את ה’ האמרת היום
וה’ האמירך היום
You have affirmed [he’emarta] God today . . . And God has affirmed you [he’emirkha] today.
(Deuteronomy 26:17-18)
The verb used here in both phrases, he’emir, is an unusual one in the Torah, and commentaries struggle with its meaning – affirm, choose, separate, make great, . . . Whatever the meaning, the thing to notice here is that we and God are both engaged in the same reciprocal act towards one another – we are he’emir God, and God is he’emir us. It is this sense of a reciprocal relationship between us and God that I want to explore further below.
Direction #1: Us to God
We can start by separating out the two directions of this relationship and explore each one more fully. So first – Et Hashem he’emarta – we are he’emir God. We have this basic yearning, desire, ache for connection with our Source, and we send out that energy to heaven, saying – I want so much to know you, to love you, to be close to you, God – getting in touch with that desire and expressing it in some way, as a movement inside us, perhaps buried but always still alive, that reaches out for God.
Direction #2: God to Us
And then the other side: It’s not just that we yearn for God, but that God yearns for us, too. God is he’emir us. This is the surprising aspect that we don’t usually take in fully, that God is also reaching for us. The gemara (Brachot 6a) says that these he’emir verses show that, just as we wear tefillin with God’s name on it, God wears tefillin with our name on it, a mirror image. Can we imagine God’s tefillin with our name on it, not just as a nation, but also as individuals, our personal name on God’s tefillin? Can you feel how God yearns to be close to you? Maybe you can sense how there is some essence of love and light that is always wanting to pour into you, always knocking at your door, aching to be with you, to emerge more fully within you. You are earnestly reaching for it yourself, but there is also something that is actually wanting you, wanting to draw close, to manifest in you. You reach for it, and it meets you halfway; it is also coming towards you. We can open to its coming from a place of receptiveness and allowing, consenting to the divine presence that wants so much to reside in us. You don’t just want God. You are wanted by God. The whole universe has been aching for you.
A Doubled Love
This is teshuva, a double sided process, both our return to God and God’s return to us.. Ani ledodi vedodi li, we say this time of year –” I am for my beloved and my beloved is for me”, an expression of the same reciprocality, a reciprocality of love and yearning and devotion. You love and are loved. What does it feel like to let this doubled love – yours and God’s – wash over you?
Meeting the King in the Field
It is like on Friday evening when we sing “Lekha Dodi.” The original practice was to physically go out to the fields and greet the shabbat bride, to re-enact this meeting of beloveds. We can imagine a similar thing happening for us at this time of year, when we say that hamelekh basadeh, that the king, God, is in the field. Normally, the king is in the palace in a far away capital city, behind gates and guards, but this time of year, God comes out of the palace to meet us in the field, and we, too, come out of our homes, open our doors and go out to the field to meet our beloved. You can imagine yourself walking out your door into a wide open field, striding across it, and from the opposite side, sensing the divine presence moving towards you as well, both of you approaching the center of this wide open field filled with wildflowers, the breeze making them dance and swirl around you, as you each move towards one another. We are drawn together, across an expanse, as if by magnetic attraction.
We Affect Each Other
There is an impact to our yearning for one another. The word he’emir, according to an interpretation cited by the Ibn Ezra, can be understood as the causative form of amar, to speak, meaning that we cause God to speak and God causes us to speak. We impact one another with our desire, we cause something to happen in the other, the other to speak, to respond, because we have asked, have put forth our searching energy. We are he’emir God, we cause God to speak back to us, to respond to us, and God is he’emir us, causes us to speak back and respond. We cause something to happen in each other, like piercing a cloud with our desire so that it opens up and lets out its healing waters.
Teshuva as Response
It is as if we and God are continually asking each other a question, ahat sha’alti (Ps 27:4), asking this one question of intimacy and connection back and forth, and the question causes us to speak, to offer a response, a teshuva – another meaning of this word teshuva is response – and that is the impact of the question, of the yearning, of the desire, that it elicits a response, a teshuva, a return reply in the other. We are he’emir each other – we cause each other to speak and offer a response.
Being a Response
How does this responsiveness work in our lives? How can you not just do teshuva, but be a teshuva, be a response to God’s call, inhabit your whole being and life as a response to God’s desire for you? How can you allow God’s call, God’s yearning, God’s question, to enter you in such a way that it is he’emir you, that it causes something to happen inside you, causes you to actualize, to galvanize, to become, to offer yourself and your life up in response, in teshuva?
And on the other side, too, where can you hear in your life God’s response to your call, to your yearning – even when it seems like it isn’t – how might something difficult still be a divine response, a hidden teshuva, to your own yearning?
Hidden Language
The language between us and God is not direct or obvious. It is the secret nonverbal language of the shofar call. It is the language of he’emir, a word that has no parallel in the rest of the Torah, and whose meaning is therefore opaque and up to interpretation. That’s how it is between us and God. The signs are subtle and opaque and in need of reading and interpretation. Where are we hearing the call, how are we responding, and how is God responding to our call?
Hayom, Right Now
The truth is that we miss the call a lot. We are distracted and busy, frightened, resistant and defended, and so we miss probably 99% of the cues, both the calls and the responses. That’s ok. We just keep trying. And the beautiful thing about it is that we are continually invited to start afresh. These he’emir phrases in our parsha, they use the word hayom, this day, today. Et Hashem he’emarta hayom and Hashem he’emirkha hayom. We are he’emir God today and God is he’emir us today. Today. We don’t worry about what we didn’t do yesterday or how hard it will be tomorrow. We start afresh each day.
Indeed, hayom, today, this present moment, is the only time we can do this work. Only in the open field of this moment can we experience this cord of connection between us and God, can we hear the call and response on both sides. So right in this moment maybe you can take the opportunity to lean in to this field of presence and open up to your connection to God, sensing both your own reaching for God and God’s reaching for you, allowing the joint energy of desire to bring you together in this moment, and then sitting in that place – you and God together in that open field – resting quietly here, in this reciprocal connection, hayom, right now.
Photo by cottonbro studio at Pexels
