VeRuach Elokim Merachefet...
o
Times are feeling dark, but outside the light is increasing.
Spring is coming. Please G-d - redemption on every level.
All I needed was one comment (thank you Miriam)
to prompt me back to the archives
to find another picture of a place that I've been at
for the last 8 years, every the Spring.
o
This one reminds me of the saying that
faces reflect back the way water does.
I once heard it asked if faces reflect back
then why is it that when we seek G-d's countenance
we don't always feel a reflected return response.
The answer given was that faces reflect like water.
Water reflects proportionately to how close you are to it.
o
Rav Dovid Lifschitz
speaking on Yom Kippur night
cited the line which states
that at the start of time
there was darkness and confusion
and (not but - but and)
the spirit of G-d hovered over the water.
Rav Dovid said that that's life
there's darkness and confusion
and there's the spirit of G-d, always
hovering.
o
In every religion
water holds a holy place
water provides peace
for restless people.
And that it all goes back
to when the spirit of G-d
hovered over the face of the water.
l
The favorite place
of any camp I've been in;
it's always the lake
of any camp I've been in;
it's always the lake
posted by rabbi neil fleischmann @ 7:03 PM
4 Comments:
I love that metaphor about G-d's countenance and that "Water reflects proportionately to how close you are to it."
Very interesting distinction between and, and but . . .
Both poems are very beautiful and evocative.
Maayan
That's a nice vort from R. Dovid. When did he speak on yom kippur night?
Thanks Anon Maayan - I read that in a Rabbi Abraham Twerski book, I think in the name of the Baal Shem Tov.
Sometimes someone tells me something and it bugs me and I say so and then I take it in and look back and realize that the original being bugged was part of the taking in process. I see this in some students, they learn by questioning, sometimes in a way that seems like they'll never take it in. It's happened to me before and recently happened in regard to and/but. A friend of mine suggested that but negates all that came before it, or can seem to. I made a big deal about but not being a big deal. And I've come to realize that "and" can be more right as a continuation in an inclusive way. And but does sometimes negate more than one would really want to. It was a parenthetical aside but a lot of thought went into it...
Thanks for the compliment on the poems. It started as prose and then I split up the lines. It may still be prose, I'd be happy if it was poetry. What makes a poem a poem?
E Pluribus - In the early eighties I was at YU for Yom Kippur and Rav Dovid spoke. It was either '82 or '83, I'm thinking 82. He spoke for a long time, and I wished I remembered more. But I'm glad that I have that one.
Lovely photograph. You know how I feel about water....
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