This is the first contibution from Yona. May there be more of them!
I am walking down 186th street. Shabbos is coming. The breeze is strong, the hill is long. The natives run their course – this one is selling fruits, another is yelling at someone on the phone, one more is running down the street. Children are playing football on the side, old men sit outside on the steps. Cars fly by, big building reign. The world goes round.
The words of the Rambam come to mind. “The foundation of foundations and the pillar of wisdoms is to know that there is a First existence. He brings into existence all of existence; all that is existent from the heaven and earth, and what is between them, only exist from the truth of His existence. If you could imagine that He doesn’t exist then nothing else would be able to exist. And if you can imagine that nothing else, other than Him, exists, He alone would still exist. He would not be nullified if he were to nullify everything else. For all of existence is contingent on Him and He, blessed is He, is not contingent on them, or even one of them. Therefore His truth is not like the truth of anyone of them. This is what the prophet says “And Hashem, G-d, is truth.” He alone is truth and there is no truth like Him. And this is what the Torah said “There is none other besides Him,” as to say, there is no other true existence other than Him.” In short, G-d is that necessary, non-contingent, self-sufficient being that is the ground of all of existence. Deeper: G-d is existence, G-d is being, G-d simply IS.
This world is a world of becoming, of movement, of transience - the World of Action. The world chases after money, pleasure, power, comfort; and sometimes the world just chases. The world chases after non-existence. It lives and breathes within the illusions of the matrix. And in the midst of all of this, within extreme temporality, I sense the eternal. My mind wanders upwards, beyond, and I glimpse behind the curtains. I remember that this world is merely a faint projection of higher – real, true - worlds. “The Divine presence pervades all of existence,” says Rav Kook, and I find Him in the jarring experience of acutely encountering non-truth. Non-existence shows its imaginary face and “I lift up my eyes to the mountains, from where will my help come from?”
Perhaps this explains the enigmatic institution of Mincha, the afternoon service. The Kabbalists teach that Shacharis, the morning service, is structured as a ladder. A ladder from earth to heaven and then from heaven to earth. It is an elaborate attempt to touch infinity, to stand before The Holy One. But comes Mincha, in the middle of the busy day, and we skip the preparations. We are blindsided by holiness. Eternity laughs at us as we chase our tails. We take the hint and we jump to heaven! From our earthy, low, faint existence to the Eternal, from zero to infinity and back...all in less than fifteen minutes. It is faster than the speed of light; it is the secret of “shortening the way,” just as our forefather Jacob had experienced long ago when he was transported to the holy of holies.
