Sparks of Vayakel (and Pekudei)

Posted on by Rebecca


Sparks of Vayakel (and Pekudei)

Conversations At Home

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The end of sefer Shemot can seem a bit repetitive. As Ramban (Bereisheit 36:8) points out, Hashem began telling us in detail how to create the Mishkan in parshat Terumah. By the time we get to parshat Pekudei the information has been repeated, either in detail or as a general principle, five times. Ramban connects this repetition to another repetition in Bereisheit, when Eliezer repeats the story, in detail, of his journey to find a wife for Yitzchak. There, the Midrash (Bereisheit Rabbah 60:8) tells us that the repetition is a sign of the value that Hashem places on the simple conversation of the servants of the Patriarchs.

Although the two situations at first seem to have little in common, it’s actually not that surprising that we find ourselves, at the end of sefer Shemot, returning to the world of the Avot in Bereisheit. After all, that is what Shemot is all about. As Ramban explains in his introduction to the sefer, Shemot is the book of galut and geulah, of exile and redemption. And although we physically leave Egypt halfway through the book, we only get to the point of true redemption at the end of the book. Real redemption only occurs when we, as a nation, reclaim the spiritual state of our forefathers. The end of Sefer Shemot is a national return to the spiritual level of our forefathers. Our forefathers lived in homes with the Divine Presence hovering over them constantly. As a nation, we replicated this through the Mishkan, and the cloud of glory which covered it.

Building the Mishkan was therefore not just building something new. It also meant returning to our spiritual home, to the home of Avraham and Sara. And that meant returning to our mother-tongue, to the language, and the rhythm of the language as it was spoken when our nation was in its infancy. The Midrash quoted above uses the word “siach” to describe the language of our forefathers. Siach is not a language of learning, or academics. It’s the language of simple conversation and natural, unaffected speech. It’s the dialogue of life. It’s repetitive because that’s how we live. Rav Kook (Orot 66-67) points out that its value lies in the way it is an expression and description of how the Avot lived. Their ideals permeated their day-to-day living and found expression even in the discourse of their servants.  

This ability, to be uplifted and to speak naturally at the same time is an expression of what our world was created to embody. The Torah begins, “In the beginning G-d created Heaven and Earth,” the two of them, together. Aretz, earth, which is connected to the root ratz, to run, and the word ratzon, desire or will, is our place for running after and pursuing all that we desire. It was brought into existence together with the Shamayim, from the root sham, there, the place of our destination. The first words of the Torah reveal the nature of our world. It is a system of striving and acquiring, a place created for self-actualization.

It is also a place that is built for man, and reflects man in all its aspects, because all is meant to work together. In Avraham Avinu’s world, and in his home, this was self-evident. In the sefer of secrets that he left us, Sefer HaYetzirah, we learn that all of existence can be divided into three aspects: World, Year and Soul. They are all reflective of each other, and of our inner essence as man. What we call World is all that exists in space, and it encompasses everything in our physical world, and in all the heavens.  In this space, our Creator established one place where His Presence dwells, the Mishkan and then the Beit HaMikdash, and its structure reflects the structure of man. The courtyard, where animals are slaughtered, is the place that relates to our animal soul, our nefesh. In the heichal, the menorah, the shulchan and the ketoret, relate to our higher faculties, to our mind and our emotions, and to our ruach. The kadosh hakedoshim is parallel to the higher level of our soul, our neshama. Time also reflects the structure of man. It spans from the very beginning, which is called reishit, head, and has progressed to our time, ikvisa d’meshicha, which literally means the heels of Moshiach. The refined image of humanity, the nefesh of the world, is seen when we can express our tzelem elokim, our true image, in time and space.

We built the Mishkan, the Ohel Moed, the tent of destination, as the place where we celebrated our moadim, our days of destination. It was the nexus between space, time and human. And as such, it was a return to the home of our forefathers and foremothers, who were the perfect expression of the refined image of humanity. Their simple conversation was a natural expression of what humanity was meant to become.

We were commanded to build the Mishkan, and we fulfilled that command with joy. But there was an additional aspect to that building, even more than just actualizing Hashem’s plan. We didn’t just receive a command, we lived it, and carried it out perfectly (see Shemot 39:42). This was an echo of our Avot, who were the Divine Chariot. Every essence of their being was as Hashem commanded. We too, on a national level, lived the mitzvah with all our being. We reflected this  aspect of “the conversation of our forefathers’ home,” the aspect of actualization of self. Ramban is telling us that this is what is hinted to through all the repetition at the end of sefer Shemot.  

