Anokhi, I. It’s a strange way to start the 10 commandments (Exodus 20:2). We could have gone right to the instructions – keep shabbat or don’t murder. What is this “I” doing here?
Especially because the word I can feel like a dirty word to us. Don’t be selfish, self engrossed, self referential. Don’t take up too much space with your own needs. Be self negating so that you can take care of others. Erase yourself, shrink, disappear – that is the moral, religious imperative many of us have imbibed. Can you feel that messaging, how it hits your body? As if there is something shameful about you standing up for you, as if hiding is what God wants from you.
Modeling
And yet, here at the start of the 10 commandments, the core of it all, here at the start, God proclaims – Anokhi, I. A strong I. Now you might argue – that’s God, not us. God can have a strong I, but we need to be meek and melting. Is that how it works though? Isn’t God a model for us? Imitate God, we are told. Just as God is compassionate, so you, too, be compassionate (Shabbat 133b). Might we not also say – just as God has a strong sense of self, so, you, too have a strong sense of self? The word Anokhi feels like a call, an invitation, a demand for us to claim our own I.
It’s like parenting. Your kids learn how to treat themselves not just by what you tell them or how you treat them, but also primarily by how you model how you treat yourself. That’s what God is doing for us here. God is modeling how to orient towards our own I-ness, not to shrink, but to claim and proclaim it, to call it out for all to hear – Anokhi.
God Is Kindling Our Flame
It’s like the lighting of a flame. Picture God as a huge light and each of us as a little light in potential, a tiny flickering candle. God’s thundering earth-shattering Anokhi at Sinai is this huge burst of light. Is it intended to frighten us and make us feel small by comparison? No. It is intended to be so bright and intense that it goes inside each of us and kindles that little flickering light of ours, inspiring and encouraging it to burn stronger and brighter, to shine out like its divine source. See what’s possible, God’s Anokhi calls out over the hills. See how brilliant your light can be. Kumi ori ki va orekh. Arise and shine, for your light has come. Uri, uri, awaken, awaken (from Lekha Dodi in Friday evening prayers). Or as someone in one of my groups put it, God is saying to us – Come, you be an I, too. We can each be an I together.
What God is inviting us into here is power and self confidence. God’s Anokhi enters us and empowers us, like a surge of electricity coursing through our bodies, a life force that insists – Be yourself. Claim your own wholeness. Stop shrinking and withholding and hiding from your light. Claim that light. Shine it. Hold yourself with pride and confidence as I do.
Comforting
There is a midrash (Exodus Rabbah 29:9) that when God spoke at Sinai, no bird chirped, no fowl flew, the sea did not roar, no creature spoke, all was hushed and silent before the majesty of this declaration, before the resounding sound of – Anokhi. That’s what happens inside when this divine confidence and sense of self is awakened in you. Everything is quieted. All the urgent worries and anxious thoughts are like little twittering birds who suddenly stop their chirping and turn to listen to this Anokhi inside you. It calms them and soothes them. Anokhi Anokhi hu menachem. “I, I am the One who comforts you (Isaiah 51:12).” It is this Anokhi that offers you comfort, this double Anokhi of God and Self inside you. Someone is in charge inside. How comforting to have someone confident in charge. Hush, it says, hush. There is a light here. There is an I here. Nothing else matters. I am here. I am strong. I am alive. I am me. A soothing energy flows through you, calming and relaxing all the places of micro tension you’ve been holding for so long Anokhi. There is an I here. That is enough. Worry not.
Shout It From The Rooftop
God’s Anokhi was proclaimed from the mountaintop. And it feels like something we need to do in the same way. The shape of the letter alef of Anokhi is a warrior stance with legs apart and arms outstretched or perhaps we can imagine it as the adamant stance of a proud child, standing with legs apart, head held high, chest thrust forward and hands at hips. We need to claim ourselves with that kind of warrior fierceness, feet pushing forcefully against the ground, stable and strong, standing tall on a rooftop and calling out, like God from the mountaintop, calling out and announcing to all – Anokhi. I am me. I am here. I have a right to exist. I have a voice. I will not be shut down or shrunk or disappeared.
