Finally, the great moment arrived. It was the morning of Rosh Hashanah, and Rabbi Ze’ev stood on the reading platform in the center of the Baal Shem Tov’s synagogue amidst the Torah scrolls, surrounded by a sea of tallit-draped bodies.
11 Comments Posted
For about 2 weeks I've lived, much of the time, in a world of hunger. My hunger is for comprehension. For comprehension of what 2 stories are trying to tell me...2 stories which have now become my daily companions regardless where I am or what I do.
This story here is one of them.
The last 2 sentences of it say: "But there is one key that unlocks all doors, that opens up for us the innermost chambers of the divine palace. That master key is a broken heart."
I would like to ask for help with understanding this. Our world is probably full of broken hearts, and so I would like to use the visible-to-all Post a Comment- even though the article itself is not that visible at this time.
Last, I realize that this is a very full time for all of you. I'm asking with help with this when you have time.
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Remember, a broken heart is also an open heart.
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Rabbi Ze'ev did study. He made notes which he misplaced. In his ernest study those same notes were written on his heart. He presumed he had failed, and this broke his heart.
Eric S beautifully reminds us a broken heart is an open heart.
I don't know if this is right, but it gives me comfort and makes sense to me.
This is a wonderful website.
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That is really true. A broken heart means humility - and humility is the true key. Thank you for these beautiful stories/lessons.
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(answering the question above)
Sometimes we get carried away, like Rabbi Ze'ev, by the details of our mitzvot (which are very important). But we forget that above all the details is a broken heart. When you approach Hashem, accepting that you are but His servant, you are at His mercy, and you are literally standing before Hashem with a broken heart--your prayer pierces thru heaven.
That is what I think the message is.
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It is that there is nothing so "whole" as a broken heart.
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I have been saying this for a long time, and I truly believe in the truth of this, so beautifully expressed in this story.
There is a master key that opens all doors, and that key is deeply about love. To love with all one's heart and soul, and to make of one's life a masterpiece is to make of life, a master peace. And yes, I think we can do this together.
The keys are in the words themselves.
This story is about love, and deeply about whole and hole and wholly and holy. Tikkun olam: Do not give me things unbroken.
We must move into a compassionate future, with a compassionate present. It's a gift. LIFE is a DOOR, LIFE is ADORE.
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Different perspective: Technically we all need G-d 24/7...but for most people it is only when we have a broken heart (hurt, failure, despair) that we are driven to realize that 100% to our very cores. I know a rabbi who likes to say, "At the heart of every atheist is a Jew." For most people, in their darkest hour they cry out to G-d, even when they normally are removed from him. With the mourning and despair that was present, the shofar rang forth as a desperate cry to the heavens.
Thoughts? Am I totally missing the point?
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No, I think you are totally, on point. Maybe God wants us to connect and this is one way to make that connection, meaning through the passion, the e motion of those moments of loss, of pain, which we all do experience. A paradox?
A friend of mine told me she was so angry with God about not having a baby, being told she and her husband were infertile, that she raged and raged. She said there are times she does not believe in God, but then, to have felt that emotion, that rage and to have expressed it, well that WAS a connection.
PS. She had a baby girl and lost this child at birth, and then went on to have a son who is now a young man. Was she heard? Did she connect?
I must believe somehow this story comes out all right in the end, and I do. I trust, the greater story is about LOVE and this is about LOVE itself.
SHANA TOVA, CHABAD all all readers!
May this be a year of honey and apples!
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One of the most poignant notes in the sound of the shofar is the pure, wholehearted cry of a child for his father. See the article on this website "Our Father, Our King"
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I will look for this article.
I think I have joined with so many others, so many other voices, in expressing thoughts about the subject Love, in all these articles, and about the metaphoric connects that do run up and down all of our lives, as explicated beautifully in these article, about marriage, a merger with God too, , in sickness and in health, and beyond,
I am saying we're all in this together, because every one of these connects involves every one of YOU.
Maybe we are ewes, yous --- lambs -- and just maybe there is one soul, one sacred soul, and we are all aspect of that Divinity, and so engaging ourselves, in dialogue with each other, also with the divine in every single one of us. Maybe like a rainbow, we come in different hues. Maybe the master key, is diversity, the one in many.
Maybe God who wrote this story, is still manifesting through the fire, that fire Moses perceived, because that's what we're generating here.
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