When G-d Blinks

Shabbat requires bravery and daring.

It challenges the very notion of consistency, of constancy. It is an affront to normalcy. It threatens reality, sanity, of waking in the morning to see the sun arise each day.

It flouts planning. Steps. Control of the world, ourselves. Of believing there is a self that is ours.

Shabbat is unknown. A turning left. The untrod path. The creative life in-utero

It precludes tomorrow's monotony. Questions our next breath.

Shabbat reveals a world beyond. Of dreams. Where other forces rule. Where elephants climb through needles' eyes.

It is the pause between, the no-man's land, the dark of light, the in of out, the light of dark, the in-between.

Shabbat is vibration. The proof in rest of endless movement; the comma in perpetual

motion,

motion,

motion.

Shabbat takes planning, preparation for submission, a yielding to the unknown, the irrepressible. A readiness, as best we can, for that which is beyond, wild, in the hands of the Other.

It is an expedition, with tools of civilization discarded, of gadgets and comfort left behind. It leads, with faith, forward, leaving behind reality's rhythm, groping without light in a world not of our making, illusion laid bare for a day, as we journey into nothingness, the world left on its own to breathe, to rest, to linger in the void.

What will be? What will be?

Shabbat is Kabbalah's proof. G-d's hidden habit revealed of recreating every moment the world anew. The affirmation of nothingness and some other force behind.

The place where artists live. From where inspiration sprouts. To where dreams head.

From this void all things emerge. The blind fare best. And those who love to leap fly with closed eyes and held breath, anticipating their destination with uncertainty and thrill.

What will be?

Who will I be?

Will there be me?

This pulse is always there, everywhere. But on Shabbat it is ours. We enter cautiously its space, its time -- welcoming the Other in our lives. Affirming what we know deep in ourselves but lack the courage to replace with it the normality of our lives, the illusion of our continuity.

And at its end, we emerge, blinking, startled, curious, bewildered by the world anew. What's happened while we stayed away?

Strayed away?

Did something die?

Is there still me?

Without us, did it all go on?

Who mastered the world while we dreamt?

Or are we dreaming now?

Who mastered the world?

G-d.

With miracles, and masters still.

Just for a moment, for these few hours in eternity, He let us in. We entered His reality. He allowed us to glimpse existence as it is when He blinks. He let us touch the place from which we too are born anew each moment, with infinite opportunity to become, to transform, to discover...

...with courage and daring.

The bravery of Shabbat.

The creative life sprung forth.

From nothing.