2001 - United Synagogue Youth

ShalhevetContinued from previous page:used. If this guy had at any point touched my soulwith his rubbish, I had immediately erased it frommy mind, as I laughed at the sheer absurdity ofwhat this loon was saying. As we sat down, thoughI had ceased to listen attentively to Sum-Sum, whocontinued rambling, I still listened critically to theguide, solely for the purpose of taking apart hiswords in my mind and mocking them.“Now that you have all been seated,” remarkedthe phony, teeth chattering a bit due tothe chill of the night, “I’m going to have to ask youto stand up again, to go find a spot separate fromthe rest of the group, where each of you may bealone.” People began to pull themselves to theirfeet and dust off their behinds; some still snickeredat the thought of the “ritual dance” in whichthey had just partaken. “When you get to thisplace, sit down, breathe deeply a few times, observethe sky and the sand...” He paused. “Andtry to feel your God around you, enveloping you.”My friends began to get up and find a nookof their own in the desert. Unwilling to be theonly individual not participating in this activity, Iforced myself to trudge through the quicksand andfound a smooth rock surrounded by thorny, angledsagebrush. I’ll just sit here for a couple of minutes,then I’ll go back to the base to sleep, I thought.They can’t possibly make me stay here and inhalethis nonsense. I was just about to get up, ready toreturn to my bed in hopeless disgust.But then I looked up into the sky. And Isaw God. I saw God without having glanced uponHim. I saw the dark sky, and the gray expanse ofthe desert, and those stars - the same stars I seeat every night a hemisphere away, the same starsthat Abraham saw when God promised to numberhis children like those selfsame stars in thesky. And I knew - I didn’t think, I knew - that therewas something much more to this barren desert,to life itself. It came to me that I understood whatthis man whom I had ridiculed, had scorned, hadmeant when he said there were more pressingconcerns. Life did not revolve around me. Therewere more important things in this desert, in life,than what I wore, than who my friends were, thanwho I was. For the first time, I saw the biggerpicture. Suddenly, in my mind appeared the wordsof the Hebrew song, “Todah al-Kol Mah-sheh Barata,”meaning “Thank you for all you have created.”I examined these words, turned them upside down,saw them, heard them through fresh organs. Thisepiphany had taken my breath away, had left medumb and speechless.When I had composed myself once again, Iturned my arm over and looked at the large, bloodiedbandage that covered my elbow. I remembered,then, how I had injured myself rappelling,how my arm had bled so and my veins surged withpain. Now, as I turned my focus back into themidnight sky littered with tiny, remote universes, Ino longer felt the pain that had a few secondsbefore existed. I no longer felt my body at all. AllI felt was a deep consciousness and understanding.I looked into the sky, and I felt insignificantand trivial. I was humbled in the presence of theking before whom I stood.The wise man called us back to the circleafter what seemed like eons. I tried to stand up,but I could not.35