{"id":113,"date":"2009-03-07T23:40:34","date_gmt":"2009-03-08T04:40:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.josephzitt.com\/home\/?page_id=113"},"modified":"2011-10-12T21:49:04","modified_gmt":"2011-10-13T02:49:04","slug":"shekhinah-hosafot-beyond-conclusions","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"http:\/\/www.josephzitt.com\/home\/books\/shekhinah-the-presence\/shekhinah-hosafot-beyond-conclusions\/","title":{"rendered":"Shekhinah: Hosafot (Beyond Conclusions)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Click on the image to your right >>
\nto purchase Shekhinah: the Presence. >><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

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

<\/em>
\nSection 10 of “Shekhinah: The Presence” by Joseph Zitt
\nThis is an unedited scan of the text, courtesy of Josh Ronsen
\n– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –<\/p>\n

In hushes close to silence\r\nthe prayers dissolve, transmute.\r\n\r\nThose who follow minority traditions [NOTE FROM JOSH:\r\nminority sounds too clinical; how \u0091bout other\r\ntraditions]\r\ncontinue, reading psalms\r\n  commandments\r\n  structures of principles\r\n  a daily page of learning\r\ntogether, apart,\r\n  in pairs, in silence.\r\n\r\nOthers,\r\nprayers finished for the morning,\r\nprepare to leave.\r\n\r\nThe murmur of the congregants\r\nslowly shifts\r\n  from the magical to the mundane\r\n  from sacred texts to software systems\r\n  from Bible study to business plans.\r\n\r\nThere is no prayer\r\n  to mark the end of prayer,\r\nno verbal separation between\r\n  the sacred and the secular.\r\nWorshippers reach for the velvet bags\r\nplaced earlier on the shelf\r\n\r\nand gradually remove from themselves\r\n  the boxes of prayers\r\n  the leather straps\r\n  the prayers shawls,\r\n    black and white and blue,\r\n    fringes of white and blue.\r\n\r\nBut the sense of the Presence\r\nthe holiness of the articles\r\n  in which the congregants\r\n  have clothed themselves to pray\r\nis not removed;\r\n\r\na coating of the sacred\r\nstays with each soul,\r\nto be preserved,\r\n  enhanced, or\r\n  dissipated\r\nby the actions of the day.\r\n\r\nListen now:\r\n  the last of the prayers is complete,\r\n  the sounds of the service replaced by\r\n    traffic\r\n    banter\r\n    telephone calls.\r\n  This hall of prayers is now again\r\n\r\n  a room\r\n\r\n  with sacred books\r\n  and the Ark, with its scrolls within,\r\n\r\n  mute,\r\n  yet bearing silent testimony\r\n  to the purpose that they will\r\n  once again\r\n  serve.\r\n\r\nLook now,\r\ntouch the textures of the wooden\r\n  walls\r\n  seats\r\n  floors,\r\ninhale,\r\ntaste,\r\n\r\nthe air of this room,\r\n  now mundane\r\n  but retaining some strange sacredness,\r\n\r\nfeel,\r\nwith senses that have no human name,\r\nthe Presence\r\n\r\nwho waits forever in this hall\r\nwho looks down from heaven\r\n  and ahead and back\r\n  at ancestors and children\r\n  across the plains of space\r\n  along the rivers of time\r\nwho follows those who move\r\n  within this apparently real world.\r\n\r\nThe leather straps unwind\r\n  unspelling the Holy Name\r\n  encrypted in their twists.\r\n(No golem now could be enlivened\r\n  by these items\r\n  as they lie, dark, inert,\r\n  within their cases;\r\na human touch must warm them,\r\n  give them form, before\r\n  any sacred power can\r\n  course along their lines.)\r\nThe prayer shawls fold,\r\n  in half,\r\n  quarters,\r\n  then in eighths,\r\ngently, solemnly, like honored flags,\r\nand join the others in their cases.\r\n\r\nIt'\u0092s time to go home now.\r\n\r\nYet the Presence reaches out once more\r\nall moments crystallized within her gaze.\r\n\r\nInvisible, in silence,\r\nshe moves along,\r\naround the time-encrusted congregants,\r\nto grace the hall, the walls, the doorways\r\nthrough which all who leave must pass.\r\n\r\nOne final kiss, then,\r\nfor those who leave\r\n  to greet the warmth of the morning.\r\nHer spirit fills the box of memories\r\n  that stands sentry\r\n  on the doorposts of the hall.