[Avodah] Angels and Requests

[Toby Katz]

 In Avodah Digest, Vol 36, Issue 138 dated 12/25/2018 R' Akiva Miller asked:

Subject: [Avodah] Angels and Requests

.>> In the Friday night poem "Shalom Aleichem", we ask the mal'achim togive us a bracha. We've often mentioned here that some people avoidthis poem because it is either similar to avoda zara, or perhaps mightactually BE avoda zara.
I call your attention to the morning's parsha, Bereshis 48:16, thepasuk "Hamal'ach hagoel osi." Yaakov Avinu refers to a particularmal'ach and asks that this mal'ach should give a bracha to Yosef'ssons. At first glance, this seems to be very similar to ShalomAleichem. How is this justifiable, in the view of those who considerShalom Aleichem to be problematic? <<


 >>>>>>
 Sorry I have fallen behind in reading my emails.I don't understand why asking malachim for a bracha is any different from asking your father to bentsh you, or asking your rebbe for a bracha, or asking a Holocaust survivor for a bracha (as the Satmar Rebbe advised people to do).
If you say to your rebbe or to anyone, "Please give me a bracha for parnassa, good health, children, etc" I don't see a problem.  If you say to a human being, alive or deceased, "Please give me parnassa, good health, children, etc" -- THAT'S a problem.  When Rochel said to Yakov, "Give me children" he responded, "Am I in place of Hashem?"  Admittedly Chazal consider his answer unduly harsh; presumably he should have said, "Only Hashem can give you children, but I will daven for you."
Getting back to Shalom Aleichem, Chazal say if your house looks nice on Shabbos the malachim will bentsh you.  I just don't understand what the issue is with saying to the malachim, "Welcome to my home, doesn't it look nice and Shabbosdig?  So bentsh me as you are supposed to do."
It even seems to me that there is a bit of gaavah involved in saying, "What was good enough for R' Shlomo Alkabetz and the mekubalim of Tzfas is not good enough for me, I have a deeper understanding of halacha than they did."  Unless you are relying not on your own sevara but on some other authority of equal stature to theirs.
--Toby Katzt613k at aol.com
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