Before and Within

Posted on September 29, 2014 by Sicha, Continuing the Conversation

A strange Yom Kippur story was told by Rabbi Ishmael, a High Priest of the 2nd Temple:

Once, I entered before and within (the Holy of Holies) to offer the incense and I saw Akatriel Yah, the Lord of Hosts, sitting on his throne, high and exalted and he said to me:  “Ishmael, my son, bless me…”

Long before Rabbi Ishmael, in the days of the 1st Temple, the High Priest would enter the Holy of Holies on Yom Kippur by way of a door built into a cubit-thick wall. Beyond that door, in the innermost holy space, stood the Ark containing the ten commandments—rock solid presence, stone witness to the ancient, sacred story.

In the rebuilt Temple of Rabbi Ishmael, the structure and furnishings of presence and witness had changed. No cubit-thick wall could be safely built to the new soaring height of the 2nd Temple. There was no door to sharply mark “in” and “out;” only a cubit wide memory of a wall between two curtains that the sages called in Greek, traksin—confusion.  Was this the innermost cubit of outer holiness or the outermost cubit of inner holiness?

In Hebrew, the sages called that transition cubit before and within. The Hebrew phrase, lif’ney v’lif’nim, rises from a single root, p-n-y, meaning both inward and outward, both before and within. More than a location, this cubit was a state of consciousness, of imagination. Am I before, am I within? Am I in both places at the same time?

In the Temple of Rabbi Ishmael, no stone wall stood before the holy of holies; no Ark and no stone tablets rested within.  Curtains captured transition space; the innermost place was filled only by that which the High Priest brought with him—incense, awareness, and imagination.

I saw Akatriel Yah, the Lord of Hosts, sitting on his throne…

Perhaps his imaginings rose like the cloud of incense. Perhaps thin light from the overhead workers’ access crowned the rising cloud and the Divine Crown—Akatri-el—took the shape of the “Place” as the sages called God. Here, perhaps, incense took shape and shape took on a startling voice:

Ishmael, my son, bless me…

In the inner room, it was not Rabbi Ishmael’s petition before the lone Judge that broke the silence. Rather, it was the unexpected plea from within—from a lonely God.

The very structure and location of an inner, inner room proclaimed and protected God’s aloneness; this Rabbi Ishmael knew from before. God’s aloneness was his explicit destination on Yom Kippur. Loneliness, on the other hand, he did not expect. Perhaps, along with the cloud of incense, Rabbi Ishmael found within only that which he had brought. Perhaps in the place of aloneness he recognized that loneliness and the yearning for another’s blessing is even a Divine need. Imagine that the High Priest brought a place deep within to the Place, deep within!

There is no longer a Temple or a High Priest. But the Israeli poet, Rivka Miriam, is certain that there is still an inner room and that each of us enters it—but only at the time of greatest need:

And in the inner room we keep Moses’ heaviness of mouth
Isaac’s weak eyes, and Jacob’s dragging leg.
And when war stirs us, it is to the inner room we go
to examine them closely.
For each one who goes out to battle wraps himself in just these.

(Click here for Talmudic story and Rivka Miriam poem in Hebrew and English)

Rabbi Ishmael and all who enter the inner room stand before the treasured images of vulnerable heroes:  aloneness, halting speech, declining vision, limping gait.

On Yom Kippur, the war that stirs us is that of turning such vulnerability into value.

With or without a Temple, the year must begin in the Holy of Holies. It is precisely here—before and within the Place—that we keep our images and release our imaginings in their presence. We grow and flourish precisely here, at the intersection of before and within.

Posted in Blessing, Days of Awe, Holidays, Poetry, Talmud | Leave a comment

Beginnings Ripe And Ripening

Posted on September 9, 2014 by Sicha, Continuing the Conversation

Rabbi Eliezer asks:  From where do we learn that the world was created in Tishrei? From the verse: God said, let the earth sprout grasses, seed-bearing plants, fruit trees of every kind on earth bearing fruit with the seed in it—and it was so. (Genesis 1:11) In what month is the earth bringing forth grasses while the trees are filled with fruit? You must say that it is the fall month of Tishrei.

