Elul Reflections 17 – September 8

Rabbi Nico Socolovsky

..The chief of the police asked: “How am I to understand that God, who is omniscient, asks Adam, ‘Where are you?’”

The rabbi replied: “Do you believe that scripture is eternal and encompasses every age, every generation, and every person?” —- “Well now,” said the Zaddik, “in every age God addresses every person with the question, ‘Where are you in your world? Already so many of your allotted years and days have passed. How far have you come in your world?’

Perhaps God will say, ‘You have lived forty-six years. Where are you now?’”

When the chief of police heard the exact number of his years, he pulled himself together, clasped the rabbi’s shoulder, and exclaimed: “Bravo!” but his heart trembled.

“When asking in this manner, God does not really want to be informed about something that is not known. Rather, God wishes to affect something in a person that can only be effected by such a question. The question is intended to penetrate the human heart but can do so only if the person allows the heart to be penetrated”

(Martin Buber – The way of Man).

No matter how big our accomplishments are, as long as we don’t submit to the question, we will miss an essential element of our existence. It’s like having the newest Smartphone without any 4G connection or WiFi. It is potentially great but you can’t really use it.

Under all the noise that surrounds our lives there is an I, you, me, who is struggling to hear the small voice asking AYEKA? Where are you? An invitation to self-awareness that is being extended to us in every single moment of our lives, when the mere act of hearing it opens for us the possibility of a magic encounter with our souls… A question, a GPS to our souls!