Tefillah Thoughts 1

1. Ashrei Yoshvei Veitekha: Happy are those who dwell in Your home, O God. I used to think this referred to the Temple or the Tabernacle or, in today’s world, to the synagogue. But today, looking out at the sun and the trees and the green sky, it occurred to me that it might also mean the world. Happy, fortunate are we who live in God’s home, this world. Happy, fortunate are we if we can appreciate that good fortune, if we can cherish the beauty, see the divinity in the world around us. There is holiness not just in the four walls of a prayer house, but in every step we take outside it. Ashrei Yoshvei Veitekha.

2. Karov Hashem Lekhol Korav, lekhol Asher Yikra’uhu Be’Emet: “God is close to all who call Him, to all those who call to Him in earnest.” It begins with us. As the Sefat Emet is always pointing out, you get what you put in. God is close to those who make the effort to call to Him. How to experience, to feel God’s presence? Call to Him and call to Him in earnest, with a full heart.

This morning I had a broken heart. It felt open and wounded. Nothing calamitous had occurred, but for some reason, after dropping my kids off at the day camp bus stop, I drove home with an emptiness and a loneliness and a sense of loss and endings. My children are leaving me. That is the way of the world. People leave each other. Some of our closest friends in Albany are moving out of town. There is a feeling of loss and grief.

I took the Piasetzner Rebbe’s advice this morning and decided to view such a feeling as “an opening of the soul,” an opportunity to cry out to God. Karov Hashem lekhol Korav. God is close to those who call Him, to those who call to Him be’emet -- in earnest. Usually it is hard to call in earnest; we are closed over to our soul and our feelings, a thousand practical concerns whirring through our minds. So, every once in a while, when the opportunity arises, and you are feeling strongly anyway – happy, sad, angry, irritated – seize the opportunity. That’s the Piasetzner Rebbe’s advice. Trying it this morning, alongside that feeling of loneliness and loss I also felt a sense of Presence.

3. Shma Yisrael Hashem Elokeinu Hashem Ehad: Hear O Israel, Hashem is our God, Hashem is One. I have been struggling with the particularlity of Israel and confused about my connection to both the people of Israel and to all of humanity. I wonder if that’s what it means to say “Hashem Elokeinu” – this God of ours, ours in particular, is also “Hashem Ehad,” the God of Unity, of All, the God who helps us see the unity of the universe and the connections. We begin with a personal feeling about Him, that He is ours, but somehow that needs to lead us next to a sense of wholeness and openness to everything, to the Unity of all.