I want to think about the mitzvah that appears at the end our parsha, the mitzvah of tzitzit, the ritual fringes worn on the corners of a garment (Numbers 15:38-41). These tzitzit strings can be seen as a representation of the cord of our connection to God, the lifeline that sustains us, almost like a visible rendering of our breath, that amorphous cord that continually links us to the giver and breather of all life. We are tied to our Source, whether we are conscious of it or not. Ure’item oto uzekhartem, the Torah says of tzitzit, you will see it and remember the commandments; the invitation is to see this cord of connection and remember how to live – to become conscious of your connection to the divine at all times and live in a way that honors it.
Remembering Our Divine Essence
The Sefat Emet extends this concept of “remembering” to a remembering – through this visible cord of connection to God – of who we really are. In a beautiful reading of a classical midrash on tzitzit, he says that what you are enjoined to remember in this mitzvah – ure’item oto uzekhartem – “you will see it/Him and remember” – is your own nekudah penimit, your own innermost divine point, your own sacredness. Or zaru’a latzadik (Psalm 97:11), the Sefat Emet says, citing a verse the midrash uses, or zaru’a latzadik, “light is sown for the righteous” – a seed of light was planted inside each of us; it is our essence and our destiny, and it is this light that what we are being called to see and remember here (Sefat Emet, Shelach, 5635, 4:6).
The blue tekhelet string in the tzitzit is traditionally understood as a reminder of the sky. We might say that it reminds us that we ourselves are that vast sky, that God has planted in us a piece of that sky, of that vastness, of that light, of that power. Uzekhartem –remember who you really are
Always There
This word, remember, is important, points out the Sefat Emet, because it proves that this divine light is already there within us. We can only remember what is already here. Remembering is not inventing or creating something new. It’s not even seeking because seeking implies effort and time. Remembering has a simple instantaneous effortless quality – an earlier knowing that suddenly appears again with clarity in our current consciousness Oh, right. I thought I was a worthless, unwanted pathetic loser. And then in a flash of light, we remember something that we have always known somewhere inside us, something that has always been true, planted there for eternity, even before we were born; we remember that we are the sky, we are the light, we remember our own inner point of divinity. All that worry and self doubt and noise, blah, blah, blah, and then, boom, into that storm, a single flash of light – a sudden intense shift of consciousness – reminds you of your inherent divine essence, and everything around you quiets down before the power of that.
Lifeline When You Are Drowning
The midrash (Tanchuma Shelach 15:1) compares it to a person drowning in the sea. We are so much of the time drowning in a sea of judgment and confusion and insecurity and self hatred, drowning in the negativity of the voices inside and outside of us, and then, suddenly, we sense the presence of a ship captain offering us a lifeline – here, grab a hold of this, she says. We turn and see her, we reach out and hold on, and in that single movement, everything changes for us. Not that we aren’t still surrounded by all those voices and forces that seem to be constantly drowning us. But now we have a lifeline and that makes all the difference. Now we remember God, we remember our connection to God, we feel it, and in that remembering and feeling, we remember and return clearly to our own sense of self, our own sense of mattering, our deep inherent value, the unquenchable light that has been sown in us. The rest is all details. Maybe we did this thing right and that thing wrong, but in our essence we are still light. Remembering now, we are no longer drowning in agony and despair, even if things are still difficult for us. We once again have ground under our feet and the sun shining upon our faces. We know who we are – beloved divine lights meant to shine in this world as brightly as we can, and perhaps at some point also to play the part of ship captain for another drowning soul, offering them that lifeline so they, too, can remember who they are.
Not Running Somewhere Else
Not that we ourselves are ever really done. We are always in danger of falling into the pit, of drowning and getting lost again. Look at the tzitizit and remember who you are, the Torah says. veLo taturu aharei levavchem – and don’t go wandering after your heart and your eyes, all those places that you tend to go whoring after. Listen, the Torah says, you have two options: stay centered in remembering who you really are, or go this way and that, blown about by the wind of confusion and insecurity and desperate urges, running every which way to try to get what you can actually only get by staying centered in yourself. We are looking for love in all the wrong places, in places that lead us astray, aharei, away from ourselves, against ourselves, so that we end up demeaning ourselves, lowering ourselves to a whoring mentality that does not honor our true value. All those other voices, any voice that tells you you are less than whole, that does not start with the ground of your intrinsic value, those other voices are foreign gods. You can run all day and night in a thousand directions,and you still won’t come to any peace. You have to come home, to return, to remember, to stay with yourself, to align yourself with that divine cord. It’s as if the four corners of the tzitizit surrounding the body are pointing inward – it’s all right here. No need to go anywhere else.
