Day 20 – Cry

20 Elul 5776
by Anonymous
We are assembled today in the House of God, God’s House, to honor Him.
I see you and you. I see you too.  I see all of us. Wise men teach us to be seen and not heard, but we are a bouquet of poppies.
I do not see Him. I never see Him. I am in His House, and He is nowhere to be seen. He is festooned in obscurity. Wise men teach us He is to be heard and not seen.
Wise men test my patience.
I join you in a procession of dance and song asking His forgiveness. How can he see or hear me in this chorus line? How can he know it is me? I want Him to see and hear me. I want Him to know me. And I want to know Him. Forgiveness is an afterthought. Forgiveness comes later.
So, I cry.  I cry for Him to hear me.
Cries reduce the distance, the separation between us, the listener – the hear-er. and me. Cries are immediate, sharp and cunning. Cries are irreducible.
But, does He hear my cry?
Do you hear me?
Does anyone?
Is there no one to hear me?
Perhaps I only think I cry.  Perhaps, I no longer know how to do it.  Wise people have taught me cries are useless, a source of punishable shame, but we are here – in a muted, but defiant, crying.
In this congregation of muffled silences, I know you huddle with me. I feel you. You are a disturbing suffering, a wet anguish. Your misery, a risky wail to be known and understood yet safely hidden, is a thick and wearying knowledge.
Your yearning deserves a cry, a piercing and devastating shout, that shakes its audience and demands its attention. That shakes me and you and Him, that impenetrable, perhaps unhearing and unseeing One.
Here I am! Here I am!
Does He too not wish His cry?  Does He too not wish me to know him but fears His being seen and heard? Does He too not wish to leave His sheltered concealment and joyfully live?
Does anyone hear my cry?  Does anyone hear me?

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