(Originially published in 2020)
את ה’ האמרת היום
וה’ האמירך היום
You have affirmed this day that the Lord is your God. . .
And the Lord has affirmed this day that you are His treasured people . . . (Devarim 26: 17-18).
The words translated here as “affirmed,” he’emarta and he’emirkha — there is much debate over their meaning since they do not appear in that form anywhere else in the Torah. They could mean “affirmed,” “raised up,” “separated,” “beautified,” or “caused to say.”
Whatever their meaning, what is so beautiful here is that this unusual word is used here twice — once for our action toward God and once for God’s action toward us. It is as if we have a secret language between us that no one else knows, and we use it only for each other, to remind each other of that special place of connection. Indeed, the word he’emarta plays with the root amar, to speak, as if implying a new form of communication unique to this relationship.
The shofar blow is a similar form of private communication. It is a language beyond words, beyond reason, a language of the heart. And, like he’emarta, the shofar also has reciprocality to it; we blow it and ask God to hear us, on the one hand. And, on the other hand, as we remind ourselves in the Mussaf tefillah, God also blows a shofar, at Mount Sinai, and again, to herald the Messianic era. The shofar, like the word he’emarta, symbolizes both sides, our voice and God’s voice joined together, both trying to move beyond words to a place of deep connection.
Feel the back and forth flow in all this reciprocality. We are he’emarta God. God is he’emir us. We blow the shofar — sending air up to heaven — and God blows back down to us — sending us air in our lungs, renewed life for the year, little inklings of revelation, and the hope of a future blowing of the shofar. There is flow between us. Back and forth and back and forth. Ani Ledodi vedodi li. I am for my beloved and my beloved is for me. Reciprocality and flow, like a current moving back and forth between us, alive with energy.
In next week’s parsha, teshuva is also pictured this way. In one verse it says, veshavta ad Hashem Elokekha, “you will return to the Lord your God,” and in the next verse, veshav Hashem Elokekha et shevutekha, “then the Lord your God will return you” (Devarim 30:2-3). Rashi notes that this second verb is in the wrong form; to mean “return” in the transitive form (He returned the people), it should have said veheshiv. But, defying the meaning, the verbs are the same, as if to emphasize the parallel aspect here. We return and God returns. We are both doing the same thing, mirroring each other in a back and forth exchange.
This is the essence of returning. Returning is always to a place we have already been. We have already been with God; we are in a constant back and forth flow with Him. Like the ministering angels who are said to go ratzo veshov, running forward and then back again, and like the angels on Yaakov’s ladder, up and down and up and down, we are in this dance of intimacy with God, back and forth and back and forth, closer and farther, closer and farther. We can never stray too far. We are always somewhere on the ladder that connects us and can feel the connection, like an umbilical cord with its own flow of energy. So when we do teshuva, it is always a return; it is movement to a previous place, part of the flow of connection.
If you pay attention, you can feel the back and forth rhythm of all life forces in this world. The primary one is our breath — in and out, and in and out; we give and we receive; our insides are connected with the outer world through a neverending exchange of energies, through an intimate divine flow that runs in and out of us. This rhythm is also in the sea and in the earth and the animals and plants, even in your freshly baked bread, the pulse of life.
To return is to feel yourself a part of this universal rhythm, to feel how the breath links you to the world and to the Source behind it all, to live with awareness of this connection, to feel how it sustains you and nourishes you and how you also have something to give back in the energy flow, a part to play in both giving and receiving.
Emotionally, this experience of flow can sometimes feel like an “answering.” It can be as simple as waving at a stranger and receiving a wave and a smile back. Some energy has been exchanged; we have participated in the divine flow, brought it down between us, and we can feel how the back and forth of it feeds us. Or it may be more intense; we cry out in sorrow and there is something in the universe that answers the cry, like a ping inside us, exactly the response we needed at that moment. We can also feel that flow between us at moments of great intimacy; someone’s heart mirrors ours in joy or in pain or just in love; there is energy flow between us, life-sustaining energy that partakes of the divine.
Et Hashem he’emarta hayom. VeHashem He’emikha hayom. You affirm God and God affirms you. When does this flow happen? The Torah is explicit that it can only happen at one time, and that time is hayom, today. When can you feel this connection, this back and forth exchange of energies? Always right here at the present moment. Just now. Hayom. We are so often not here in the now. To do teshuva is perhaps above all to return to presence; to keep returning, again and again, to the divine energy flow of right now.
Photo by Alex Andrews at Pexels
