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Section 4 of “Shekhinah: The Presence” by Joseph Zitt
This is an unedited scan of the text, courtesy of Josh Ronsen
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"Bless the Lord, who is blessed!"
Our leader returns,
her arms waving
semaphores and signals,
disrupting our focus,
returning our eyes
voices
hearts
to the service we are sworn to perform
returning our attention
to the call to the Creator
who demands prayer
attention
obedience
away from the Presence,
his Presence in her form
she who radiates love
comfort
joy
We breathe and turn,
delaying,
denying ourselves
the ecstasy
for the moment
until we can complete
the patterns of prayer
dictated by law
and debated by teachers
over the centuries,
yet still, in their variations,
very close to the same;
any one of us,
transported to a hall of prayer
anywhere in our world
would recognize the litany
and find comfort in its cadences,
another door which is all doors,
another portal of words
which connects our world
to a world without words
our world today
to the world to come,
or, at least,
to the world to which
each of us,
individually,
may someday come
though we know well
(some more consciously than others)
that the world to come
is already here,
that we may dwell within it
and it within us
in our prayers
meditations
fantasies
dreams
that the stillness of the Sabbath
is a precreation
of what we will
(someday, somehow)
see.
"Bless the Lord, who is blessed!"
calls our leader,
and the phrase loops back on itself
in its simplicity
the Lord is blessed,
so we must bless the Lord
the Lord is blessed,
and from the Lord derives all blessing
so how could we bless the Lord?
the Lord is blessed
and blesses all of us
so we bless the Lord,
as the Lord has blessed us,
our blessings
the reflections in a pitted mirror
of the blessings he bestows on us
our souls
reaching out, reaching in
trying to find and echo
the shards of the infinite
embedded, glowing deep within us,
our hearts
pulsing with a rhythm
(in the silence of true meditation
we can hear it, feel it)
that we hope may match the
breaths and tempos
of the root tone of the universe
our voices
when we raise them in song
all in tune
all in key
all in rhythm
so that when we find a share
the central tone
the pulse beat
of the heart of the Lord
the frequency, the pitch and color
of the Lord's power,
the Lord's Presence
(who stands among us
surrounded by us,
surrounding us
joining us,
her glowing resonance
synchronized with
the power of the Lord
her ancient
father
groom
child)
the shards in our souls
may again
emerge
merge
vibrate
fuse
and join all worlds
with the greater world
so we bless the Lord
calling back to our leader
"Blessed in the Lord who is blessed
now and in eternity"
here and out to other worlds
blessed
praised
glorified
exalted
upraised
every soul will bless the Lord
who is blessing
who is blessed
those of us who may or may not be
blessing the Lord
who may or may not be
caught up in the
circle of blessing
still feel the prayer that flows
from (to)
the hearts of the believers
those of us who may or may not
believe
still share the words
so that from the words
from the letters and silences
of the prayers we might
deconstruct and reconstruct
rebuild
rephrase
reinterpret
these feelings
into new prayers
new statements
new beliefs
that might resonate
with our own hearts
minds
souls
and with the different tone
of the prayer
as written
as spoken
as believed
by those of us
who do fervently believe
"Blessed is the Lord who is Blessed
forever and ever"
as our leader proclaims
repeating our response as her own
then
withdrawing
from this moment
of joined voices
and statements
sample in words
yet tangled in meaning
we pray the details
all our voices
joined yet unjoined
speaking larger yet smaller words
in private utterances
together, yet unsynchronized
and the Presence
for that moment focused
in a single beam of holiness
diffuses
spreads
surrounds us
and we grasp the Presence
our hands warmed
by the contact
the warmth is spreading
through us from the touch
as the night chill
dissipates
as the sun appears to rise
from the East, behind the Ark
as the beams and shadows
shorten, widen
as we spin toward it,
until it, later,
meets and illuminates
the roof of the sky
and we raise her up
and she raises us up
and she spreads her arms
(slender,
like the legs of grasshoppers,
gentle,
like the wings of swans,
lithe,
like the upraised branches
of an inverted willow)
and echoes our leader's
signs and cries of supplication
as our legs,
supporting us,
and, by extension,
supporting her
as her radiance,
in its fields of power
supports our souls
echo the steps of our leader
through the pathways of the law
the litanies we speak together
the unseen trails
of the wonders of which we speak
as we move and speak
in the phrases of our Teachers
in the motions of our leader
in the comfort of the Presence
of the actions of the Lord
echoing
cascading
rippling out
like the wake of a skipped stone
upon the surface of
what was once
uniformed and uniform
undistilled and undifferentiated
until a word
Let there be
spread among
the sacred and the mundane
and formed the frames of radiance
that
illuminate the Earth
and those who dwell upon it...
created glory for his Name,
and placed luminaries
about his majesty...
the leaders of his legions,
the holy ones...
the ministering angels,
who stand at
the summit of the universe...
beloved,
flawless,
mighty
and our leader,
hearing our independent streams of prayer
approach the merging point,
the delta where prayer
comes again together,
calls out:
"and they all give each other permission
to sanctify the One who created them
in tranquility
with pure speech
and sacred melody
and all proclaim in reverence
in holiness:"
and our voices merge
and our songs and bodies move together,
we,
our leader,
the Presence
(with her ever-widening glow),
those who believe,
those who may or may not believe,
the Seraphim,
the Ofanim,
all the holy beings,
one joined people
and ten levels of angels,
proclaiming:
"Holy!" (we rise up on pointed toes)
"Holy!" (rise higher,
straining toward the heavens)
"Holy!" (that the glow of the Presence
might meet
the light of the Creator)
"is the Lord, Master of Legions!
The world is filled with his Glory!"
and we overflow,
run,
dance,
to the sweet melodies of the creation
to which our souls sing harmony
in as many keys
as there are people,
souls,
and angels
and we try to merge our souls
as we might gather together the fringes
from the four corners of
our prayer shawls
as we might be gathered to the Presence
from the four corners of
the Earth
as we might be gathered into
the World to Come
from all the corners
the nooks and lost alleyways
of present, imagines, and parallel
lines of time
and we close our eyes
and our leader stops her motion,
and, in a sudden moment of infinite silence,
locks her eyes with the eyes of the Presence
and we, focusing with light-fused wills
the intensity of our intention,
prepare to proclaim
the core of our existence in a
unified joyful cry.
(return to Shekhinah: the Presence)