Rabbi Joshua asks:  From what source that the world was created in Nissan? From the verse that says: God said, let the earth bring forth grasses that carry seed of their own kind and trees that produce fruit each containing its own kind of seed—and God saw that it was good (Genesis 1:12). In what month is the earth filled with grasses while the trees are bringing forth fruit? You must say that it is the spring month of Nissan.

(Click here for Talmudic story in Hebrew and English)

For the 2nd century teacher, Rabbi Eliezer, creation’s pattern and plan appeared in the ripe evidence of Tishrei—the month of Rosh Hashanah. Said Rabbi Eliezer, the world was created with fruit trees already bearing fruit and containing their seeds. In the beginning, fruit carried the seed.

For his rival, Rabbi Joshua, the world’s first movement was not from fullness to promise but from promise to fullness. Said Rabbi Joshua, Nissan—the season of Pesach—annually recalls the beginning of the beginning—the time of year when Israel would burst into blossom. In the beginning, seed carried the fruit.

For the poet, Rivka Miriam, Nissan (Pesach) and Tishrei (Rosh Hashanah) tell separate stories. But once around the cycle, beginnings join and endings vanish. 

Seder night, or New Year’s day.
I ask the questions and have my say.
To be both young girl and elder is my nature’s way.
One is the time that at first blush changes; “one!” does time’s image cry.
My father commanded me never to die.

(Click here for poem in Hebrew and English)

One is the time that at first blush changes. Pesach and Rosh Hashanah are distinct beginnings of a single timeless story that joins seed and fruit, question and answer. That story and its teller contain and produce one another. They are ever new, ever old—and ever living.

Posted in Days of Awe, Holidays, Passover, Poetry, Talmud | 2 Comments

Raising Voices At The New Moon

Posted on August 28, 2014 by Sicha, Continuing the Conversation

Elijah, the prophet, would come regularly to the academy of Rabbi Judah, the Patriarch. One day—it was the day of the new moon—Elijah did not come to the prayers. When Elijah finally arrived, Rabbi Judah said: Why was the master late? Said Elijah: Today is the new moon; so I awakened Abraham, washed his hands, waited for him to pray, and laid him back on his bed. Then, I awakened Isaac, washed his hands, waited for him to pray, and then laid him back in his bed. Finally, I did the same for Jacob—and by the time I had finished, there was no time left.

Why didn’t you awaken them all at the same time? asked Rabbi Judah. Said Elijah, I reasoned that if they all prayed together they would have the power to bring the Messiah before his time…

Elijah offered a glimpse of a world both beyond, and within, time. Even the timeless task of attending to the long departed patriarchs took time—especially on the day when the month’s time began again. Elijah’s explanation also sparked a plan; but first, Rabbi Judah needed a little more help from Elijah:

Rabbi Judah asked: And are there those in this world who are like Abraham, Isaac and Jacob? Yes, said Elijah… [Click for the entire story]

Heaven thwarted Rabbi Judah’s plan to hurry the Messiah by combining three powerful pray-ers. And Elijah was held accountable for revealing secrets. The world, after all, requires its proper time.

Rabbi Judah overlooked the Elijah revelation that enriches the world without rushing it…

******************

On this morning of the new moon, I decided to imitate Elijah and awaken within me namesakes of each patriarch, listening for their prayers.

Baruch ata—Overflowing are you, God of Abraham, God of Isaac, and God of Jacob.

Abraham, my great grandfather, is known to me only through two pictures: a photograph of the patriarch surrounded by family, and a hand-drawn sketch of his grave stone in Poland carrying the lament that his family left for a new world to which his piety would not let him journey.

After I raised him, I listened to his plea for strength and solace in the face of life’s bitter irony. He was an Abraham who remained in his land, his birthplace, his father’s house while his children went to a land of promise.

My father’s Hebrew name was Isaac. Years before he died on another new moon, I learned how to help him up, despite his Parkinson’s disease. This morning, I helped him up in our practiced way.  His prayers were quiet and simple—celebrations of the small goodnesses of evening, morning, and noon.

