On Wonder: There is a Crack... That's how the Light gets in
Rabbi Tom Samuels
The great Lord Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, the former Chief Rabbi of Great Britain… a Brit… teaches us Americans something so core, so fundamental to the blessing that is, well, that is America. Let’s take a trip. Back to the American Revolution. To the City of Philadelphia. To Independence Hall, where the colonies declared their independence from Great Britain. And let’s stand, in awe, under the grandeur of the Liberty Bell. And if we look carefully, we can see that the bell is cracked. Imperfect. Broken.
And then, look closer. Inscribed on this beautiful, broken bell, is a verse from the Book of Leviticus:
וּקְרָאתֶם דְּרוֹר בָּאָרֶץ לְכָל-יֹשְׁבֶיהָ
“Proclaim liberty throughout all the land unto all of the inhabitants.” (Leviticus 25:10).
Liberty. Freedom. Human dignity. These are proclaimed to all lands. To All peoples. To All inhabitants. Not just to the priests and kings. But to everybody. Liberty belongs to us all. An inalienable right.
There is an ancient Jewish art of inquiry to discover the hidden meaning in and between the lines of our sacred texts, called Midrash. And in one of these Midrashim, our Sages teach, Lo Nitnah HaTorah LeMalchai HaSharet, that the Torah was not given to the perfect, infallible, Angels on High. Instead, God gives His Torah specifically to us imperfect, messy, broken human beings.
The Midrash continues with the Angels, frustrated with God’s decision to give human beings His Torah, they are confronted by Moses, who tells them: ‘Who then will observe the Torah? You Angels? Only humanity can assume the Law and live by its precepts. As we are taught in His Torah, that the laws and ordinances are for life-affirming,“You shall keep my rules and my laws. A person shall do them v’Chai BaHem, and live by them.” (Leviticus 18:5)
Rabbi Bradley Artson teaches that our greatest enemy is not what we think: that it is our inherent human brokenness. But rather, it is our self-shaming. We assume that we are the only cracked and broken vessels, struggling to make meaning of our lives. There are social forces that seek to impose that same message on us. They tell us that if you are broken, then you have no use any longer.
But, our messiness is the whole point. Joy and sorrow. Good and evil. Greatness and triviality. Hope and anxiety. The ideal and the actual. That is, the ability to live with these contradictions, as well as the ambivalence and tension that they create. This is what makes us human. This is what gives rise to wisdom. Our most chaotic periods, in fact, can be catalysts for understanding.
The Jewish tradition challenges us to imagine the universe prior to Creation, where all that existed was the God. And, in order to create the world, God performed an intentional act of Tzim-Tzum, self-contraction. God literally contracted the God-Self, thereby allowing the space for our world to be created. Then God placed the Shechinah, God’s Indwelling, the Divine presence, within this world, which ultimately proved unable to contain it. The world, the first Creation, burst, and in a cataclysmic moment, and those sparks of God, Nitzozts, were hurled together to form our current world. Cracked. Broken.
And it is this brokenness of creation, not the wholeness, that allows us to live. That God needs us human beings to repair this world, to gather up the sparks of Divine Holiness that are scattered throughout creation, a Tikkun Olam. As Leonard Cohen wrote: “There is a crack in everything, that’s how the light gets in, that’s how the light gets in.”
Jewish tradition offers us this opportunity to have awe. Awe through the acknowledgement of Someone far greater than ourselves… Awe where the first words we are taught to say each morning, immediately on waking, are Modeh Ani, “Thanks, I give,” an inversion of the normal word order, Ani Modeh, “I give thanks.” : first, I am grateful, indebted, in awe… and then, and only then, can there be the “I”.
Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel taught, “I would say about individuals. An Individual dies when they cease to to be surprised. I am surprised every morning when I see the sunshine again. We must learn to be surprised.”
And what am I in awe of? Grateful for? Surprised by? For my human-self. After all, “There is a crack in everything. That’s how the light gets in.”
