The Kotel, or Western Wall. a.k.a. “The Wailing Wall”

I think of so many things
when I see this image.

What do you see?
What is happening?
When is it?
What is missing?

“The turbid, stormy waters of secularity roar and foam,
as they seek to swallow up all that is sacred.

In their quaking enormity,
they inundate nations and peoples,

but the strength of Israel
shall never founder.”

(Ma’amarei HaRe’iyah 150)

In the cold and dark of winter, we must remember and await the spring.  We await the Light and the Redemption.

Shabbat Shalom.

***********

From Blossoms
by Li-Young Lee

From blossoms comes
this brown paper bag of peaches
we bought from the joy
at the bend in the road where we turned toward
signs painted Peaches.

From laden boughs, from hands,
from sweet fellowship in the bins,
comes nectar at the roadside, succulent
peaches we devour, dusty skin and all,
comes the familiar dust of summer, dust we eat.

O, to take what we love inside,
to carry within us an orchard, to eat
not only the skin, but the shade,
not only the sugar, but the days, to hold
the fruit in our hands, adore it, then bite into
the round jubilance of peach.

There are days we live
as if death were nowhere
in the background; from joy
to joy to joy, from wing to wing,
from blossom to blossom to
impossible blossom, to sweet impossible blossom.

“The baser a person, the harder for him to distinguish hatred of evil
from hatred for people who do evil…
The exalted trait of people with lofty souls
is their ability to make this distinction.
Their hatred of evil
is trained solely on the evil itself…
and thus the light of loving kindness
illuminates their wisdom.”

(Orot HaKodesh 4:497)

“When a person diminishes himself and is filled with humility, he draws nearer to his essence and the crux of his soul is revealed to him in all its glory. From its reflection he sees all the heavenly majesty in the depths of his own infinitely great soul.”

(Erpalei Tohar 125)

“The important thing about your lot in life is whether you use it for parking or for building.”

- unquoted by source

“Anyone who has been following the progress of the Jewish population in Eretz Yisrael can see clearly how from every step backward came an even greater development for the good, and out of every crisis came a step forward.”

(Rav Kook’s Ma’amarei HaRe’iyah: “Shuvu LeBitzaron”)

I was thinking…

To paint over the color-spectrum of life with simplicity-masks of Black and White is to reject the elegance of Creation.

Many things are happening right now, in a global way, and in a personal way.

“The one thing you can’t take away from me is the way I choose to respond to what you do to me.  The last of one’s freedoms is to choose one’s attitude in any given circumstance.”

- Victor Frankl

כל העולם כולו גשר צר מאוד, והעיקר - לא לפחד כלל
Kol ha’olam kulo gesher tzar me’od, v’ha’ikar lo lefahed klal.
“All the world is a very narrow bridge, and the most important thing is not to fear at all.”

- Rebbe Nachman of Breslev

My best friend growing up had an african parrot just like this one.  He used to say “David! Go to your room!” because my friend’s older brother David would get in trouble so often that the parrot learned to copy the phrase.

One of our beloved Noahide readers owns a parrot just like my friend’s.  Except around the Noahide house their bird has learned to say “Baruch Hashem!”¹

Should we make this the iHeartNoahides mascot?
What do you think?

Have a wonderful Shabbat!