Attending to Jacob was more complicated. Jacob was my grandfather. Grandpa Jacob’s grandfather was also Jacob; and that Jacob was the great, great, great grandfather of my son, Jacob.

I don’t know the heft and feel of that distant Jacob. But on this morning of the new moon, I easily attended my grandpa Jacob whom I would watch praying at the window in the dining room every morning. His thready voice held no tune, but the key of faithfulness was unwavering. His tefillin left impressions on his arm and within me; they appear on my arm each day after I pray at the window in the dining room.

On this morning of the new moon, I lingered longest with my son, Jacob. His is a voice that is still emerging in moon-time, not only in Elijah time. I tried to listen forward, imagining how his prayers as well as his God will change in the next few days, God willing, when he becomes a father.

Why didn’t you awaken them all at the same time? asked Rabbi Judah. Said Elijah, I reasoned that if they all prayed together they would have the power to bring the Messiah before his time.

Elijah taught me that gathering the voices one at a time enriches my world. As for the Messiah—let the Messiah and the baby come safely in the world’s own time.

Posted in Poetry | 3 Comments

Amen: The Final Word

Posted on July 23, 2014 by Sicha, Continuing the Conversation

On my table sits a stone amen written upon it,
a grave stone fragment, a remnant of a Jewish graveyard
destroyed more than a thousand years ago, in the city where I was born.
One word, amen, cut deep in the stone
an amen harsh and final over what was and will never return
an amen soft and melodic as in prayer,
amen and amen; so may it be his will.

(Click here for Amichai poem fragment in Hebrew and English) 

Amen stone-square

The grave stone fragment was a gift to the Israeli poet Yehuda Amichai from an admiring priest who came to Jerusalem from the poet’s home town in Germany.

The content of the stone was shattered and scattered beyond reclaiming, but the context was whole and anchored in the one surviving word, amen; certainly the response to a verse, a prayer, a hope, a consolation.

But even the clearly etched, clearly purposed amen was not whole for Amichai. The poet did not focus his imagination on the characters of the word engraved, but on the character of the word intoned. The depth of engraving notwithstanding, amen remained shallow without a voice.

Was this amen angry, defiant, hopeful, mournful, meditative, accepting? The tone might change, but the word remained forever fixed—a sure and certain response of a community to the experience of loss.

The poet’s purpose was not to restore the stone, but to  renew the power of amen, the response to sometimes unknowable yet undeniable content.

Amichai continued the ancient faithfulness to vitality of amen. Maimonides (12th century) captured the ancient rabbinic traditions concerning amen this way:

Anyone who hears one of Israel offering any of the blessings, even without hearing the entire blessing from beginning to end, and even without being personally obliged to recite that blessing, such a one is still obliged to respond amen.

Amen is an affirmation of a shared community value evoked by the life of experience of a fellow traveler. But not everyone’s blessings carry the values of a community. Thoughtful teachers have always asked: How far does the amen community extend? Can one respond with amen to celebrate and validate just anyone’s experience transformed into blessing?

And if an idol worshiper, a heretic, or a samaritan offers a blessing, or be it a child who is practicing or an adult who has altered the form of the blessing—we do not respond amen after any of them.

One cannot always say amen to another’s blessing. But even so, expanding the amen circle is the great challenge and opportunity for enriching one’s self and enlarging the community. Neither amen nor the opportunities for voicing it should be left fixed in stone. The varied voicings of amen is the subject of ancient reflections:

Anyone who responds amen should not respond with a rushed amen, neither with a cut off amen, nor with a short amen, and not with a long amen. Rather, with an intermediate amen.

(Click here for Maimonides Laws of Blessings in Hebrew and English)

At its best, amen is a thoughtful and reflective confirmation, neither perfunctory nor mechanical. Amen supports and celebrates an experience translated into a blessing; but amen should not overwhelm or draw attention away from the moment that it celebrates.

As the poet teaches, the fullness of amen is not written in stone; it is spoken in sincerity.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Posted in Poetry, Talmud | 1 Comment

Sinai’s Appealing Thunder

Posted on June 1, 2014 by Sicha, Continuing the Conversation

I will not float in space
un-tethered
lest a cloud obscure
the very fine line in my heart
that separates good and evil.
I have no life-line
without the lightning and the thunder
that I heard at Sinai.

