To boldly go where no angel has stepped before

Growing up in England, I was often bemused by the number of quaint and elaborate euphemisms that were employed to gracefully depict a person’s visit to a lavatory. My personal favourite was my grandmother’s way of telling us how she had “gone to the place that the Queen goes without her carriage”.

Imagine my amazement when I discovered that rather than just being a quaint old English phrase, our traditional sources actually contain the following prayer which is to be recited before entering a bathroom:

“Be honored, holy honorable ones, servants of the Most High. Help me. Help me. Guard me. Guard me. Wait for me until I enter and come out, as this is the way of humans.”

It is not only royalty, it would seem, that enters such unedifying places unaccompanied; every human being is similarly devoid of his or her angelic assistants.

When I posted last year on the subject of prayer to angels, at least one member of this group responded by citing how the above prayer is recorded by Rambam himself in his Mishneh Torah repertoire of appropriate blessings. How is this prayer to be understood within the context of Rambam’s broader approach to angels and his strict prohibition against addressing them in prayer?

When responding to this question, I believe that it is crucial to bear in mind Rambam’s conclusion to the Laws of Tefillin and Mezuza, where he demonstrates his approach to the notion of protective angels:

Whenever a person enters or leaves [the house], he will encounter [on the Mezuza] the unity of the name of the Holy One, blessed be He, and remember his love for Him. Thus, he will awake from his sleep and his obsession with the vanities of time, and recognize that there is nothing which lasts for eternity except the knowledge of the Creator of the world. This will motivate him to regain full awareness and follow the paths of the upright.

Whoever wears tefillin on his head and arm, wears tzitzit on his garment, and has a mezuzah on his entrance, can be assured that he will not sin, because he has many who will remind him. These are the angels, who will prevent him from sinning, as it states: "The angel of God camps around those who fear Him and protects them."

This teaching, which is analysed in Judaism Reclaimed, dovetails nicely with what Rambam writes towards the end of Moreh Nevuchim, that a person’s level of providential protection is a direct result of the quantity and quality of their mind’s focus on and therefore connection to God.

When entering a lavatory, however, a person is not permitted to entertain thoughts of God or Torah. The protective angels therefore do not “enter with him” into the bathroom. What this short prayer is intended to affirm, perhaps, is that just as the Queen returns from her short visit back to her courtiers awaiting patiently in the carriage, so too do we intend to return immediately to our pre-lavatorial meditations on divine matters upon our exit from the bathroom. We therefore anticipate and hope to find our protective angels waiting for us exactly where we left them.

For more information on Judaism Reclaimed and Talmud Reclaimed, visit www.TalmudReclaimed.com.

First posted to Facebook 23 November 2023, here.