{"id":100,"date":"2009-03-07T23:18:26","date_gmt":"2009-03-08T04:18:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.josephzitt.com\/home\/?page_id=100"},"modified":"2011-10-12T21:47:37","modified_gmt":"2011-10-13T02:47:37","slug":"shekhinah-kriyat-hatorah-torah-reading","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"http:\/\/www.josephzitt.com\/home\/books\/shekhinah-the-presence\/shekhinah-kriyat-hatorah-torah-reading\/","title":{"rendered":"Shekhinah: Kriyat HaTorah (Torah Reading)"},"content":{"rendered":"

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\"Shekhinah:<\/em><\/em>
Shekhinah: the Presence<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

<\/em>
\nSection 7 of “Shekhinah: The Presence” by Joseph Zitt
\nThis is an unedited scan of the text, courtesy of Josh Ronsen
\n– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –<\/p>\n

These ancient walls\r\nThese silent speaking stones\r\nThese wooden seatbacks\r\n  worn smooth\r\n  by the books and hands\r\n  of generations\r\n\r\nIn the haze of words and tones\r\nof our leader's repetition\r\nwe float our souls\r\nin search of others\r\nsimilarly focused\r\n\r\nto Brooklyn\r\nto Vilna\r\nto Yemen\r\nto Jerusalem\r\n\r\nto the chambers by the Western Wall\r\nto the place that,\r\n  when all places become one,\r\n  will be the one place\r\n  these places become\r\n\r\nto the place where the dreamworld\r\n  the world to come\r\n  the world from which\r\n    we were called here\r\n    summoned to take on\r\n    temporary flesh\r\n  brushes closest to\r\n  this world in which we breathe\r\n\r\nStep up to the Western Wall,\r\nfacing east\r\n(we pray at what was\r\n  the outside of the temple,\r\n  the inside having drawn the faithful\r\n    of other faiths\r\n    of other tastes of God\r\n  to establish their own\r\n    solemn sacred domains within),\r\nkiss the stones,\r\nslide a bit of paper in\r\n  within the cracks\r\n  between the massive bricks\r\n  where so many others\r\n    have inserted their own prayers\r\n  in hopes that God will read\r\n    these small requests\r\n    with greater interest,\r\nstep back one step,\r\nturn left, and face\r\nanother wall\r\nof arches,\r\n  doorways,\r\n  gates,\r\n  and somewhat less ancient stone.\r\n\r\nWalk through the nearer arch.\r\n\r\nHere: a small chamber\r\n  dressed in stone on stone.\r\n  Wooden bookshelves line its walls,\r\n  filled with well-worn volumes:\r\n    books of prayer,\r\n    books of law,\r\n      psalms,\r\n      mysteries, and\r\n      commentaries.\r\n\r\nLift one book down.\r\nOpen it: the pages are yellow, brittle,\r\n  brought from a town that no longer lives\r\n    a town whose ashes\r\n    and the ashes of its citizens\r\n    still drift in the air over\r\n      Poland, Hungary, Austria\r\n    still sting the eyes,\r\n    still trigger sudden tears\r\n      for those (now older, now scattered)\r\n      who survived the war\r\n\r\n  (and few recall the gentle storms\r\n    whose raindrops caught the ashes\r\n      souls\r\n      letters\r\n    and carried them back to earth\r\n    grounding the microscopic angels\r\n      who were guiding them to Jerusalem.\r\n\r\n  Listen: in the dim silence\r\n    of dawn-lit desert roads\r\n    you can hear them\r\n    walking back eastward \r\n\r\n    to ascend again to heaven\r\n    from the welcoming shadow\r\n    of the Temple Mount.)\r\n\r\nWalk on, walk forward\r\na few steps more, another archway\r\nthen a cavelike hall extending to the left\r\nfrom which echo remnants\r\n  of the voices and students\r\n  present, past, and yet to come\r\n  who sit within cavern-rooms\r\n    by the light of candles\r\n    by the light of the sun\r\n  and argue fine points\r\n    of the laws and mysteries\r\n    again and again\r\n\r\n  (The walls have heard\r\n  these arguments so frequently\r\n  that the stones themselves have memorized\r\n  the cases, counterpoints, and deductions.