V’haya im shamo’a

Possible futures rise up on our horizon, arousing both hope and dread.  As we approach them, these imagined futures dissolve to nothing, every one of them replaced by a stream of strange and unanticipated present moments.    

            The v’ahavta and v’haya im shamoa, which share a common voice and even a bloc of nearly verbatim text, reflect two radically different attitudes toward the mirage-like futures that arise before us on the road of life.  The v’ahavta is oblivious to the future.  It speaks only to each present moment, issuing no threats and making no promises.  V’haya im shamo’a, on the other hand, encourages us to consider the future and its roots in the choices of the present moment.

            The first future pictured by v’haya im shamo’a is a fecund world of rain and harvest.  It is a quasi-Messianic vision, including the essential elements for a complete Sabbath: challah, wine and candles are implicit in the grain, wine and oil which are promised as the reward for love and service.  After the promise comes the threat, the only instance in the siddur in which we contemplate the possibility of the blazing anger of God.  For the space of a single verse, we behold a terrifying vision of a sealed heaven and a desolate earth upon which we wander lost, having put our lives at the service of alien gods.

            With promise and threat, the v’haya im shamo’a conjures our hopes and our fears.  Its visions of the future, necessarily, will fade and be replaced by a wholly unpredictable reality.  But that new reality will have been born, in fulfillment of this prayer's prophecy, out of the choices we make in each present moment.