4/21: (Sunday) Today marks 4 days along the journey of the three weeks where the crack in everything beckons self-refinement. Recall as mystics are so subtle to suggest: “…that the soul in the body is like the names of God on the parchment.” (Ramban on Moed Katan 25a).

What happens when the revelation of inner light emanating from those “names of God on the parchment” goes up in flames?!? It could be as a result of catastrophe, depression, doubt or death, but it feels like darkness is overpowering that inner light. So how can we read and search for solace when a Torah scroll is burned in public by Apustumus (mTa’anit 26a-b)?

Sitting in these ashes, digging deeper moment to moment in “this day” we admit “Never easy are the moments” in those places of vulnerability, uncertainty even doubt that continue to percolate with this next poem from Shevili’s recent collection, Poems to Yova (2022):

Reading
& reading
& for you not
reading
& nothing
happens
to me
when you
read to me

Questions for Self-Reflection:

1. If a person is a Torah Scroll as the mystics claim, what happens when a Torah Scroll is burnt (as by Apustemus on the 17th of Tammuz)? How do we read our deeper self when the very fiber of the inner scroll is on fire?
2. How do you read into yourself as a burnt scroll when “nothing/happens/to me/when you/read to me”? The process of self-refinement cannot always happen “when you/read to me” so how do you use this time to self-reflect and read your burnt scroll to yourself?