\r\n\r\n  Look closely: the veins of rhetoric and logic\r\n    are embedded deep within\r\n    the porous rock.)\r\n\r\nDo not turn there;\r\nwalk forward, walk on.\r\nTo your right: grate-covered shafts\r\n  expose more of the Western Wall\r\n  down to where the ground had been\r\n  when Solomon built it there.\r\nTo your left: another bookcase\r\n  more volumes\r\n  some different\r\n  but mostly the same\r\n  and small signs urging that you treat\r\n    the books and rooms\r\n    with due proper respect for\r\n    their sanctity and antiquity.\r\n\r\nAhead again, again to the left:\r\nanother arch, another gate.\r\nIron bars run floor to ceiling,\r\n  to the smoothly curved arch\r\n  set in time-cooled stone.\r\nThe gates are open,\r\n  swung back into corners,\r\n    welcoming us within.\r\n\r\nWe have arrived.\r\n\r\nBefore us: The Arks\r\n  up a series of steps\r\n  stand\r\n  dressed in fine, polished wood\r\n  wearing curtains of velvet\r\n    of golden braid\r\n    with golden threaded\r\n    letters and images\r\n      lions\r\n      tablets\r\n      quotations\r\n\r\nTouch the curtains gently:\r\nthe softness of velvet\r\n  caresses our fingers\r\nthe roughness of the golden script\r\n  transfers its meaning\r\n  from hands to souls to hearts,\r\n  in holy braille.\r\nOur eyes, our minds can only see\r\n  the edges of the glory;\r\nwe open wide our senses\r\n  and absorb the moment\r\n    the distant sounds\r\n    the promise of the Presence\r\n  through breath\r\n  through touch\r\n  through the resonance of centuries\r\n    of wanderers and pilgrims\r\n    whose prayers,\r\n      dreams,\r\n      ecstasies\r\n    have accumulated here;\r\n    the echoes of their souls\r\n    still coat the grey stone walls\r\n    long after their bodies\r\n      no longer walk these roads.\r\n\r\nAnd these Arks,\r\n  these cases and curtains,\r\nare echoes of the first holy Ark\r\n  that was built in the desert\r\n  that contained the twin tablets\r\n    of the essence of the law\r\n  that traveled to Israel\r\n  that went into battle\r\n  that came to rest upstairs from here\r\n    in the original Temple\r\n    in the holiest of places\r\nthat was the resting place of the Presence\r\n  when she came to stay with us\r\nthat disappeared into history\r\n  buried, some say, in a hidden mountain\r\n    to be retrieved\r\n    when the Temple is rebuilt\r\n    in the world to come\r\n  carried, some say, to the world of dreams\r\n    where we will gather\r\n    where time is silent\r\n    where the rivers carry angels\r\n      to and from our world of flesh.\r\n\r\nLook now;\r\nFeel;\r\nLay your hands upon the curtains;\r\nGrasp and follow the opening cords:\r\n\r\nIn this moment, all Arks are one.\r\nWe concentrate on the moment\r\n  with a focus greater than reality.\r\nWe look beyond the present\r\n  beyond these chambers in Jerusalem\r\n  beyond the prayer hall\r\n    where we still also stand.\r\nAll images merge:\r\nthe curtains from a single canopy of velvet\r\n  its folds waving in and out\r\n  of the three mundane dimensions\r\n  its length, its texture, its embrace\r\n    wider, deeper than the sky\r\na single glowing golden thread\r\n  creating, joining all the letters\r\n    symbols\r\n    images\r\n  into a single pictogram\r\n    which, if we could but pronounce it,\r\n    would join all of the holy Names\r\n    into a single syllable of joy\r\n\r\nand at its center\r\n  (that is-\r\n  everywhere)\r\nthe image of the original Ark\r\n\r\nOn its curtain, infinitely tall,\r\n  portrayed in gold,\r\n  their bodies closer to ideal\r\n  than any human artist's\r\n  craft, conception, calculation,\r\n\r\n  Cherubim--angels, intermediaries--\r\n  stand and wit\r\n  infinitely patient\r\n  listening to heaven\r\n  formed from the souls of clouds\r\n  (Male and female he created them) \r\n\r\n  They need not speak;\r\n  the Ofanim, the Seraphim\r\n  call out, at times,\r\n  bless the Blessed\r\n  from his holy place.