a language forgotten

A Story Across Time

  הֲפֹךְ בָּהּ וַהֲפֹךְ בָּהּ, דְּכֹלָּא בָהּ

Turn it over and Turn it over.
Again and Again
Everything is in it

 Sayings of the Fathers/Pirkeh Avos 5.22

 A very long time ago, somewhere, somehow, ancient letters and an ancient language came into being. These letters and words were woven into an ancient mystery text. 

The text was carried, often lovingly, by many, across time and space.  Somehow original meanings were forgotten.  Across the generations, the text, compelling and intriguing, was often probed, turned over and debated, over and over again, and yet still it remained perplexing, mysterious, still calling out to be heard and known.

Generations later, in the shadow of smoke-billowing steel mills, on a tree lined street in a small town in mid-America, in an America full of hope and promise,  a young boy watched his grandfather, a rabbi from the Old World, with a white beard, with eyes that were sometimes twinkling, sometimes sad, sit at his desk by the window, day after day, poring over the ancient text that his ancestors had passed along for thousands of years.

The ancestors had lovingly carried the letters and words from generation to generation, across time and space, always probing , always attempting to decipher and understand the mysterious, cryptic text.  They had journeyed from far-away deserts under starry skies, where the words had first been heard and seen, to the walled medinas of Morocco, to hilltops in Old Spain, to the riverbank of the Tiber in Rome, over mountain passes in the Dolomites , to walled towns in medieval Germany, to small villages amidst the lush, forested  lands near the Baltic Sea and then finally  across the Great Ocean to the promise and dream of a new land called America.  

It was there that the young boy watched and listened to his grandfather as he told of the letters and the words. His grandfather, a rabbi, had been trained in the wooden study houses of Eastern Europe , taught to wrestle with the letters and words, taught to carry and transmit the letters and words.  His grandfather was the first to show the young boy the text, to sing the haunting melodies, to say the ancient blessings, to perform the rituals of telling the ancient stories and of  living in temporary shelters. 

Somehow these memories stayed with the young boy as he grew.  After years of journeying and exploring, the boy, now a young man, took up a blank canvas, paints and brush and began to let lines and colors dance on the empty white spaces.  As he painted his eyes opened to new ways. He explored mystery.  He also began once again to probe the ancient text and in thatbexploration, his eyes opened to new ways of seeing the letters and the words.

The text called to him, spoke to him.  He saw the individual letters dancing and he saw new meanings. He poured over the beginning of the ancient text , over and over again, for hours, for days, for weeks on end until he began to see the letters and the words in new ways. They stood together. They stood alone. They separated  from one another. They came together with one another in old and new ways.

Over and over again he looked at the ancient letters.

בְּרֵאשִׁית, בָּרָא אֱלֹהִים, אֵת הַשָּׁמַיִם, וְאֵת הָאָרֶץ

And after hours and days and weeks he saw…

Embedded in B’reishisבְּרֵאשִׁית
Was  Aish -  אש
The Fire of Mystery

And Then
The Mysterious Fire
the Aish- אש

Split into two.

The Shin שִׁ
Stayed Above
And Became Shamayim- שָמַיִם

Shamayim
(More than Heavens)
The world behind the Veil
No-thingness
Ever-changing -  Always flowing

The Aleph א
Came down
Into this World
And Became Aretz - ארץ

Aretz
(More than Earth)
The world of Things
Of Time and Space
Of Rocks and Rivers
Of  Trees and Beings

Separate
But Always
Still
One

 And he saw other words in the ancient text in new ways…

וַיּוֹלֶד נֹחַ, אֶת-שֵׁם אֶת-חָם וְאֶת-יָפֶת

 The text read by many  as

From Noah was born Shem, Cham Yaphet

He heard another way 
He heard and saw

From Noah was born Knowledge, Passion, Beauty

And a myriad of possibilities opened
To new ways of seeing, new ways of listening
To new discoveries, new meanings and new understandings

These were beginnings for the young man, the beginnings of a new journey of seeking, exploring, wondering, of an ongoing and continued  journey over many years.  It was a journey sometimes alone and sometimes with others. The journey with others was sometimes around a table and sometimes with the words of past generations. It was a journey of being enchanted by the letters and the ancient text,  over and over again,  probing and discovering the ancient text, dancing with the letters over and over again.

And after many years of having put aside the brush and the paints,  the young man, now grey in beard, once again continued the journey with paint, standing before the wilderness of empty spaces.  For him, the  mystery of the ancient beginnings and the dance of the letters were now wedded to the unfolding of lines and colors on those blank canvases and it became a new exploration of the ancient mystery. 

And even now, after many years of the journey, the letters and words are still not revealed.  At times, there are hints of ancient meanings, hints of wonder, hints of mystery, but still only hints.  Yet,  in their mystery they continue to call out so that the exploration continues, must continue even in the knowing that the work will not be completed.

And yet somehow, in the very journey itself , there is ongoing discovery, ongoing wonder and even ongoing joy.

, הַיּוֹם קָצָר וְהַמְּלָאכָה מְרֻבָּה

לֹא עָלֶיךָ הַמְּלָאכָה לִגְמֹר, וְלֹא אַתָּה בֶן חוֹרִין לִבָּטֵל מִמֶּנָּה

The day is short, and the work is great.
It is not your duty to finish the work, but neither are you at liberty to  avoid it; 

Sayings of the Fathers/Pirkeh Avot  2:14-15