(Click here for the poem by Zelda in Hebrew and English)

Weightless, directionless floating has no appeal for the Israeli poet, Zelda—neither in outer space nor in her own inner space. Without an anchor, right and left are relative terms. Right and wrong are sometimes barely distinct without the internal grounding that can limit reasoning’s sometimes reckless range of motion.

In her inner world—even in the age of astronauts—Zelda is tethered to Sinai, stabilized by the thunder and flash that fuse the senses and gather time into a single moment.

(Click here for related essay “Between the Mountain and the Moment”)

Zelda’s report of the lightning and the thunder that [she] heard at Sinai joins her to an ongoing conversation provoked by this biblical verse:

I make this covenant, with its sanctions, not with you alone, but both with those who are standing here with us this day before the Lord our God and with those who are not with us here this day.

(Click here for Bible verse in Hebrew and English)

Since ancient times, interpreters have pondered what it means to be covenant witnesses who were present at Sinai—and also not.

One ancient interpreter excludes Zelda from that moment, saying that future prophets and sages were present for the Sinai covenant without actually being with us here this day. Isaiah and King David had no literal standing at the mountain, yet their prophetic, creative spirits were present, hearing that which each would someday bring forward—all part of a seamless whole, revealed once and for always. Just so, future sages were present at Sinai, hearing the oral Torah that awaited its proper time and place for revelation:

Even that which future Prophets would prophesy, they received from Mount Sinai. How so? It is written: “those who are standing here with us this day,” refers to those already living. “Standing with us” means one who is in the world. The verse continues: “and with those who are not with us here this day,” refers to anyone who is yet to come into existence but currently is not with us. “Those not with us are here this day:” This part of the verse does not say standing here with us; rather, only those who are not with us. These are the souls who are not yet embodied—those who have no standing; even so, they were part of the community… And not only the prophets, but also all of the sages, living and yet to be…

(Click here for Midrash in Hebrew and English)

Pre-Sinai generations were present in the live, thunderous moment of revelation, says another ancient participant in the conversation. Preceding generations had already imparted meaning to the moment and were present. But what Zelda and the rest of us are able to hear of Sinai in our day is the resounding echo of religious imagination and collective memory as if we had been there. The ancient voice that offers this insight is an Aramaic reworking of the biblical verse that prompted the conversation:

Behold, every generation from ancient time until now is standing with you this day before the Lord, your God, as for every generation that will follow—it is as if they are standing with you this day.

A similar voice “translates” Zelda and the rest of us into the Sinai moment:

Behold, every generation from ancient time until now is standing with us this day before the Lord, our God, even as every generation from now until the end of time is standing with us this day.

(Click here for Bible verses in Aramaic and English)

The thunderous moment of Sinai transcends time in two directions, gathering to the galvanizing moment community both past and future. Zelda and the rest of us can be strengthened by what we heard at Sinai. The thunder is pealing still.

 

 

Posted in Holidays, Memory, Midrash, Poetry | Leave a comment

You Open For Him

Posted on April 9, 2014 by Sicha, Continuing the Conversation

Rabbi Eleazar HaKappar said:  Do not be like a lintel overhead that no one can reach; neither, be like a door beam that injures faces, nor like a raised threshold that bruises feet. Rather, be like a low threshold that everyone crosses easily. In the end, the entire building might disappear, but the threshold will remain in place.

(Click here for Talmud in Hebrew and English)

Lintel from Golan Archaeological Museum, Israel

Lintel (Golan Archaeological Museum, Israel)

With the soul of a teacher, Rabbi Eleazar HaKappar animates the doorway of his academy. The door, like the teacher, has to be generously open, presenting no obstacles. The lintel must be high enough to test but not frustrate the reach; the threshold low enough to assure the step and the stance.

How ironic and fitting that the lintel of Rabbi Eleazar’s academy survives! The black basalt lintel with two eagles stretching a ribbon and wreath between them announces:  Zeh bet midrasho shel l’rabbi Eleazar HaKappar. This is the academy of Rabbi Eleazar HaKappar. 