\r\n\r\n  From this holy place,\r\n  the Cherubim need not call;\r\n  the Presence is forever here\r\n\r\n  and thus they stand\r\n  side by side\r\n  their contact sign enough\r\n    of their love of the Presence\r\n    of their love of each other\r\n    of their love of humankind.\r\n\r\nApproach the Ark, then,\r\n(in the hall of prayer,\r\n  in Jerusalem,\r\n  in the near and distant\r\n    world of dreams)\r\ntouch the shoulder of a cherub\r\n  the cord of a curtain\r\n  the place within your heart\r\n    which leads you to\r\n    what rests inside the Ark,\r\nopen the gates,\r\n  the everlasting doors,\r\n  that we may see the mysteries\r\n  that lie concealed within,\r\nand the doors, the curtains,\r\n  at the breath of a touch\r\n  from our solemn, exultant leader,\r\npart and open wide for us\r\n  like frost on a mirror\r\n    at the warming exhalation\r\n    of one who is still alive\r\n  like the water of the Sea of Reeds\r\n    before Moses's unyielding staff\r\n  like the thighs of a long-accustomed lover\r\n    at a gentle touch\r\n    a familiar embrace\r\n\r\nAnd we gaze within and see\r\n\r\nThe Scroll of the Law,\r\n  covered, also, in velvet\r\n  lettered, also, in threads of gold\r\n  the fine-lathed spools,\r\n    her arms and legs,\r\n    crafted from the richest wood\r\n  her cool skin\r\n    formed from the purest of parchment\r\n  the meticulous letters,\r\n    the black pools of eyes\r\n    glistening upon the\r\n      pale white background\r\n    reading us as we read from her\r\n  a slender silver arm reaching downward\r\n    guiding us to see the words\r\n    from which we draw our life.\r\n\r\nCarefully, now, our leader\r\nembraces\r\nthen raises the scroll,\r\nbringing her out\r\n  from the eternal womb of the Ark\r\n  into the merely physical\r\n  light of the now-risen sun\r\n\r\n(The Cherubim part,\r\n  then move silently around our leader\r\n  and crouch before us,\r\n  silent guardians of the Holy Word)\r\n\r\nand gently, slowly, evenly,\r\nwith the strength and balance gained\r\nby uncounted years\r\nof practice and devotion,\r\n\r\nlifts\r\n\r\nthe scroll into the air,\r\nshining her pearl-sheen light upon us\r\n  as we rise to greet\r\n  the unveiling of her Words\r\n  with scattered unison\r\n  whisperings of our own,\r\nraising her closer to the skies\r\n  as she brings the breath of heaven\r\n    closer to our lives\r\n  and inspires the spark of the Eternal\r\n    and buried deep within us\r\n    to burn more strongly\r\n    to melt another fraction\r\n      of the husks of darkness\r\n      that surround and mask the sparks\r\n      that make our world remain distant\r\n        from the world of dreams\r\n\r\nthen, again slowly, again gently,\r\nbrings her back down\r\nback to the grasp\r\n  of those of us who honor her\r\nback down to our realm to accept our kiss\r\n\r\nbut we dare not kiss her directly, no,\r\nlest she be defiled by the lips of those of us\r\n  who have allowed words of evil,\r\n    of human hurt,\r\n    distrust, and battered truth\r\n  to be formed by them\r\n  to pass between them\r\nlest her holy glow of love burn our mouths\r\n  making us as slow of speech as Moses\r\n  with no inspired, willing Aaron\r\n  to speak of us the words we try to mean\r\n\r\nand so we clutch the corners of\r\nour prayer shawls in our trembling hands\r\nas, as she passes,\r\nkiss the cloth, and the fringes on it,\r\nthen touch it softly to her velvet cloak.