Resting for a moment in that centered place of connection, of your own divinely endowed light, bookmarking it as a place to return to, again and again.
Commitment to Ourselves
The Sefat Emet says that zekhirah, remembering, is also a form of dveikut, of attachment, of sticking to something no matter what. This is how we have to claim our own light, our own divine essence, with a fierce dveikut, a commitment to ourselves as part of the divine, to make a pact with ourselves to be loyal, to keep remembering, keep returning, to claim this identity fiercely, with dveikut, with stick to it ness. What if this self commitment is not just permissible but obligatory, what God most wants from us? Not, as we often think, to abandon ourselves, but to commit to our divine light, to commit to being a partner with God in the spread of that light, starting with ourselves.
And yet sometimes it is so hard to remember our light. Sometimes the voices that tear us down seem inarguably true. And sometimes we genuinely do make mistakes. How are we to hold on despite all the pulls to turn away from ourselves? One practice that I think might help us in this continual return and remembering is to ask ourselves how God views us, to learn to see ourselves through God’s eyes.
God’s Gaze Upon Us
I believe this concept of God’s view of us is inherent in the word tzitzit. According to the rabbis, one meaning of the word tzitzit is lehatzitz, to peer (Rashi on Numbers 15:38). The prooftext given is from the Songs of Songs where the male lover is described as metzitz min hakharakim, peering through the lattice holes at his beloved (Song 2:15), classically understood as God gazing upon us. What is fascinating about this image is that the mitzvah of tzitzit instructs us to see – ure’item, and you shall look – and yet in its name it also brings to mind God’s gaze.. Who is doing the seeing, God or us? Perhaps the invitation here is for us to see God seeing us, for us to turn and see that God is indeed continually gazing upon us.
Imagine that someone has been looking lovingly at you for a very long time and you have been unaware of it. Then one day for whatever reason you turn your head towards them and notice; you see them looking at you with love in their eyes. Maybe you meet their gaze and something breaks inside you, something opens, something awakens. What does that feel like? What would it feel like to turn towards God in that way and see God looking at you with deep unconditional abiding love?
Seeing Our Goodness
This is the same divine gaze that, in the creation story, looked at the world and saw that it was good. Vayar Elokim ki tov. What if God is continually looking at you and seeing your goodness? Not like the inner critics, only seeing your badness, your flaws, your mistakes, but no, building on strength, seeing your or, your light, like that first light of creation, seeing that in you always, no matter how low you sink, gazing upon you and your light with delight, absolute delight, at the person that you are, even in all your flaws and quirks, loving you in that, seeing that, too, and still loving you, seeing all of you and knowing your essential goodness. What would it feel like to have a God who is, as Hagar said, El Ro’i, the God who sees me? Like a baby, we, too, have this deep need for mirroring, to be seen in our entirety and in our goodness and light, and it is perhaps only God who can truly fill that still aching need in us.
The Need For Us To See God Seeing Us
I believe that God is indeed gazing upon us in this loving way at all times. The problem is in our reception of it, in our lack of awareness And that is part of this tzitzit mitzvah, the mitzvah of ure’item, of seeing – it’s not enough that God loves us. We have to also see it and feel it. In IFS sometimes, the therapist will ask the question – does the part see you seeing her? It’s important, not just that we see our parts, but that they take it in, that they see us seeing them. And the same is true for us with God. It’s important not just that God sees us, but also that we have the capacity to see God seeing us, to take in that loving gaze, to let it nourish us and heal us, to let it remind us, again and again, who we really are. To let it speak to us when we are low, when the harsh voices of judgment and doubt and self degradation take over, to remember to turn and see God’s steady loving gaze still upon us, no matter what. Lo taturu. Don’t turn towards those other sights and sounds. Stay steady with God’s gaze upon you. See yourself as God does and remember who you are.
The tzitzit garment with its four corners is almost like the framing of a picture on a camera, a lens through which to view yourself anew through God’s eyes. Maybe you can place that tzitizit frame over yourself and imagine that you are looking through God’s loving eyes at yourself.
Photo by Castorly Stock at Pexels
