Skip to main content

Corona and our senses

Corona has a unique way that it manifested itself. There is no more taste, no more smell, our mouths and noses are covered and even our hands are told, don’t touch, and wash.

We have been deprived of 3 of our 5 senses. 

The only 2 senses left are Seeing and hearing. A throw back to a Har Sinai experience ??

If I understand properly from Chazal, The senses of seeing and hearing are Emunah senses. They are deep and demand that we stop acting, we stop talking, we are now in an observation mode. It is meditation time, just like watching the flames 🔥 of the menorah and hearing the Meguilat Esther. The 2 holidays given to us to confront exile and learn to fight it. 

And so in my opinion one of the real work is to learn to deeply understand and see the hand of HaShem, it is an internal process so that inner peace can be found in the middle of darkness. Inner peace means also caring with all those we love, it means expanding one’s heart to pray for humanity, feeling connected to humanity, being empathetic to its need Hearing and seeing the cry of those who suffer and seeing HaShem’s love in action behind the vail of nature and human’s hands.

We have been pushed to meditate for a whole year. Perfecting our senses of seeing and hearing, contemplating and observing in a spiritual and universal way. 

Maybe HaShem is waiting that we should see with our eyes and hear with our ears(  עֵינַיִם לָהֶם וְלֹא יִרְאוּ: אָזְנַיִם לָהֶם וְלֹא יִשְׁמָעוּ ) so that when we finally go out of this process, we will pay attention to the world and appreciate it like never before. We will hear people and look at them differently, with added sensitivity and greatness. Everyone is precious and everyone deserves to be loved. Everyone deserves to have an ear that listens to him/her and eyes that sees him/her.  A type of Ahava’s Chinam perhaps.

We are taught by Chazal that before Moshiach comes prophecy will start to be restored.

Chanukah and Purim corresponding to seeing and hearing also correspond to the qualities of Netzach and Hod which are responsible for the gift of prophecy. And so we are indeed trying to reconnect to our first intimate experience with HaShem, where we could see the sound. Meaning that we could truly feel and understand what we were observing and hearing, like a transparent relationship.

Imagine being able to really really grasp what people need and mean when they speak or move a certain way. We would be able to communicate with others with so much more clarity and love. And obviously teach us to do the same with HaShem and what He does in this world. May we all be able to reach this level and being able to say to HaShem and people: “I now understand what you said/ask. I now see what you really meant/want/need.”

This idea is also one of the reason we say “Shema Israel”. We are focusing on these two senses and try to merge them, reconnecting to the level of Har Sinai and asking the we should be able to hear and see that HaShem is one and how to use all our experiences and messages in our lives and see that they are here to teach me and direct me to bring more unity in the world and realize that we can live on a level where HaShem is communicating with us through everything we see and hear.

BY:  Rabbi Gutmacher

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

TAKING IT WITH YOU-MISHPATIM-ALEINU

Our sages teach us, “On the Red Sea, God appeared to them like a young boy, while at Sinai, He appeared like an old man.” At first thought, this is extremely difficult to understand, since it is written, “You have not seen   any image (To see Deuteronomy 4:15).” We can explain this with an example. When a parent loves his child, this great love causes the child’s image to be engraved on the parent’s mind. It is therefore as if the child were actually standing in the presence of the parent. When the child is young, he exists in his parent’s mind in the image of a small child. Later, when he grows, the image in the parent’s thoughts is that of an older person.   It is known that, “Israel rose first in thought.” This means that they are constantly engraved in the Supernal Thought, just as a child is in its parent’s mind. When a child acts properly and does what its parent wishes, this is the image that is engraved in its parent’s thoughts. The same is true when the child goes aga...
Post a Comment
Read more

Goodness and Blessing

 “May it be Your Will, God, our Lord, and the Lord of our forefathers, that You inaugurate this month upon us for goodness and for blessing.” We pray for Moshe’s third trip even before we receive his report of his second. We pray assuming that we will not only be forgiven, but will be granted even more as Moshe ascends Sinai for a third time. We acknowledge God, that He is our Lord. We call on the merit of our forefathers. By: Rabbi Simcha Weinberg
Post a Comment
Read more

Consistent proportions ....

  Ketores   Ketores reminds me of stoichiometry, which is a fancy word in chemistry for proportions. Let’s take H 2 O (water)—it is a proportion of two hydrogen atoms and one oxygen. No matter how much water I have, whether it’s the volume of a swimming pool, or a tiny drop, it has constant molecular proportionality; every water molecule in that pool or in that tiny drop is no more and no less than two hydrogens for every one oxygen. We have proportionality in the ketores: “1) Balsam, 2) onycha, 3) & galbanum 4) frankincense – the weight of 70 maneh each. 5) myrrh, 6) cassia & 7) spikenard & 8) saffron – [each] a weight of 16, 16 maneh. 9) costus – 12 maneh 10) aromatic bark – three [maneh] 11) cinnamon – 9 (maneh) [Added also were] Lye of Carsina – 9 Kavs (a measure), Wine of Cypres – 3 Seahs and 3 kavs- and if one did not find wine of Cypres – he brings old wine. Salt of Sodom – a quarter [of a kav.]… Rabbi Yehuda said “This is the general rule – if it is ...
Post a Comment
Read more