Freed From Constraint
I will not be shut down. Anonkhi Hashem Elokekha asher hotzeitikha me’eretz mitzrayim. I am Hashem your God who took you out of Egypt (Exodus 20:2). Anokhi has the capacity to free us from all that constricts us from being ourselves. It has a fierceness that stands up to the enslaving and bullying and shaming inner and outer voices that want to keep us small, that want us to conform to the norm – to be like everyone else, not to live into our unique destiny – that want to put us in a box to contain our wildness and originality and power. But this divine force of Anokhi, of self claiming, this divine force is fiercely assertive and defiant. It is the force in us that can never be beat down, that keeps popping up through the pavement, undaunted. Paved over again and again, it still breaks through and calls out – I am here. I matter. Anokhi. I will live free and assert myself.
Living By Our Values
It is also this Anokhi that can assert boundaries and uphold values. It makes sense that the 10 commandments start here because here is where we get the strength to say – this is what I stand for. These are my values. Up to here I will tolerate, but beyond that I will not. In this sense, Anokhi is a kind of moral compass, the I in us that does not merely conform to what others think, but has an inner sense of truth and justice – and the confidence to honor it. God models for us here how Anokhi, this strong I self, is the core foundation for principled living.
Self Expression
It all comes from that I inside us. So much flows from that place. The rabbis played with the word Anokhi, seeing it as an acronym for the Aramaic ana nafshi ketavit yehavit, I, my soul, have written and given (Shabbat 105a). Meaning: I, God, put my soul into writing and gave it to you through the Torah. This is our model for what can flow out of our own Anokhi. Anokhi is not something that we keep to ourselves. It is the divine urge to genuine self expression, to creativity, to write and speak our soul into words and send that out to the world. When we speak with authenticity, when we speak our personal truth, we are activating that divine Anokhi capacity. For this we were born. Not to say the same thing as everyone else, to parrot the party line, but to somehow put our unique soul into words and give that as an offering to whomever it touches. What would it feel like to speak from that Anokhi place in everyday life, to speak as God speaks, your own soul truth, with confidence and integrity and authority, to speak from your depths, as if the words are coming up from a far away place inside you, trusting that truth even if it is surprising or unpopular.
Giving
Yehavit. And then God gave it to us. Giving is part of the Anokhi capacity. This Anokhi claiming of self is never a selfish act, but on the contrary, one that overflows and gives in the most natural, abundant way, generously, effortlessly, without a trace of scarcity. We lean into our I, we trust it, we nourish it, we claim it, and from that wellspring, there is so much that flows outward to others, so much presence and care and support and love. Because when we are seated in our own seat, when we are plugged into our own internal source of nourishment, we have plenty to offer outward. It is when we are bent over someone else’s seat that we lose our balance and fall over, no longer plugged in, flailing about without resources, burnt out and running on empty.
Anokhi invites us to start with ourselves, like really start with ourselves, inhabiting our bodies, taking up space, having needs, feeling that we matter, claiming our value and belovedness, standing up for ourselves, shouting out – I am me, from the rooftops with fierceness and confidence. We start with ourselves and so much giving flows effortlessly from there, so much love in all directions; we, like God, become a light that kindles others. We don’t force it. This isn’t hard work. It is our nature to give, to support each other, to love each other, to kindle and nurture each others’ lights. For this, too, we were born. This Anokhi, this I capacity, has at its very essence that last letter yud for yehavit, for giving, as if that’s where the I naturally wants to go, to move towards giving. Can you feel how that is part of your own I-ness, this overflow of your unique light to the world? Letting it rise up in you out of the depths of your soul and sending it out.
Ana nafshi ketavit yehavit. I, my soul, have written and given.
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