Wholehearted

The way I write this blog - which brings me immense pleasure - is that I generally latch onto a phrase, a word, a phrase, a pairing of verses, or a group of verses, that speak to me and inspire me to write.  I think this is, in one sense, the essence of Torah study - the study, the thinking, the integration, the output.

I was getting a little afraid, though, in combining the third and fourth aliyot of Shoftim tonight, in that in reading, and all of Torah is precious and beautiful to me, nothing was jumping out.  Until, of course, the very last verse.  Baruch H'.  

This verse, after a long list of prohibitions regarding what "shall not be found among you," simply reads (Devarim 18:13):

Tamim te-hi'yea im H' Elohecha.

"Wholehearted" shall you be with H' your G-d.

What an interesting phrase, and what an interesting word - this tamim.  My chumash translates it as "wholehearted," and that indeed may be an accurate translation, but Google translate, my back-up source, has more . . . child-like . . . connotations attached: "innocent," "naive."  (Interestingly, a very thorough translation called The Torah: A Mechanical Translation has it as "whole.") Both wholehearted and whole - I love them both.

It stands in contrast to the verses before and, as always, also stands alone: One on hand, people go everywhere to search for G-d (they don't know that they're searching for G-d, but they are), and, at the end of the day, this search will always come up just slightly empty, because it's a search for truth in a sea of falsehood.  And therefore, the only search - the whole search - should be for G-d.  

But standing alone, the verse needs no comparison either: We should be whole - wholehearted in our pursuit, totally and utterly wholehearted in our faith, made whole by H', and totally and completed devoted and dialed into constant divine presence.

Whether this or that, here or there, whatever it is - I rest in the faith and trust and knowledge and integration that it is all echad - and come wholehearted and am made whole by this constant Presence.  May H' bless me with the constant knowledge, ease, and relationship to earn this awareness and relationship.