\r\n\r\nAnd, having travelled, having blessed\r\nthe perimeters of our sacred hall,\r\nshe rests\r\nrelaxed on her back on the reading desk,\r\n  its surface covered, also, in velvet,\r\n  its fringes, also, threads of gold.\r\nCarefully we remove her silver ornaments:\r\n  her crown, circles with subtle filigree,\r\n    rests on a platform by the Ark;\r\n  her pointer, her hand,\r\n    olive wood with silver chain,\r\n    the leader holds,\r\n    preparing for the reading.\r\n\r\nCautiously we raise her again\r\nfrom her resting place,\r\nand remove her cloak ,\r\n  slowly, smoothly.\r\nUpwards our hands slide it,\r\n  along the smooth firmness\r\n    of her parchment torso\r\n  over the slender symmetry\r\n    of her dark wood spools and arms.\r\n\r\nWe lay her down again,\r\nand roll the columns outwards,\r\nexposing her night-black text\r\n  and pale white skin\r\n  to the eastern light\r\n    of the glass-refracted sun\r\n  to the cooling breezes\r\n    of dim Jerusalem halls\r\n  to our loving gaze\r\n    and shyly tender touch\r\nas the leader extends a well-trained hand\r\n  that holds the simple pointer\r\n  and its own silver hand.\r\n\r\nWe shall begin.\r\n\r\n\"And may his kingship over us be revealed\r\nand become visible soon\r\nand may he be gracious to our remnant\r\n  and the remnant of his people\r\n  the family of Israel\r\nfor graciousness, kindness, mercy, and favor\"\r\n\r\nAnd we respond,\r\n\"Amen.\"\r\n\r\nListen, now;\r\nawake from your reveries;\r\nthe leader is calling you,\r\n\r\n\"Descendant of priests,\r\napproach, arise\"\r\n\r\nspeaking a name\r\nthat you realize must be your own,\r\nand another name,\r\nwhich must be your father.\r\n\r\nStep up to the reading desk,\r\nslowly, slowly;\r\nin these moments of revelation\r\nyou have infinite time.\r\n\r\n(The dreamworld is fading for you now;\r\nthis temporary flesh\r\nin which you clothed yourself\r\nwhen called from the river\r\n  where you guided the child's ark\r\n    toward the Ark of the covenant\r\n  where you drifted homeward\r\n    summoned by voices of prayer\r\nfeels slightly more concrete now,\r\n  more confining:\r\n\r\nyou have been called by your name\r\n  and the name of your father.\r\nA lineage has been thrust upon you:\r\nThe weight of centuries\r\n  now rests on your shoulders;\r\nthe decisions of the fathers\r\n  delimit the children\r\n  far past the tenth generation.\r\n\r\nDescendant of priests,\r\nthe law has determined\r\n  that you are first in line\r\n    to be called to read from the holy scrolls\r\n  that you may bless the people,\r\n    your hands spread in the unseen salute\r\n      that so many know\r\n      and so few recognize\r\n        the Presence resting gently\r\n        on your outstretched fingers\r\n  that you and your fathers and sons\r\n    will be called\r\n      in the world to come\r\n      in the world beyond dreams\r\n      to celebrate the sacrifices\r\n        and forgotten rituals\r\n      in the third temple\r\n        the everlasting hall\r\n        the sanctuary, outside of time,\r\n          from which the plans\r\n          for lesser sanctuaries were drawn.\r\n\r\nThus, by your name encircled,\r\n  enabled,\r\n  drawn,\r\n  defined\r\n\r\nyou take a deep breath\r\n  of this world's air\r\nand move infinitely slowly\r\n  to the reading desk\r\n  to her resting place\r\n    she whom defines all worlds.)\r\n\r\n\"Bless the Lord, who is blessed!\"\r\n\r\nAgain, your words wrap back upon themselves,\r\n  reiterating, restating,\r\n  repeating the recursion\r\n\r\n\"now and in eternity!