Sometimes words bang on the doors of me, begging to be let out. Is it a striving desperation to make meaning out of madness? To tame an untamable experience by shaping it with narrative?
Several weeks ago, my classmates and I encountered Rebbe Nahman’s texts about The Void – and the silence within it. For many of my classmates, facing that silence led to more silence. But for me, it just made the words louder. I write constantly. Sometimes the words rush from my fingers faster than I can type them, an unstoppable flood pouring from the rock Moshe hit with his stick, when he couldn’t find words himself. It seems the harder it is to find the words, the more the words find me.
Chaim Bialik writes, “It is that very eternal darkness that is so fearsome – that darkness from the time of Creation…Every man is afraid of it and every man is drawn to it. With our very lips we construct barriers, words upon words and systems upon systems, and place them in front of the darkness to conceal it; but then our nails immediately begin to dig at those barriers, in an attempt to open the smallest of windows, the tiniest of cracks, through which we may gaze for a single moment at that which is on the other side.”
Perhaps writing is one of my attempts to create a penimi from a maqqif (something I can grasp within that wish is ungraspable). A way to crack a hole in the darkness of the void. A way of finding God in a place that appears empty, so that I can chase the next void, and the one after that.
With that in mind, I share a list of things I created within the void of 2020 – rituals, poems, prayers, and videos. This is not a comprehensive list. I only included the creations I felt I could publish or name in this space or elsewhere. The list doesn’t include all of my school writing (one of my classes had weekly reflection assignments) and it doesn’t include every private ritual I created for people who needed them. It also doesn’t include the virtual programs I built. But it’s a start.
I’m grateful for all the words that found me in the emptiness, but I pray for a 2021 that is full – full of inspiration, full of healing, and full of hope. Blessings on your journey, beloveds. See you on the other side.
Published on Ritualwell:
- Prayer Before Starting IVF
- Postponement Prayer (also published in When the World Turned Inward, Vol. 2)
- Virtual Memory Circle
- Hearing in our Hearts
- God’s Lament: A Letter to Daughter Zion (from Reb Shulamit’s class)
Videos:
- What Have We Lost?
- History of Loneliness
- History of Languages
- Looking Behind: A Monologue from Lot’s Wife
- Light and Darkness
Published in the Forward:
On my blog
- Nahman’s Dancing Circle, Chayei Sarah, and Pixar’s Inside Out (reflection assignment for Reb Elliot’s class)
- Get In, Get Real, and Grow (reflection assignment for Reb Elliot’s class)
- Letter to Rebbe Nahman (reflection assignment for Reb Elliot’s class)
- Shelters (in Place): A Pandemic Sukkot
- Holding the Shattered Pieces
- Grief in the Book of Ruth: Ruth’s Letter to Mahlon (from Reb Shulamit’s class)
- Silent and Sacred: Parshat Shmini for 2020
- Letter from God to the Ones Who Struggle: A Reinterpretation of Song of Songs (from Reb Shulamit’s Class)
- Alone Together: Parshat Vayikra
- Where Are You?
Publishing in 2021, but written in 2020
- Letter from Vashti to the New Queen of Shushan (publication set for February, I hope)
- Prayer for the Covid-19 Vaccine
- Havdalah for Letting Go
- Mezuzah Ritual for Moving into a New Home
Papers for Biblical Civilizations class
- A Tale of Two Floods
- “To Teach and Enlighten:” The Book of Joshua and the Book of Judges
- Three Contemporary Prophecies written in the style of the prophet, Ezekiel
- A Contemporary Apocalypse in the style of the Book of Daniel
- Bringing Biblical Life and History to Hillel
Scattered Leaves 