This level is the level of constant conversation with Hashem. Beyond just fulfilling a command, or even fulfilling a command joyfully, this is the concept of living in spiritual reality. It is the recognition that our world was created for a purpose, and that purpose is self-actualization and connection to Hashem.  This is not something that needs to be commanded. Actualizing ourselves spiritually is a necessary part of being, like breathing. We breathe not because we are commanded, but because we want to live. And we actualize ourselves and connect our selves to Hashem, because that is the essence of what it means to be truly alive.

We no longer have the Mishkan or the Beit HaMikdash, but we still maintain this aspect of “the conversation of our fathers.” It exists in the tefillot that they established for us. When Yitzchak established Mincha, for eternity, the pasuk (Bereisheit 24:63) uses the language of siach. The level of “the conversation of our fathers” stays with us through our tefillot. Whenever we daven we have the ability to return home, to our roots.

Sparks of Tezaveh

Posted on by Rebecca


Sparks of Tezaveh

The Clothes Make The Man

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A good amount of this week’s parsha, which deals mostly with the inauguration of the Kohanim, is spent describing what they will wear to the event. Though we may not automatically ascribe much spiritual value to our clothing, the Torah clearly has a different message. The clothes of the Kohanim are no small matter. They are, the Torah tells us, are “for kavod, honor, and for tiferet, splendor (Shemot 28:2).”  Rashi points out (Shemot 29:29) that it is through his garments that Aharon is invested with the kehuna gedolah. Perhaps most surprisingly, the Gemara tells us that it is the merit of the garments of the Kohen Gadol which saves us from being destroyed by our enemies in galut (Yoma 72b).

This definitely requires a bit of explanation. In order to gain clarity, it helps to begin at the beginning, from the first place we find clothing in the Torah, which is immediately after Adam and Chava sin in Gan Eden. Before the sin, Adam and Chava were unclothed and felt no shame. Shame is borne from the gap between where we would like to be and where we really are. Before the sin, the was no gap. We were clothed in light, and our physical bodies were perfect expressions of our soul. After the sin, a separation was created between our physical body and our soul. Adam and Chava recognized the gap and felt shame.

The first response of Adam and Chava to the situation was to clothe themselves. We call the clothing we create for ourselves beggadim, which comes from the word bagad, to betray. It expresses the idea that our physical bodies betray our essence by hiding our most valuable part, our soul. We clothe our bodies to minimize the physical so that we can emphasize the spiritual. For this reason, we don’t usually cover our face, since that is the one place on our body where our neshama is still clearly seen.

However, when Hashem clothes Adam and Chava, the verv that is used is “vayalbishem,” from the root levush. Levush is another word for clothing, but it can also be read as lo bush, without embarrassment. Hashem was teaching us that we can use our clothing not just to hide our bodies but also as a tool to mitigate the results of our sin.

We are actually clothed in many layers, and most of them are not physical. For example, our middot are called levush, clothing (see Yeshayahu 52:1, 51:9, Tehillim 93:1). Our highest soul is clothed in our lower soul, and then again in our middot, our character traits, which enable our soul to express itself in the world. Those middot are clothed in our bodies, and finally our bodies are clothed in our physical garments. The true purpose of our physical clothing is to be the final link in this chain. On the one hand, our clothing covers our body. On the other hand, it is also an expression of the spiritual covering of our soul. Clothing is an expression of true honor, kavod, which is our internal connection to our highest self. Kavod is another name for our soul, which is hewn from the kisei hakavod, the throne of Hashem’s Honor.

Our clothing has the potential to be the expression of our soul. This was certainly true about the clothing of the Kohanim. Aharon’s clothing reflected his middah of Hod, and his role in the giving of the Torah, which was to be “a mouth for Moshe.” In the desert, Moshe was the face of the written Torah, and Aharon was the face of the Oral Torah. With this as an introduction, we can begin to understand the statement of the Gemara that the clothing of the Kohen Gadol is what saves us from destruction in the galut.

