CyberTorah

Yearning

It is not good for Adam to be alone…

Being human means being alone. We live in our own subjective experience, separated in the darkness behind our eyes from all that is. And at the same exact moment, we are part of all that is. We breathe and our breath goes back into the world. Our consciousness imagines our self to be limited by our bodies but this too is an illusion.

And so in that paradox of aloneness and connection, yearning comes into being. As our will and ego emerge from within the self, we sense the paradox and we want to resolve it. We know that love is possible, that deep connection with another person exists. We know in our bones that we are part of a greater whole. And we also know that we live and die alone.

The Torah shows Adam’s aloneness, and offers us stories of how we yearn and find connection. As we turn to the story of Isaac, we encounter a story of wholeness and connection. Isaac encounters Rebecca in the fields. He has lost his mother and father; he is alone. For him, that yearning has been a teacher. It has brought him out to meditate, to sit, to experience the paradox of his separation and connection. And in that place of breath and contemplation, a wholeness emerges in him.

From that place of wholeness, he encounters Rebecca for the first time. And the Torah uncharacteristically offers us romance. “He took Rebecca as his wife and loved her and was comforted for the loss of his mother.” From wholeness wells love. And from the love, he finds comfort. He can share the story of his mother with Rebecca, and she, lovingly, will hold the story with Isaac. In that way he finds comfort knowing that he remains deeply alone and deeply connected.

Isaac’s servant, who finds Rebecca and brings her to Isaac, shows the yearning and its capacity to be waylaid. He could have been seduced by beauty or wealth in looking for a partner for Isaac. Instead, he searches after an example of hesed, of compassion, and finds it in Rebecca’s offer to bring him water. Water on the mystical level is always about life and blessing. So she offers life and blessing and the servant has eyes open to see it.

Our yearnings often delude us. We think: we yearn for a thing; or we strive after control of others. The physical world pulls us with incredible strength and the more we give in to its illusions the stronger its hold becomes on us. When we do that, when the ego self seeks to expand beyond its boundaries, we exhaust ourselves and our energies of blessing and love in trying to grasp, hold, and control.

By contrast, our soul, our deepest self, invites us to contract, let the breath in, to let go of our need for control and to go forth into the chaos and vulnerability of authentic relationship where anything can happen. It is in that place of genuine encounter that our loneliness can be met by the unique alterity of the Other and be transformed into something that can redeem, comfort, and strengthen.

May we all be blessed to breathe into our yearnings, to open ourselves up to genuine empathetic and curious encounter, and in that place find real comfort as we further strengthen our own capacity to offer blessing and hesed.

With a wish of Shabbat joy and rest,

Rabbi David Booth