\"\r\n\r\nWe carry the phrases as before\r\n  in a feedback loop of blessing\r\n\r\n\"who has chosen us from all peoples\r\n  and has given us your teaching\"\r\n\r\nFocus your heart on the text, now,\r\n  on the beauty and glory\r\n  unrolled before you.\r\nThe leader points to the appointed words;\r\ngrasp the prayer shawl fringes\r\n  in your silent hand\r\nthen touch them\r\n  to the black, enveloping letters\r\nthen kiss them\r\n\r\nand listen\r\nand merge your inner voice\r\n  with the voice of the leader\r\n  with the words that rise\r\n    from the holy scroll\r\n    from her pale, near-glowing skin,\r\n    from her heart.\r\n\r\nClearly, emphatically,\r\nthe reader sings out the words of the text,\r\neach vowel, each note, all punctuation\r\n  ringing out from memory\r\n  unwritten in the text as seen\r\n  but deeply etched in tradition\r\n\r\nThe pointer hand,\r\n  olive wood and silver,\r\n  a perfect echo of the human hand\r\n    that guides it\r\n    smoothly, lightly,\r\n    along the letters\r\n    (black as the pupils\r\n      of the eyes of the soul)\r\ntraces the text,\r\nrevealing the words\r\n  that flow up through it\r\n  absorbed and transmitted\r\n  by the skin\r\n    the nerves\r\n    the sinews\r\n    the blood\r\n    the breath\r\n    the heart\r\n    the voice of the reader\r\n  through the air\r\n    through the ether\r\n    through the light\r\n      that underlines all space\r\n      that overlays all time\r\n  to all out hearts.\r\n\r\nAnd these words\r\n  that we hear now\r\n  fill the rooms\r\n  fill every hidden crevice of silence\r\n    that might have been left behind\r\n    by the now-departed night.\r\n\r\n(Listen: in the light of the fully risen sun\r\n  even the crickets have muted their song\r\n  in honor of the chant of our leader\r\n    of the repetition, the recitation\r\n    of the words of the law.)\r\n\r\nAnd when the selection has come to an end\r\n  when our leader has finished\r\n    the impassioned reading\r\n  when the melodies of meaning\r\n    find their final major cadence\r\n\r\nreach down again,\r\n  fingers still wrapped\r\n    in the tassels of the shawl\r\ntouch the tender scroll again,\r\nthen kiss, again, the tassels.\r\n\r\n\"You are blessed,\"\r\nyou call out to the Creator\r\n\"who gave us these teachings of truth\r\nand planted eternal life in our midst.\"\r\n\r\nAnd you step back, away,\r\naround to the side of the reading desk\r\n\r\nand another approaches,\r\nand another still,\r\n\r\nand the scroll waits for their approach,\r\nher columns lying open to their touch,\r\n  their kiss,\r\n  their prayers\r\n\r\nand she gives of her words,\r\n  her light, her love,\r\n  equally to all\r\n  who come to her with open hearts,\r\n  who call to her with willing souls.\r\n\r\nThen, all readings complete for the day,\r\n  (though the reading, the learning\r\n    is never complete,\r\n  and the words cycle endlessly\r\n    as the dawn whispers across the planet,\r\n    as the years draw us around the sun,\r\n  as, on this day in other ages,\r\n    our fathers, our children,\r\n    have read, will read,\r\n    the same pages, the same texts,\r\n    from physically different scrolls,\r\n    letter for letter, point for point,\r\n      the same\r\n  as the original letters, inscribed at Sinai,\r\n    in black fire on white fire\r\n    on pages of stone,\r\n    burning through the ages,\r\n    all scrolls joined end to end\r\n      across dimensions,\r\n  flowing, black pools of letters\r\n    endlessly deep,\r\n    sacred scrolls all joined at the text)\r\nour leader softly grasps the scroll's dark wood limbs\r\nrolls her columns close again, together,\r\nand raises her, again, high into the air.