Lintel with Kapar insription BW

This is part of the doorway that Rabbi Eleazar has created in his own image, from the lintel-not-beyond-reach to the threshold-humble-and-accessible.

For the Israeli poet, Rivka Miriam, as for Rabbi Eleazar, the doorway is both symbol and solid. For Rivka, the doorway offers learning hinged on the language of the Passover Haggadah:

You open for him
when he is too small to open
you lift him to your shoulders
and soothe him with “don’t be afraid”
open for him slowly, he is unaccustomed to openings
‘til now he imagined that everything was open
the  walls, he imagined, were as open and transparent as the breeze
the walls, he imagined, as were as open eyed as a patient plain, yawning
he recognized neither lintel nor doorposts
neither hinge nor door
you lift him so that he rubs his sides against the doorposts
so that he bows his head beneath the lintel
gently you set him on the threshold
so that he is surefooted, not like a refugee
standing on the threshold.

(Click here for the poem in Hebrew and in English)

You open for him, is the Haggadah’s instruction for engaging the last of the four children who together represent the Passover table community. Each of the other three children has a (door) frame of reference:  wise, skeptical, or simple. The fourth does not know how to frame a question. For this one with no per-spective—nothing to see through—the tradition says, you open the conversation for him.

Don’t be afraid is the only word spoken. After that, the doorway itself—post, lintel, and threshold—is the learning.

You open for him, lift him up, and he learns the touch of something beyond reach.  You open for him the expanse from side to side, and he feels the fact of the doorframe. The world is not, after all, endlessly open and patient. One must respect the solidity of the doorpost and learn to avoid collision with what is overhead. You open for him, so that he might take a knowing stance in the doorway, assured and surefooted on the threshold.

Posted in Holidays, Passover, Poetry, Talmud | 1 Comment

Never Too Early, Never Too Late

Posted on March 3, 2014 by Sicha, Continuing the Conversation

On the 9th anniversary of my father’s death—

It seemed to some ancient sages that the Book of Ezekiel opens years after the start of the prophet’s career. Instead of beginning in the fifth year of the exile of King Jehoiachin, some suggested that the book might better begin with Ezekiel’s call to prophesy or with God’s command that Ezekiel employ image and metaphor, the tools of the prophet. A fitting opening, they argued, would be:

Son of man! Stand on your own two feet and I will speak with you! (Ezekiel 2:1). Some say that a more fitting opening would have been, Son of man! Riddle a riddle, imagine an image for the house of Israel (Ezekiel 17:2). Why, therefore, was the first verse put in its place? It is because there is no early or late in the Torah.

(Click here for midrash in Hebrew and English)

There is no early or late in the Torah. For the sacred text, chronology is not the only framework of meaning. Torah is not only a story. The “enstoried” image is but a timely occurrence of a timeless motif. Trust the image more than the order.

The poet, Yehuda Amichai, suggests that when a life ends, early and late cease to determine meaning. A life story ends, but a life joins a larger set of images that are timeless and divine:

And every person is a dam between past and future.
When he dies the dam is broken and the past breaks through into the future
And there is no early or late. Time is one
Like our God, our time is one.
And the memory of the dam is a blessing.

(Click here for Amichai poem in Hebrew and English)

When my father died, his wallet contained $26. I found myself wondering: Where had he spent his last dollars? Did he have a plan for the money that remained? He died, the dam broke; his wallet now had no story. What remained was an image now freed from early or late. 

The money still remains in his wallet; not a tally, but an inspiration. (Ironically, the number 26 is the numerical equivalent of the Divine Name.) Every year on the anniversary of his death and on his birthday, I donate $26 to a cause of “our” choosing.

In this way, my father’s past enters our shared future.  I do not need to find myself within his story. Rather, I need to found myself upon a shared image that makes larger meaning possible.

Even in the presence of timeless images, we live and love time bound stories wherein beginnings and endings bear meaning. We do, after all, mourn the loss of a life, the breaking of the dam. The ancient question of how the Book of Ezekiel begins remains intriguing to the part of us that loves a story. Just so, I have an opinion on the matter:

Son (of man)! Stand on your own two feet! Such is a plausible beginning for a time bound story. (It also sounds like my father’s advice.) However, if there must be a beginning, I prefer:  riddle a riddle, imagine an image. Honor an image that rises beyond its story. Prize a moment and make it endlessly momentous.