Rabbi Tom Samuels
The great Lord Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, the former Chief Rabbi of Great Britain… a Brit… teaches us Americans something so core, so fundamental to the blessing that is, well, that is America. Let’s take a trip. Back to the American Revolution. To the City of Philadelphia. To Independence Hall, where the colonies declared their independence from Great Britain. And let’s stand, in awe, under the grandeur of the Liberty Bell. And if we look carefully, we can see that the bell is cracked. Imperfect. Broken.
And then, look closer. Inscribed on this beautiful, broken bell, is a verse from the Book of Leviticus:
וּקְרָאתֶם דְּרוֹר בָּאָרֶץ לְכָל-יֹשְׁבֶיהָ
“Proclaim liberty throughout all the land unto all of the inhabitants.” (Leviticus 25:10).
Liberty. Freedom. Human dignity. These are proclaimed to all lands. To All peoples. To All inhabitants. Not just to the priests and kings. But to everybody. Liberty belongs to us all. An inalienable right.
There is an ancient Jewish art of inquiry to discover the hidden meaning in and between the lines of our sacred texts, called Midrash. And in one of these Midrashim, our Sages teach, Lo Nitnah HaTorah LeMalchai HaSharet, that the Torah was not given to the perfect, infallible, Angels on High. Instead, God gives His Torah specifically to us imperfect, messy, broken human beings.
The Midrash continues with the Angels, frustrated with God’s decision to give human beings His Torah, they are confronted by Moses, who tells them: ‘Who then will observe the Torah? You Angels? Only humanity can assume the Law and live by its precepts. As we are taught in His Torah, that the laws and ordinances are for life-affirming,“You shall keep my rules and my laws. A person shall do them v’Chai BaHem, and live by them.” (Leviticus 18:5)
Rabbi Bradley Artson teaches that our greatest enemy is not what we think: that it is our inherent human brokenness. But rather, it is our self-shaming. We assume that we are the only cracked and broken vessels, struggling to make meaning of our lives. There are social forces that seek to impose that same message on us. They tell us that if you are broken, then you have no use any longer.
But, our messiness is the whole point. Joy and sorrow. Good and evil. Greatness and triviality. Hope and anxiety. The ideal and the actual. That is, the ability to live with these contradictions, as well as the ambivalence and tension that they create. This is what makes us human. This is what gives rise to wisdom. Our most chaotic periods, in fact, can be catalysts for understanding.
The Jewish tradition challenges us to imagine the universe prior to Creation, where all that existed was the God. And, in order to create the world, God performed an intentional act of Tzim-Tzum, self-contraction. God literally contracted the God-Self, thereby allowing the space for our world to be created. Then God placed the Shechinah, God’s Indwelling, the Divine presence, within this world, which ultimately proved unable to contain it. The world, the first Creation, burst, and in a cataclysmic moment, and those sparks of God, Nitzozts, were hurled together to form our current world. Cracked. Broken.
And it is this brokenness of creation, not the wholeness, that allows us to live. That God needs us human beings to repair this world, to gather up the sparks of Divine Holiness that are scattered throughout creation, a Tikkun Olam. As Leonard Cohen wrote: “There is a crack in everything, that’s how the light gets in, that’s how the light gets in.”
Jewish tradition offers us this opportunity to have awe. Awe through the acknowledgement of Someone far greater than ourselves… Awe where the first words we are taught to say each morning, immediately on waking, are Modeh Ani, “Thanks, I give,” an inversion of the normal word order, Ani Modeh, “I give thanks.” : first, I am grateful, indebted, in awe… and then, and only then, can there be the “I”.
Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel taught, “I would say about individuals. An Individual dies when they cease to to be surprised. I am surprised every morning when I see the sunshine again. We must learn to be surprised.”
And what am I in awe of? Grateful for? Surprised by? For my human-self. After all, “There is a crack in everything. That’s how the light gets in.”