Kabbalat Shabbat and the Lekha Dodi of Safed

The Kabbalat Shabbat service, "welcoming the Sabbath," was instituted by the kabbalists of Safed in the sixteenth century, who would sometimes go out into the fields to greet the Sabbath "Queen." Its jewel is the Lekha Dodi ("Come, my beloved"), composed by Solomon Alkabetz, in which the Shekhinah and the people are invited to union. This mystical service spread into almost all Jewish liturgies.