\r\n\r\n\"She is a tree of life for those who hold her,\"\r\nwe chant, \"and those who support her\r\n  are filled with joy.\r\nAll her ways are pleasant;\r\nall her paths are peace.\"\r\n\r\n\"And may it be the will,\" our leader replies,\r\n\"of our Father who is in heaven\r\nto establish the Temple, the home of our lives,\r\nand to restore his PResence among us,\r\nspeedily,\r\nin our time.\"\r\n\r\nThen we all join the leader,\r\nand together,\r\nquietly,\r\nchant\r\n\"Amen.\"\r\n\r\nAnd our leader\r\nlowers her, evenly\r\n  with the perfect balance\r\n    born of perfect faith\r\n  and cradles her,\r\n    head resting\r\n      in comfort, in love,\r\n      against her solid side,\r\n    nestling the other side\r\n      in the crook of an arm,\r\n    right hand lightly grasping\r\n      her finely lathed spindle leg,\r\n\r\nand circles, again, the congregation,\r\nand again we kiss the scroll by proxy\r\n  hand wrapped in tassels,\r\n  tassels touched to lips,\r\n  kiss transferred by tassels' touch\r\n    to our beloved\r\n    to our law\r\n\r\nAnd you sit upon the simple chair\r\nprovided on the podium\r\nand the leader rests the scroll\r\n  in your waiting arms,\r\n  her back resting against your chest\r\n    (breathe lightly, now,\r\n    so that you won't disturb her),\r\n  her slender legs straddling your thigh,\r\n  her weight against you,\r\n    heavier than flesh\r\n    but still warm with comfort.\r\n\r\n\"May it be the will\r\n  of our Father who is in heaven,\"\r\nthe congregation meditates\r\non ancient words again,\r\ntheir silence again the scattered unison\r\n  of the individual,\r\n  the universal,\r\nas the leader continues the litany of wishes:\r\n\"to have mercy on us,\r\n  on those of us who still remain to worship...\r\nto keep destruction and plague\r\n  from us and from all his people...\r\nto preserve among us our sages,\r\n  their mates,\r\n  their children,\r\n  their disciples and\r\n    the students of their disciples...\r\nthat we may be told of good tidings\r\n  of deliverance and comfort...\r\nthat he gather the dispersed\r\n  from the four corners of the Earth...\r\nthat he may have mercy on our brethren\r\n  who are handed over to distress and captivity,\r\n  on the sea or on dry land,\r\n  and may bring them\r\n    from darkness to light,\r\n    from servitude to liberty,\r\n    speedily, soon...\"\r\n\r\nFocus, again:\r\n  The Ark again is open,\r\n  the Cherubim by its edges, waiting,\r\n  the velvet throne room\r\n    coffin\r\n    womb\r\n  awaiting her return.\r\n\r\nSense, feel, open your eyes:\r\n  she must return soon to her home.\r\n  Cautiously the leader\r\n    lifts her forward,\r\n    tightens, again, her columns together,\r\n    ties the narrow sash around her waist,\r\n    lifts the gold-threaded velvet cloak\r\n      and lowers it over her arms,\r\n        over her torso,\r\n        sliding it softly\r\n          along her smooth sides\r\n        till it rests about her,\r\n        balanced on her shoulders,\r\n    rests the silver-olive pointer hand\r\n      suspended from her limbs,\r\n    and places her ornamented,\r\n      filigreed crown\r\n      as a completion of her beauty,\r\n        her glory.\r\n\r\nThe leader takes her from you\r\n  (you wish to hold on\r\n  but know that would be futile;\r\n  there are laws, commands, and rituals,\r\n  and to depart from them\r\n  would hurt the one whose life,\r\n    whose giving of life,\r\n  is dearest to your heart)\r\nand moves with her\r\n\r\nbut in your love\r\n  (in the blindness of your love)\r\nyou no longer see the leader,\r\nand the scroll dances alone\r\n  a dance of heaven, a dance of magic,\r\n  a dance that newborns know,\r\n  but, as they learn to walk\r\n    like other men,\r\n    forget,\r\n  the dance that is the way that angels move\r\n    in the world to come,\r\n    the world of dreams,\r\n  a dance of words\r\n    that dance without words.