The Angels We Can't Keep

I

Every Friday night, as Shabbat begins, it’s said that two angels of peace join us. We welcome them by singing “Shalom Aleichem,” a four-stanza song I have vivid memories of singing growing up.

But my family had a strange custom, and one I abided by for most of my life: we never sang the last stanza.

The first two stanzas welcome these angels:

“Peace unto you…”

“May your coming be in peace…”

The third asks for their blessing:

“Bless me with peace…”

And the fourth stanza, the one I never sang, sends them away:

“May your departure be in peace…”

צֵאתְכֶם לְשָלוֹם מַלְאֲכֵי הַשָׁלוֹם מַלְאָכֵי עֶלְיוֹן מִמֶלֶךְ מַלְכֵי הַמְלָכִים הַקָדוֹשׁ בָּרוּךְ הוּא

My grandfather was a Holocaust survivor. The vast majority of his and my grandmother’s families were murdered. When he came to the United States, he stopped singing that last stanza. He didn’t want the angels of peace to leave.

Week in, week out: “Welcome, angels. Bless me, angels. Don’t leave us, angels.”

And this is what I sang, and taught my kids.

II

I’ve had my fair share of angels in my life, people who brought peace, or love, or growth: friends, teachers, partners, the mother of my children, even difficult people who brought lessons I couldn’t have received any other way. 

And oh, how I’ve wanted to, and tried, to hold on to these angels. “Please don’t leave.”

But in life, more often than not, these angels have to move on. There was Carson, an angel to me in many ways, taken too soon in an accident; and then the angels who helped carry me afterward, including two who also had to leave.

And me, ever heartbroken and confused - why couldn’t they stay?

Since then, I’ve realized: we have to sing the fourth stanza. We must say goodbye to the angels that visit. They are not ours to keep. They bless us, and then we have to trust the goodbye. Trust that angels will return, not in the same form, but with new blessings for who we are becoming, as opposed to what we were, or wanted to be, or hold on to.

So now, every Friday night, I sing all four stanzas. I understand the impulse to grasp onto the angels, understand the trauma that befell my ancestors that made them beg the angels to stay. But just as my grandfather and father were angels to me in their own right, the day came when I had to say goodbye to them too.

Farewell, angels of peace. I look forward to welcoming you again.