That These Things Never End

This Friday evening at sunset, I gathered with a crowd of hundreds of Israelis and tourists at the modern pier of Tel Aviv to pray and “l’kabel et haShabbat”—to welcome the Sabbath. Shabbat binds together the Divine and the human. The sun sets and time turns the sixth day into the seventh without our intervention, but it is our intention to “remember” and “keep” Shabbat that confirms the holiness of this day of rest.

On a soft, wooden pier that sloped up and down like gentle hills, we sang Psalms and folk songs not only to mark the time of transition between mundane and holy but actively to invite Shabbat into our lives. We did so with the time-tested words of the siddur (prayer book) and with twentieth- and twenty-first-century songs and poems, including Hannah Senesch’s “To Caesaria”:

Eli, Eli
Shelo yigamer le'olam:
Hachol vehayam
Rishrush shel hamayim
Berak hashamayim
Tefilat ha'adam

My God, My God
May these things never end:
The sand and the sea
The rustle of the water
The lightning in the sky
The prayer of humankind

A haunting melody made by our voices, the rich sound of the cello, and the gentle taps of a drum was replaced, as we finished our singing, with the rush of the waves of the Mediterranean, a sea that somehow feels far more vast and open and daunting and amazing at the long shoreline of Israel. The waves ebbing and flowing paid no attention to the rhythm of our Psalms and petitions, but kept crashing against the pier, spraying us. Inevitably.

This morning, as I was still thinking about the perpetually moving sea, I received an email from a friend I have had since the age of ten. Her brother has cancer, and the prognosis is disheartening. As he nears what is likely the end of his life, both he and his family are struggling with their complex, churning feelings. My friend wrote, “I am taking my life and my brother’s illness one day at a time, because I know that is all I can do.” She is not happy that her brother is ill, but she accepts that he is and seeks out opportunities to be with him in ways that enrich and sustain them both.

On Shabbat, I stopped the flow of my work week, breathed in the salt air, and watched a mundane afternoon turn into a holy evening. But the rhythm of this world also continued: my friend tried to find ways to both worry for her brother and wish for peacefulness for him. These things never end: illness, grief, joy, the care of a friend.

We invite Shabbat for many reasons, among them the desire for rest, in imitation of God’s resting after the work of creation. But the prayers we offer to usher in the Sabbath also indicate that we are cared for, that these prayers are in some way accepted, received, welcomed.

“Kabbalat” is about an active welcoming, but the root “kabal” also means to accept. Perhaps prayer can serve as an interruption to the waves that never end. Perhaps it can serve as a comforting reminder that the waves never end.