DylanCelebration

The second blessing after the evening Sh’ma—Hashkiveynu—asks the Holy One to watch over us during the night. It is, essentially, a prayer for safety and security, cataloging our fears—plague, hunger, war—and petitioning God: U’fros aleynu sukkat sh’lomechah—Spread over us the shelter of your peace.

Bob Dylan’s 1975 masterpiece “Blood on the Tracks” is filled with pain and suffering—as the title suggests. Its songs reference plague (“Idiot Wind”), murder (“Lilly, Rosemary and the Jack of Hearts), war and post-war disillusionment (“Tangled Up In Blue”), and omnipresent despair. It is known as Dylan’s divorce album—perhaps his finest record (certainly my personal favorite) and, at the same time, his saddest.

But the penultimate song hits the listener like Hashkiveynu’s plea to the Divine, emerging from the list of horrors that precedes it—a generous gift of real, though tenuous, comfort and light breaking through the dark night of the soul.

“Shelter from the Storm” offers up that gift in poetic language that feels almost biblical:

'Twas in another lifetime, one of toil and blood

When blackness was a virtue, the road was full of mud

I came in from the wilderness, a creature void of form

Come in, she said

I'll give ya shelter from the storm

This morning, reflect on what brings you comfort in difficult times.