\r\nIn silence you observe her motion\r\n  and wish that you could comprehend\r\n  for in her footsteps are spelled out\r\n  all the mystic names of God.\r\n\r\nThen, murmuring (again the scattered unison)\r\n  with all who worship in the sacred hall\r\n    (and in Jerusalem\r\n    and all the places that will\r\n      someday be as one)\r\n  you prepare for her departure\r\n    with words of psalms:\r\n\r\n\"This is the generation of those\r\n  that seek the Lord,\r\n  who yearn for the Presence...\r\nGates, raise up your heads,\r\nBe uplifted, ancient door...\"\r\n\r\nWe must conclude.\r\n\r\nLook:\r\nThe room seems almost empty, still,\r\n  the whispering surrounding you\r\n  not revealing the sight of any others.\r\n\r\nThe Cherubim, now still as wood,\r\n  are as if they were part\r\n  of the Ark themselves  \r\n\r\nand you move to join them,\r\n\r\nand you touch the Ark,\r\n  stroke its wood, its velvet\r\n  trace the markings\r\n  in golden-threaded braille\r\n\r\nand its spirit flows into you,\r\n  merges with you,\r\nand in your reverie\r\n  you become the Ark\r\n  become the sacred home\r\n  wear the eternal flame\r\n    as a signpost upon your brow\r\n\r\nand the scroll rests with you,\r\n  rests on your shoulders,\r\n  her ageless ancient legs relaxed,\r\n  thighs balanced about you,\r\n  legs draped down your chest\r\n    like the leather straps\r\n      of the boxes of prayers\r\n    like the exact fringes\r\n      of the shawl\r\n\r\nand she closes her eyes,\r\n  calms, sleeps,\r\nand the leader shuts the doors,\r\nthe Cherubim reassuming their initial position \r\n\r\n(\"She is a tree of life,\" they sing again,\r\n\"for those that hold her,\r\nand those that support her\r\nare filled with joy.\")\r\n\r\nand in the warmth, the darkness,\r\n  the velvet holiness\r\n  of the place you have become\r\n\r\nyou know that,\r\nfor the moment,\r\nyou have found peace,\r\n\r\nthat you,\r\nand the scroll of life,\r\nand the Presence,\r\n\r\nare as one.<\/pre>\n
(return to Shekhinah: the Presence)<\/a><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
(return to Shekhinah: the Presence) Click on the image to your right >> to purchase Shekhinah: the Presence. >> Section 7 of “Shekhinah: The Presence” by Joseph Zitt This is an unedited scan of the text, courtesy of Josh Ronsen – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – … Continue reading “Shekhinah: Kriyat HaTorah (Torah Reading)”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":35,"menu_order":7,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-100","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.josephzitt.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/100","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.josephzitt.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.josephzitt.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.josephzitt.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.josephzitt.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=100"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"http:\/\/www.josephzitt.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/100\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":443,"href":"http:\/\/www.josephzitt.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/100\/revisions\/443"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.josephzitt.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/35"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.josephzitt.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=100"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}