\r\n\r\nOne kiss then,\r\n  as she stands there\r\n  in her gentle light.\r\nSister to the scrolls,\r\n  she touches lips to hands,\r\n  as those who pass her\r\n  have touched theirs to theirs,\r\nthen touches hands to loving hands\r\n\r\nand her fingers whisper messages\r\nto the listening palms\r\nof those who sense her there:\r\n\r\nI am with you now, forever,\r\n  as you venture out,\r\n  into the harsher rush of morning.\r\nI have always been with you,\r\n  in righteousness and justice,\r\n    kindness, mercy,\r\n  with you who knew of me and loved me,\r\n  even with each of you\r\n    who may or may not have known\r\n      that I was there,\r\n    who may or may not have cared,\r\n      have listened,\r\n      have believed.\r\nI will always be with you,\r\n  in faithfulness,\r\n  and you will know my love\r\n  as you wander onward\r\n    through this world,\r\n  as you pass beyond this life\r\n    to the unknown,\r\nas you, within the mist, await the day\r\n\r\nthat all times will again be one,\r\nthat all of space will come together,\r\nthat the river of life will flow\r\n  beyond the pillars\r\n  beyond the walls between the worlds\r\nand what was once the Earth\r\n  will be once again a garden\r\n  and all pain will forever be banished\r\n  and all people will be clothed\r\n  in the flesh of truth and honest love\r\nand all will eat without shame\r\n  of the firm, sweet fruit of life\r\n  digesting the knowledge of good and evil\r\nand the serpents\r\n  will again wlak proudly,\r\n  will walk straight-legged, tall and wise,\r\nand all creatures\r\n  will discover their true names\r\n    as whispered in their ears by Adam\r\n    but forgotten for an endless moment\r\n    when first the garden was concealed.\r\n\r\nI am with you,\r\nwas,\r\nwill be with you\r\nin all my hidden forms:\r\n\r\nRachel,\r\n  tears about to turn to joy\r\n  at the transformation of her children\r\n\r\nthe Sacred Scrolls,\r\n  the ink and parchment gaining life\r\n  and dancing free, a skin of comfort\r\n\r\nthe Moon,\r\n  her cycles shown to be\r\n  illusions framed by the tides of Earth,\r\n  forever full, forever shining,\r\n  with glory equal to the sun\r\n\r\nthe Sabbath,\r\n  Queen of Comfort, mystic day\r\n  that all days will soon become.\r\n\r\nListen:\r\n  the daughter of a voice\r\n  you hear within\r\n  as you catch your breath\r\n    before you say\r\n    each one of your passing prayers\r\n  is the modulation\r\n    the harmony\r\n    of my voice with your own.\r\n\r\nListen:\r\n\r\n  Here till the end of days \r\n\r\n  we together as one \r\n\r\n  now \r\n\r\n  stand.\r\n\r\nListen:\r\n\r\n  I will be with you,\r\n  remaining here in my hall to dream\r\n  as in my dreams I enter  yours\r\n   and guide you onward\r\n\r\n  through the world of life\r\n  through the world of dreams\r\n  through the greater world\r\n\r\n  within your souls.<\/pre>\n
(return to Shekhinah: the Presence)<\/a><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Click on the image to your right >> to purchase Shekhinah: the Presence. >> Section 10 of “Shekhinah: The Presence” by Joseph Zitt This is an unedited scan of the text, courtesy of Josh Ronsen – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – … Continue reading “Shekhinah: Hosafot (Beyond Conclusions)”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":35,"menu_order":10,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-113","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.josephzitt.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/113","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=113"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/www.josephzitt.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/113\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":446,"href":"http:\/\/www.josephzitt.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/113\/revisions\/446"}],"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=113"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}