 

The Gemara illustrates its point with a famous story. Yoma 69a describes what happened as Alexander the Great was advancing on Israel, ready to conquer the tiny nation-state. Shimon HaTzaddik was, at the time, leader of Israel. He was both Kohen Gadol and head of the Anshei Knesset HaGedolah. In response to the threat, Shimon put on the garments of the Kohen Gadol and went out to greet Alexander. It was a moment of great tension. At daybreak the two leaders met in the field, and to the astonishment of the entire Greek Army, Alexander bowed before Shimon HaTzaddik. It was Shimon’s image that he saw before him in all his successful battles.

This is a Gemara that expresses the spiritual reality that underlies historical events. Shimon HaTzaddik lived at a turning point in Jewish history. His was the first generation without neviim, prophets, and the first generation in which Torah was expressed in the name of the teacher who said it. His generation was the generation that moved from the world of prophets to the world of scholars. In his generation the human intellect became the main repository of the Torah in this world.

The tremendous outpouring of Torah that was cultivated in the minds of the Chachamim of Am Yisrael, had to be balanced in the world by an outpouring of wisdom in the secular world. Without this balance, free choice would not be able to be maintained. The spread of the Oral Torah in the world, as exemplified by Shimon HaTzaddik, was what paved the way spiritually for Greek philosophy and culture to sweep through civilization. The clothes of the Kohen Gadol were clothes that revealed the soul of the Kohen Gadol, which was the soul of Torah She Ba’al Peh. These are the clothes that Shimon HaTzaddik wore to confront Alexandar, and these are the clothes that save us through our long years of galut.

We no longer have the clothes of the Kohen Gadol, but we, too, are able to wear clothes that express our souls. The Kohen Gadol was our representative, and his clothing was empowering for all of us. From the clothing changes of the Kohen Gadol, we learn the halacha of wearing special clothing for Shabbat (Shabbat 114a). Shabbat comes from the root shav, return. On Shabbat we can all return to our inner point, and connect to our higher soul.

We are in galut, but we have Torah. And Torah draws out the soul of the person. Each of us has a unique soul that is hewn from the Kisei HaKavod, and a unique revelation of Torah and of that soul in the world. We can clothe ourselves in our Torah and find our kavod.

Sparks of Mishpatim

Posted on by Rebecca


Sparks of Mishpatim

Judgements and the Number 13

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Last week we were standing at Har Sinai. This week we begin with the laws of slaves. And surprisingly, the Torah connects the two experiences.  As Rashi points out, the parsha begins, “And these are the mishpatim that you shall place before them.” The words ‘and these’ connects these mitzvot to the previous mitzvot. Just as those were given at Sinai, so were these.  What is the connection?

And while we are pondering that question, we can also wonder about the next Rashi, which describes a conversation the Midrash envisions between Hashem and Moshe.  In the conversation, Hashem warns Moshe, “Don’t think of just teaching the Jews the mitzvot as they are. You have to set the mitzvot before this nation the way a person sets a well-prepared table. The mitzvot have to be given together with their reasons.” Clearly, Moshe wasn’t exactly the lazy sort, who would leave out any part of the mitzvah. What is this warning all about?

We can get a bit more clarity by taking a deeper look at what the essence of a “mishpat” is. In general, we translate mishpatim as those laws which would have been compelled by logic if they hadn’t been mandated by the Torah. But Rav Shapiro explains that the word mishpatim, literally, means judgements. Mishpatim are laws that include an aspect of judgement, where there are two side that argue their case, like in a monetary dispute. Both sides must be taken seriously, and a judgement must be rendered. Where there is mishpat, judgment, there is first a moment when things are unclear. Clarity comes later, after the judgement is made.

Rav Shapiro explains that the introduction of Parshat Mishpatim is the introduction of a second pathway within the Torah. The first path was what we experienced at Har Sinai. It was a revelation of the true face of existence that was so powerful, so clear, that there was nothing that could stand before it. The experienced of Har Sinai is described as if Hashem held the mountain over us. We were coerced. In the face of truth and clarity it is impossible to take another path. When the Torah is given from a place of that much clarity, any reasons are superfluous; when Hashem Himself personally tells you to keep the Shabbat, it’s not necessary to spend time wondering why. Moshe lived with the clarity of Har Sinai, where reasons weren’t necessary. It was entirely reasonable for Moshe to want to teach us the law with no reasons attached.

