israel. On Shabbat, we receive a neshama yeteira, an additional soul, the soul of Shabbat. Our blessings on Shabbat are doubled; everything tastes sweeter, and life is just better because Shabbat is also a taste of the World to Come.

          The Lecha Dodi, the hymn sung after these Psalms reflects these thoughts. Written by Rabbi Shlomo HaLevi Alkabetz, a rabbi and Kabbalist in 16th Century Safed, the refrain is translated as “Come, my beloved, to greet the bride; Beloved, come and greet Shabbat.” The poem concludes, “Come in peace, O crown of your husband (meaning God). Enter in gladness, enter in joy. Come to the people that keeps faith. Enter, O bride; enter, O bride!”

          A fun feature of this poem is that it is an acrostic, a popular way to write Hebrew poetry, even found amongst the Psalms. An acrostic is a poem or song that follows a certain alphabetic pattern. For example, stanza one starts with an “a”, stanza two with a “b”, stanza three with a “c”; you get the idea. In Lecha Dodi, the first letter of each verse spells out the name Shlomo HaLevi, the name of the composer. Not only is this pretty cool, but it’s also a great way to remember how each verse begins.

          After Lecha Dodi, Kabbalat Shabbat continues with Psalm 92. In the Bible, Psalm 92 begins with the words, “A Psalm. A Song for Shabbat.” What could be more appropriate? Finally, Kabbalat Shabbat concludes with Psalm 93, a Psalm that proclaims God’s glory.

          Now if you think that this is the sum of the Evening Service, you would be sadly mistaken. There is a complete Evening Service that follows Kabbalat Shabbat, but it is mercifully short. The entire Friday Evening Service lasts for about an hour to an hour and a half, depending on whether there is a sermon. In the Reform tradition, Friday Night is the major Shabbat service; in other Jewish streams, it is Saturday morning.

          Regardless of tradition though, the service ends with a Kiddush, the blessing over the wine. Now, remember when I said that Kabbalat Shabbat, Friday night, celebrates creation? Here is when we see it most clearly. During the Friday night Kiddush, we celebrate the creation of the world. We also recall the Exodus from Egypt. both events are reasons to celebrate, to bless God’s beneficence in creating not only the universe but also creating the Jewish people itself.

          Technically, Kabbalat Shabbat begins at sunset. Of course, sunset is much later in July than it is in December so the start time can vary greatly. Daylight Savings Time only pushes summer start times even later. Except for the most Orthodox among us, most Jews set a fixed time for this service. Some congregations begin at, say, 6:15 PM with a brief, early service while others might hold their service at 7:30 or even 8:00 PM. An earlier service enables us to go home and enjoy a leisurely dinner; starting later forces us to eat before we go to the synagogue. 

          In a minute, we will talk about the other services we hold during Shabbat, the Morning and Afternoon Services. I’m Rabbi Jordan Parr and this is Torah for Christians.

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Welcome back to Torah for Christians. I’m Rabbi Jordan Parr. Before we return to our discussion of Shabbat, I want to thank you for listening to this podcast. Please remember to review and rate this episode on Apple, Spotify, Facebook, or whatever service you are using. Also, please go back and listen to previous episodes if you have not done so already. And if you would like to read my weekly Torah Study, please go to Bible Stories They (Never) Taught You in Religious School, available for free on www.Substack.com. And now, this and many previous episodes are available on our brand-new YouTube channel. Please subscribe.

After Kabbalat Shabbat ends and we enjoy a festive dinner, we get up the next morning and return to the synagogue for our Shaharit, Morning Service. In all our streams, this is a major – and long – service. It is also the service that most echoes Biblical and Rabbinic customs. 

The first, and possibly greatest highlight of this service is the reading of the Torah. We divide the 5 Books of Moses into 54 segments and read one segment each week. The Torah Service is designed as a weekly re-enactment of the Israelites standing at Mount Sinai.

The rabbi almost always delivers a sermon on Shabbat Morning. Usually, the sermon is taken from the weekly Torah portion, showing how this ancient wisdom is vital in our contemporary lives.

In an echo of Biblical Judaism, Conservative and Orthodox congregations add the Musaf Service following the sermon. Musaf actually means “additional.” Why do we add a service? If you recall, the Priests in the Jerusalem Temple offered a daily sacrifice. But on Shabbat, they offered an additional, Musaf, sacrifice. The Musaf Service, then, reminds us of that special Shabbat sacrifice during Temple times.

Finally, there is one more important element to the Shaharit Service. This is the service in which a young person becomes a Bar or Bat Mitzvah. We talked about this ceremony in a previous episode, so we won’t repeat the specifics here. But in the context of Shabbat Morning, we must remember that when we re-enact the Sinai experience, our children often lead us to the mountaintop. 

After the Shaharit Service, we often go home or to friends’ homes for a leisurely meal. We’ll talk about those meals and other home customs in our next episode but one thing that a lot of Jews do on Shabbat afternoon is to take a nap. Think about it: if you work 5 or 6 days a week and then celebrate Shabbat, with big meals and long services, you need to take a nap. 

But then, when you awake, you can go back to the synagogue for the Mincha, Afternoon Service. Mincha was another Temple Sacrifice, offered in the afternoon. So yes, the service reflects this sacrifice. But it also focuses on redemption. If Kabbalat Shabbat is for creation and Shaharit is for revelation, Mincha points us to the future. Instead of reading this week’s Torah portion, for example, we read a selection from next week’s portion. This shows our forward thinking as well as our hope that next week will be better than this one.

There is also a brief but beautiful service at the close of Shabbat called Havdalah. Havdalah means “separation.” With Havdalah, we make a formal separation when the sun sets, and the stars come out, dividing Shabbat from the other 6 days of the week. We do this by reversing the Shabbat table blessings, the blessings over wine, bread, and candles – and then praying for the return of Elijah the Prophet – in the coming week – to herald the Messianic Era. We’ll talk more about this next week but suffice it to say that we can recite Havdalah either in the synagogue or, more frequently, at home. 

All in all, the way that we celebrate Shabbat is unique. Done with meaning and feeling, Shabbat can revolutionize our lives, bring meaning to our routines, and highlight what in our lives is holy and what is not.

I want to thank you for listening to Torah for Christians. Please remember to rate and review this, and previous episodes on Apple, Spotify, or other streaming services. You can also like and hear us on Facebook and now, you can subscribe to the podcast on Youtube.

Next week, we will continue with our 4-part series on Shabbat. We will focus on how we celebrate Shabbat at home: the Shabbat table service, Shabbat songs, Havdalah and especially Shabbat food. Stay tuned.

Finally, I have begun to publish a weekly Torah Study, called Bible Stories They Never Taught You in Religious School. It’s available for free on www.substack.com. You can also sign up on Substack for the newsletter to appear every Friday in your Inbox.

          Have a wonderful week and remember; Hinei Mah Tov … L’hitra’ot, till we meet again. I’m Rabbi Jordan Parr and this is Torah for Christians.