For the pursuit of such meaning, it is never too early, never too late.

Posted in Events, Life cycle, Memory, Midrash, Poetry | 3 Comments

Seeing Life In the Distance

Posted on September 11, 2013 by Sicha, Continuing the Conversation

Imagine a life in which repentance—teshuvah—is not necessary; a life in which there is no distance to close between action and ideal.

According to the 3rd century sage, Rabbi Hiyya bar Abba, the promise of such a life was beyond even prophetic imagination. Ba’alei teshuvah, those who work readily at reflective turning and returning, could never really measure up to the completely righteous.

Every single prophet only gave prophesy concerning those who were ba’alei teshuvah. But concerning those who are completely righteous, never needing to repent, no prophet could even imagine it: Never have they been allowed to hear such a thing; no eye other than yours, O God, has envisioned it (Isaiah 64:3).

Rabbi Abbahu, a friendly rival of Rabbi Hiyya’s, disagreed.  He taught that it is the ba’alei teshuvah whose esteem is unimaginable:

The place where ba’alei teshuvah stand is a place where the completely righteous can never stand, as it is said: Peace, peace to the far and to the near (Isaiah 57:19).  This means that peace comes first to those who have been far away; only then to those who were always near.

(Click here for Talmud discussion in Hebrew and English)

Ba’alei teshuvah always discern a distance that must be closed between themselves and the world. Peace comes first to them, as they have been far away.

The wholly righteous have never been far away. They are always within themselves.

The 20th century poet, Yehuda Amichai, picked up Rabbi Abbahu’s theme:

Water cannot return in repentance.
To where would it return? To faucet, to source, to earth, to roots
to cloud, to sea, to my mouth?
Water cannot return in repentance.
Every place is seasons as of old, seas as of old,
every place is beginning and end, and beginning.

(Click here for Amichai poem in Hebrew and English)

Poor water! It is the essence of purity; yet, unable to return in repentance. Like the completely righteous, water is never far away from its beginning. Ba’alei teshuvah, on the other hand, see life in the distance. Theirs is a life of reflective, watery consciousness and they are vessels fit for the journey.

 

Posted in Days of Awe, Poetry, Talmud | Leave a comment

To Forgive Is Human

Posted on August 28, 2013 by Sicha, Continuing the Conversation

How divine is forgiveness? asks the poet, Marge Piercy:

It’s a nice concept
but what’s under the sculptured draperies?
We forgive when we don’t really care…

We forgive those who betrayed us
years later because memory has rotted
through like something left out in the weather…

We forgive those whom their own machinations
have sufficiently tangled…

We forgive those we firmly love
because anger hurts…

We forgive mostly not from strength
but through imperfections…

We forgive because we too have done the same to others…
or because anger is a fire that must be fed
and we are too tired to rise and haul a log.

(click here for the entire Piercy poem)

To err is human, said Alexander Pope. In truth, says Marge Piercy, to forgive is human, as well. In their reflections concerning the Day of Atonement, ancient sages of the Mishnah recognized that forgiveness, both asking and giving, is the human act on which the renewed world depends year after year.

For all transgressions between a person and God—the day of Yom Kippur brings atonement. However, for all transgressions between one person and another—Yom Kippur does not bring atonement.

Between people, there is no atonement without forgiveness.  Beneath any formula or ritual of atonement, forgiveness requires that one person stand face to face with another. It’s a nice concept, but between the idea of forgiveness and the act stretches human nature. Perhaps through anger, fatigue, indifference, love, pettiness, pity, or piety—each person who considers forgiveness carries and is carried by motives most human. A Talmudic storyteller agrees:

Rabbi Abba was once offended by Rabbi Jeremiah. Rabbi Jeremiah went to Rabbi Abba’s house to apologize, but he could not bring himself to knock on the door. He sat down on the threshold. Just then the maid threw some dirty water out of the window and some of it splashed onto Rabbi Jeremiah’s head. Rabbi Jeremiah yelled:  I came to apologize and they’ve made a trash dump out of me!? Angrily, he shouted:  Just remember! He raises the poor out of the dust, the wretched from the trash dump (Psalm 113:7). Rabbi Abba heard and came out. When he saw the splattered Rabbi Jeremiah, he said begrudgingly:  Now I suppose I have to apologize to you since Solomon has said:  Go, grovel and badger your neighbor ‘til he releases you (Proverbs 6:3).