However, Bnei Yisrael could not stay in the experience of Har Sinai forever. Parshat Mishpatim is an expression of anther reality, the reality where there is judgement. There is no longer just one clear path, but two competing sides, that we must choose between. Mishpatim opens up with the law of a Jewish slave in the sixth year, who must choose between his life as a slave, which he has grown to love, and the freedom which the Torah tells him is his due. In this mitzvah, we can see the first of the aseret hadibrot refracted through a different lens. Hashem told us at Har Sinai that He was our G-d who took us out of Egypt. At that moment we knew we were free, with perfect clarity. It’s a lot harder to feel the reality of our freedom after five years of slavery. Hashem may have taken us out of slavery in Egypt, but Mishpatim begins with a man who finds himself, again, a slave.

Parshat Mishpatim is the path we recognize. It involves all times when we find ourselves judging, when our circumstances aren’t as we would want them to be, or where the freedom of the Torah doesn’t feel that enticing. It is here that the comments of Rashi take on deep meaning. Both paths of Torah, says Rashi, were given at Har Sinai. It was all part of the original plan.

From the very beginning, Hashem commanded Moshe to teach the mitzvot with their reasons. This is not because we hope to understand the thoughts of Hashem and is also not so that we can argue with others. We are given reasons for the mitzvot so that we can be victorious in our own inner judgement, so that we can argue against our own inner fool.

We may have fallen into, or pushed ourselves, into circumstances that made us slaves. Even so, we have opportunities to free ourselves. The freedom of the sixth year is like the freedom of the shofar on Rosh Hashana. It reveals and actualizes whatever is asleep and dormant within us. We are free to refuse to listen to this shofar again and again. We can make the choice to remain slaves. But we are still always marching toward the Yovel, and when the shofar of Moshiach is blown, then all slaves are freed. We may not recognize how or why, but it is all part of the plan, marching toward Hashem’s goal.

Part of this path is the assurance from Hashem that we have a point within us that is able to make the right choice, even in our confusing world. This is because the world is built around a point of truth. This point is beautifully illustrated by Rav Shapiro through an exploration of the number 13, and the way that number is expressed in the three forms of our world: olam, zman and adam, which translate loosely into space, time and man.

13 is the number that brings together our world of expansion. To illustrate, in space a single point can expand in six basic directions. When it expands to make a form, there are 12 points at which those six directions touch each other (these are the six points of a cube). Additionally, there is another, middle point around which they all revolve. This is the 13th point, the point of unity within the expansion, the point of unity within the entire structure.   

In time we can see a similar phenomenon. From the first moment of creation, the world expanded into the six days of the week, and from there into the twelve months of the year. These are the twelve months of the sun, which march endlessly forward, apparently without meaning. However, the first command was, “This month is for you.” Hashem handed time over to us, and allowed us to participate in the march forward, and to give it meaning. The mitzvah of Rosh Chodesh is, unsurprisingly, called a judgement (Tehillim 81:5) and when we intercalculate the system of the moon into the system of the sun, we do it through a court. The 13th month we add, the extra month of Adar, serves to unify the two systems of time, the natural system and Hashem’s hidden plan.

This idea is also expressed in the realm of man. We express ourselves in our prayers. The original 12 brachot of the Amidah prayer are an expression of the basic needs of man as we expand in our world. The extra, 13th, bracha was added in later by Rabban Gamliel, together with his court.  It is the prayer against heretics. Rabban Gamliel considered our greatest human need: our need to connect to Hashem, and to introduce clarity and purpose into our world. This is the need that unifies all our other needs in the world.  

The 13th bracha was added into the Amidah immediately after the blessing, “Blessed are You, G-d, the King Who loves righteousness and judgment.” And the extra month of Adar is added into our year this week, immediately after we read the parsha of Mishpatim. That is us, this week. We no longer stand at Har Sinai, and  most of us are slaves, to one thing or another. We may even identify strongly with the slave this week, who chooses to stay right where he is. The message of the parsha is, we can reach in, with our emotions and our intellect, and we can choose to find our own freedom by connecting to that point of truth within ourselves. And even if we don’t, we are still on a path toward eventual freedom.

**This week’s post is dedicated to my wonderful Father, on the occasion of his 75th birthday, and my wonderful son, on the occasion of his 25th birthday. Enjoy your shared celebration. Wish I could be with you!!

