legd zenil aixrn zltz Daily Evening Service
.mi¦I ©g §l Ep«¥M §l ©n Ep «¥ci ¦n£r ©d §e mFl ¨W §l Epi«¥Grl¡` dedi Ep«¥ai ¦M §W ©d Cause us to lie down in peace, and rise again to enjoy life.
The evening service has the same basic structure as that of the morning with its two main sections: the Sh’ma with its accompanying blessings, followed by the Amidah . The first blessing before the Sh’ma in the morning speaks of God as the one who ‘creates light’. Similarly the evening blessing follows the theme of God as Creator by focusing on the arrival of the evening, the appearance of the stars and the changing of times and seasons. Just as in the morning service we think about the restoration of life each day, in the evening there is an additional blessing following the Sh’ma which seeks God’s protection as we sleep, when we are most vulnerable. The rabbis taught that sleep is one sixtieth part of death, for they thought that the soul was briefly absent, only to be restored to us in the morning. This blessing offers us comfort and hope as we face the darkness of the outer world, but sometimes the darkness we experience within us. It enacts the words of the psalmist: just as it is good to speak of God’s love in the morning, so it is good to ‘tell of God’s faithfulness at night’ (Psalm 92:2–3).
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