Eit LaKol*

Above is a painting that I purchased on Isru Chag. I studied it it every day on my way to Shul during Pesach. I saw it hanging with it price tag next to it and starting thinking I wanted it.

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There are many reasons why I bought it. There is a long history between me and the image captured on this unframed canvas dating back to sixth grade. It was then that I learned from my teacher, Mr. C, of the meaning behind the way these words and letters flow into each other.

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Someone told me who the artist was (it's unsigned) and I thought of contacting her directly before I bought it from a shop. My source told me that she had told him that she'd done a different version of this painting, and this one was exactly in sync with the way Phil Chernofsky mapped it out for us.

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But I know myself. Better done than perfect. So I bought it and hung it over my bed.

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Someone who knows me well told me that had he/she seen this he/she would have thought of me and bought it for me.

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It displays one of my key Torah thoughts that I think about and share on a very regular basis. I've drawn it up in my own attempt at calligraphy a hundred times. But I've never captured it in oil on canvas the way Julie Seltzer did. I am forever grateful to have this gift which G-d sent my way at a good time for me to acquire it for myself.

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I pray to always work at balancing love and fear and embracing the symbiotic relationship of these two paths. May I be blessed to remember that the G-d of love and the G-d of fear are one. May I be blessed to remember that in any relationship there will be tilts, toward too much distance or in the direction of too much closeness. This is true in relationships with G-d. And listen to people who speak of their human relationships and you'll hear that frustrating issues relate to either too much closeness of the ahava variety or to too much standing at a distance, too much yir'ah.

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This is a post that I didn't plan to write, not in this space, but I just did. May it be helpful to those who see it.

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Good night and G-d bless

G-d of love and G-d of fear

It is one blessing

Yes, closeness is a blessing

Distance is a blessing too

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* The title of this piece came to me after I'd completed writing the post. And then I had a thought. King Solomon's wise words are generally understood to mean that there is a time for a choice from Column A and a time for one from Column B. Maybe the deeper meaning in his actual words, "There is a time for everything," is that in regular life there is, ideally, to be a time for everything to be balanced together, rather than either or. That is an evolved level, to recognize and allow that war and peace exist together.