Sparks of Beshalach

Posted on by Rebecca


Sparks of Beshalach

Horse and Rider into the Sea

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For me, the first question of this week’s parsha is, “Why?!” We just finished the full cycle of the plagues. Last week’s parsha ends with Pharoah a broken man, leader of a decimated nation, begging the Jews to leave his country in the middle of the night. Now, just a few short days later, Pharoah decides it’s an excellent idea to go chase the Jews into the desert. He leads his people directly into the sea to be drowned. It’s an astounding testament to the resilience and the stubbornness of the human mind, but at the same time is absolutely mind-boggling. It leaves us asking, “Why?!”

Ramban remarks that of all the miracles, the greatest wonder was that Hashem hardened Pharoah’s heart to follow the Jewish nation into the desert and then straight into the sea (Shemot 14:4). As we know from the makot (see Ramban Shemot 7:3), hardening Pharoah’s heart meant giving Pharoah the strength to follow what he really wanted to do, despite the clear evidence of disastrous consequences. Here too, Hashem made room for the Egyptians to see what they wanted to see.

The Jews camped in the desert opposite the one Egyptian god that was not completely destroyed, the god Ba’al Tzefon (Rashi, Shemot 14:2). This was enough to convince the Egyptians that their real mistake, all along, was that they were not praying hard enough to the right avodah zarah. They were convinced that this time, with Ba’al Tzefon on their side, they would be victorious. And so they trapped the Jews between their army and the sea, and when a strong wind blew the waters of the sea to the side, they were convinced that the waters were splitting for them. They rode into the sea on their horses, into what they were sure was victory.

And Hashem made a mockery of them. The image of Hashem exalting over the Egyptians as they rode confidently into the sea is the essence of the song, the nevuah, that we sang at the sea. Az Yashir begins and ends with the image of the horse and rider being engulfed by the sea. This image is the only line we have of the song Miriam sang with the women. It is clearly the central image of the miracle at the sea, and key to understanding what this miracle was all about. We can understand this image in three levels of increasing depth.

The first level is the recognition that although we were freed from Egypt on the night of the slaying of the first-borne, we did not feel completely free. We were runaway slaves and Pharoah remained in power in Egypt. As was clearly evidenced, he remained a threat. The horse and rider together is an image of Egypt in its peak.  It was only after we saw the Egyptians destroyed in the sea that we could felt fully free of him and his influence. It was only then that we could finally burst out into song of thanksgiving.

The image of the horse and rider drowned in the sea also conveys a deeper message about the destruction of evil. Both at the time of the redemption from Egypt, and also in the final redemption, evil is not destroyed. Evil self-destructs. At its core, it has no substance, and so the entire system leads only to destruction. The Egyptians, of their own volition, rode their horses into the sea and were destroyed.  

Another, deeper, level of the revelation at the sea relates to the type of revelation that occurred there. As we discussed last week, the revelation in Mitzrayim was a revelation of the truth of Ma’aseh Bereisheit. The revelation at the sea was a revelation of a different system. The Mechilta (Parshat HsShirah 3) says that each maidservant by the sea saw more than Yechezkel ben Buzi saw. What Yechezkel saw was a vision of the Ma’aseh Mercavah, the Divine Chariot. The experience at the sea was also a revelation of Ma’aseh Mercavah.

Sparks of Bo

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Sparks of Parshat Bo

The Deepest Cry

This is the second week in a row in which we find ourselves immersed in the process of the makot, a process which Chazal say took a year to complete. If we are looking at the makot as a system of punishment, it’s a little hard to understand why all this time and space is devoted to them. The makot, however, have little to do with our Western concept of punishment. In the Torah, there is a concept of tochacha, rebuke, whose purpose is never punishment, but only clarification of reality, for the purpose of growth. This is what the makot were. The makot clarified the true nature of our world and ourselves.

This is what we mean when we say that the 10 makot parallel the 10 ma’amarot with which the world was created. There existed a time in history when it was possible to understand properly what Hashem was revealing to us when He created the world through ten utterances. By the time we were slaves in Mitzrayim, that was no longer the case. The result of all the sins of humanity was that the ten expressions that Hashem used to create the world were distorted. Their message could not be heard properly in the world. The first plague, therefore, begins where the last ma’amar ends, and reveals its message. Each makah peels away another layer of distortion, one by one, until the true message of the ma’amarot could be heard, and the true nature of our world was revealed.

