Eye of My Eyes

At our last Brooklyn Shabbat

Dear friends,

We stand in solidarity and love with Temple Israel in Michigan in the wake of the shooting yesterday. The fight against antisemitism is never-ending, and is intertwined with the fight against hate of all kinds. Let us stand proud of the Judaism we practice and love as we humbly work to uproot falsehood and violent expressions of hatred perpetuated against Jews, and all people. I offer the following prayer, which came out earlier this week, and invite you all to join us for Shabbat this evening in Fort Greene.  And please take a look at the related message below the prayer,  from a few long time community members.

Dear God, 

I try to avoid making requests from You out of a combination of humility and doubt, so I write these words with fear of ridicule or worse, and a plea for compassion. I am just a man, poor of deeds, slow of thought, soft of heart, whose merit is thanks to his teachers, parents, brothers, friends, children, wife, and, mostly, to You. So please forgive me as I make a request of You, creator, master of the world, source of the seen and unseen, ruler of the imagined and the true, spring of time and breath and peace, heart of my heart and eye of my eyes. 

I do not make this request on my own behalf. I suffer from this war far less than millions of others:  
Less than those burying their loved ones,
those in hospitals 
those displaced from their homes 
those hiding in shelters 
those whose country is being bombed.  

Less than those who are bombing or whose children are bombing 
those who are helpless to protect their children, their parents, themselves 
those who hear the bombs, the airplanes, the drones, the rockets.

Less than those whose children’s schools have been closed for weeks 
those who are exhausted, afraid, depressed and beaten down by years of war and failed resistance. 

But I share with them the same human frame, the same feelings of love and hate and loss and hope. I share with many of them the same sense of the collapse of my country, the same feeling of impotence in the face of corruption, the same rage, the same despair, the same dread, the same devotion, the same strength; we are caught in the very same grip of insanity, stupidity and greed. 

And so, though I live oceans away from where the sirens blaze, I suffer this war with them. I suffer my family’s fear, my people’s fatigue, my so called enemy’s losses, my real enemy’s survival. I feel my connection to every single human being living on this earth, and to each human being that ever lived or will live, all of us caught for the duration of our lives in a web of illusion and a net of temporary power dynamics that mean less than nothing. 

Perhaps You have a reason for this madness. Maybe cruelty performs some mystical task I don’t understand. Maybe we are learning without realizing it. Maybe we are being challenged to go further, much further into love and trust and selflessness like our ancestors. Maybe we are dreaming our way into a world of truth that can’t come about without this one filled with lies. Or maybe none of that is true, but the freedom You have given to human beings comes at the price of what we bring upon ourselves. 

I see that this world is in our hands. I am not asking for a miracle. I know that the problem is deeper than one or two or more specific people who I occasionally sin by fantasizing about their death. My request is not for an external intervention, the swaying of Your mighty hand, but for some shift in the thinking of people in positions of power that will bring about the end of what in my limited, shallow and impatient eyes appears to be an incredibly stupid, cruel and cynical war between a host of terrible actors. You, eye of my eyes, are the eye of the eyes of those making decisions that cause this war to escalate, and others that could cause it to de-escalate, some that make it start, and others that make it stop. You have the power to make them see the futility of this war.  

Dear God of my life and the lives of all living beings: all lies with You. Please, help us end this war. Let a new path emerge from it. Make us vessels of peace. Help us renounce the path of conflict and self-destruction that we may return to You in peace and Oneness. As is written “They shall not hurt nor destroy anything in all my holy mountain: for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the divine as the waters cover the sea.” 

לֹא יָרֵעוּ וְלֹא יַשְׁחִיתוּ בְּכׇל הַר קׇדְשִׁי כִּי מָלְאָה הָאָרֶץ דֵּעָה אֶת יְהֹוָה כַּמַּיִם לַיָּם מְכַסִּים. 
 
Shabbat shalom, 

Rabbi Misha