(click here for the Mishnah and Talmud passages)

This is not an account of forgiveness asked and granted. The storyteller offers no clue of the underlying offense; neither does he describe any resolution. When the curtain descends, two sages are standing face to face, each one leaning heavily on his motivation and his own biblical verse.

This is a story of the lurching movement towards a conversation that might lead to forgiveness—of some sort.

To forgive is human. If it were divine, it would be easy.

Posted in Days of Awe, Mishnah, Talmud | 1 Comment

In Light of Obligation

Posted on August 20, 2013 by Sicha, Continuing the Conversation

Halacha is law; the obligated Jewish life. To live without halacha is impossible. To live with it is risky— from a lecture by Rabbi David Hartman.

When halachic man looks to the western horizon and sees the fading rays of the setting sun or to the eastern horizon and sees the first light of dawn and the glowing rays of the rising sun, he knows that this sunset or sunrise imposes on him anew obligations and commandments—Halachic Man, Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik.

For Rabbi Soloveitchik’s halachic man, it is the renewed cycle of prayer obligations that makes evening and morning skies glorious. Neither clouds nor storms, neither blindness nor imprisonment can dull the radiance of the halachic sunset and sunrise. Halacha—law, fixed procedure—is beauty captured in obligations to the correct hour and to the precise word. Such prayer, as glorious as it can be, carries an inner tension:  If one’s prayer is fixed, that prayer is not supplication, said Rabbi Eliezer.

The light of obligation casts shadows. The life of halachic prayer can be risky.

Is there a way for prayer to be fixed and faithful while also being fluid and flexible? Rabbi Hiya bar Abba, quoting Rabbi Yohanan, said:  If one does not pray in the dimdumei hamah—at the late afternoon and early morning time—then that person’s prayer has become a fixed prayer.

What is the power of the dimdumei hamah such that they keep prayers from becoming fixed? The Hebrew dimdum carries shades of red/dam, of silence/d’mamah, of stillness/dom, and of imagining/domeh.

Prayer fixed in the shifting light remains supple, said the Babylonian sages. Shade the words with red, shape them from silence, speak them in stillness, and steep them in imagination; then prayer can become more than its words.

In the land of Israel they were not willing to risk waiting for late afternoon light:  One must not pray at the times of dimdumei hamah! Why? Because one might miss the hour. Wait for just the right light and one might wait too long.

Yet, it might be worth the risk in order to realize prayer in its best light. Supple prayer is living matter that responds to the arc of the sun. According to one tradition, each patriarch blossomed into prayer at a different moment of the day’s shifting light. Jacob responded to the evening. Abraham was the morning glory. Isaac’s prayer flourished in the afternoon, as the day made its turn towards evening. Temple ritual—evening, morning, and noon—shared the instincts of the patriarchs.

One’s prayer is only fixed, said Rabbi Ya’akov bar Iddi, if one imagines the prayer to be a burden. Prayer that carries the lives of patriarchs and priests is no burden. It is lighter than the weight of its words. Fixed is not in the language, but in the inflection. When word and world conspire, routine is not rote.

The prayer of halachic man need not be rote. But obligation can obscure animation. Rabbi Shmuel bar Nahman certainly knew halachic obligation. But, in addition, he taught that one must voice the uncertainties and hopes illumined and shaded by the changes of the day:

In the evening, one should say:  May it be your will to bring me forth from darkness to light. In the morning, one should say:  I am grateful to you that you have brought me from darkness to light. In the afternoon, one should say:  May it be your will that just as I have merited seeing the sun in its rising, so may I merit seeing it set.

Pray in light of obligation. But don’t forget the light.

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