As each facet of truth was revealed, it impacted reality, and that impact was felt according to who was receiving it.  The Zohar (2:36a) says that the makot were, at one and the same time, a plague for the Egyptians and a healing for the Jews.  (This is also the essential nature of gehenom in the world to come, see Nedarim 8b) For the Egyptians, the makot were the revelation, one facet after another, that everything they had built their society on was false. Each makah was another blow at the essence of their national culture and identity. Facing the truth was a painful experience. On the other hand, for the Jews, for us, living through the makot meant going through the process of rediscovering our true selves, and the true nature of our world. It was the joy of rediscovering our relationship with Hashem.

The last of the makot, the end of the process, was the death of the firstborn of Egypt. It was the death of Pharoah’s perception of the world as if Egypt were the firstborn, and he was a god. On the night of the final makah in Egypt, Hashem’s Presence was revealed. Even more, Hashem’s relationship to his true firstborn, our nation, was inescapably revealed. On the first night of Pesach we came face to face with the glorious reality that we are Hashem’s beloved firstborn, and that we fulfill the purpose of creation through our relationship with Him (see Rashi, Bereisheit 1:1).

This moment of revelation was marked by something unique to this makah. Moshe tells Pharoah that on the night of makat bechorot, “There will be a great outcry in the land of Egypt, such has never been heard before.” (Shemot 11:6). And this is indeed what happened (Shemot 12:30). A cry is a sound that expresses what can not be put into words. The cry of makat bechorot relates to the ma’amar of Bereisheit, a ma’amar that is substantively different from the rest of the ma’amarot. It does not use the language of speech. Instead, it expresses the emergence of the essence of creation before it could be grasped or put into words.  It is undefined, but it is what enables everything that is expressed after it.

Within ourselves, the ma’amar of Bereisheit relates to the feeling of self that we can’t express in words, the feeling of self we express with a cry. A cry is the sound we make that comes from a deeper part of ourselves than speech, it comes from our heart, or from our essence, from the part of ourselves which is too deep to be formed into words. Each of us has the ability to cry. Every newborn cries. We emerge into the world with a cry. Our cry is the root of our ability to speak, to bring out our essence and express it.

In Egypt, at chatzot, on the night of the redemption, there was a great cry that was heard throughout the land. But it was a different cry for the Egyptians and for the Jews. For the Egyptians, the entire conception of the world had been ripped out from under them. They were speechless. There was nothing left to say. Their cry was the cry of the utter self-destruction. It was the cry of despair that comes with the recognition that at their very essence, there was nothing. Everything they believed was built on a lie.

We cried a completely different cry.  It was the cry of prayer. For a Jew, the deepest part of ourselves is expressed in prayer. This is the essence of who we are.  When a Jew comes face to face with reality, when we recognize that the deepest part of ourselves is connected to our creator, we pray. The Zohar tells us that crying is the greatest form of prayer, and that whenever we cry out, Hashem promises to listen. This was, in fact, how the redemption began. Hashem heard our moaning, and our cries (Shemot 2:23).  And it is how the redemption ends. In the words of the Midrash (Shemot Rabbah 18), while Pharoah was desperately screaming, trying to force us out of Egpyt, trying to save his life from the angry Egyptians, we were busy saying Hallel.  

The halacha is that in our tefillot, we join redemption (as expressed in the brachot of Shema) to prayer (the Amidah). It is a halacha that reflects a deeper truth. The prayer itself is the redemption. On the night of makat bechorot we were redeemed through experiencing the depth of who we are. The result was that we gained the ability to truly pray. We have the opportunity to relive this redemption every morning and evening.

As Ramban explains in his introduction to Shemot, the purpose of the redemption was to bring the entire nation of Israel to the level of the Avot. And the level of the Avot was prayer. As we have mentioned earlier, they were the ones who established prayer for us, and gave it over to us as an inheritance. To return to their level means to step into the place they left for us, the place of prayer. To experience redemption is to pray.  

At the moment, we are still living in exile. And when we are in exile, our speech is in exile with us. We speak, but we often don’t know what to say. What do we ask for? What do we want? But the cry of connection and yearning for Hashem that comes from deep inside is real and unfalsifiable. We may not know what to say, we may not connect to all the words of davening, but if we can make space in our world and in our prayers for that one groan or cry that comes from deep within, we can begin to move ourselves, and the whole world with us, into a place of redemption.