I am sure that I could spend more time, no doubt, on the v’ahavta and meditating upon it. But tonight I was moved to begin studying the Shemoneh Esrei in the hopes of having a greater understanding of these two holy prayers by the end of Pesach.
In reading it tonight, as always so many beautiful lines caught my attention, but I was particularly struck by the blessing of “bless all of us, as one.”
I don’t think I am speaking blasphemy when I say that, quite honestly, you don’t hear a whole lot of talk of unity in Torah. There always seem to be opposing forces and individuals at odds and mistakes and rectification. The true moments of unity, such as standing together at the foot of Mount Sinai and receiving Torah, are truly beautiful and inspiring but also perhaps so because of their uniqueness. So when you read a prayer talking about blessing the people as one as opposed to blessing someone for their own individual merits, I have to say that it is striking.
The implications are, of course, highly mystical. At root there is only one Being in the entire universe and that is what the key revolution that Judaism brought to the world, I think it can be fairly said. And mystical experiences often key on this ungraspable notion of Divine Unity, especially on the human level when we seem so different and divided, even and perhaps especially in the Jewish community
And yet this mystical experience, this message that each deed we complete has an immediate, everlasting, but also instantaneous effect on our entire people - there it is said twice daily in this foundational prayer.
Something to keep in mind, for sure, in this holy season of liberation in which we were all set free from the bounds which previously entrapped us - all of us, together.
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