On Friday night, two angels accompany every man as he makes his way home from the synagogue (Talmudic Tractate Shabbat: 119) If the candles are lit and the house is readied for the Shabbat, the good angel says "May it be this way every Shabbat" and the evil angel must say "Amen."
Three angels accompany
The father to his home on Shabbat
One good and one evil
And the third one –
How tall he is!
And they find the candles lit
And the table set
And a line of pain etched
On the mother's forehead.
The third sees
A portrait of himself
On the wall
That has not changed
Since the hour he was called to his Maker
And his only chair
Is mute in its emptiness
And his kiddush cup on the shelf
Is alone and ashamed.
As the father sings to the angels
The third cries
Bless me my father
I must leave, the time has come
And the mother keens
Bless me my son
When will you come once again
And the third one answers
On the Shabbat we do not mourn
For our consolation is at hand
And the parents answer
May it be so
And the good and evil angels
Have no choice but to say
Amen.
The writer's grandson, Yochai Lifshitz, Hy"d, a pupil in the Yeshiva Letzeirim, the high school attached to Merkaz Harav Yeshiva, was murdered in the Merkaz Harav massacre in March 2008. This poem was written for his yahrzeit. (Translated from the Hebrew by Rochel Sylvetsky.).