“For the listener, who listens in the snow, / And, nothing himself, beholds /
Nothing that is not there and the nothing that is.” Wallace Stevens
Tomorrow night we start our third season of Kabbalah Live! This year the theme is Aha Moments. As I sit looking out at the second snowfall of the season (so far Wednesdays are the designated snow day) I am reflecting on my Aha of why we have grown in size and expanded our programming.
One of our students responded to a teaching yesterday with the following: “Silences in music are as important as the music itself.” The impetus for this comment was a text by Levi Yitzchak of Berditchev on the empty spaces of the Torah—the “silences” in the Torah scroll—the in-between spaces of the letters. In Kabbalah these empty spaces are referred to as “white fire” on black fire.
Rabbi Mordechai (Moti) Twersky’s departure from Denver created an empty space in our community. The opportunity to learn with Rabbi Twersky was a main motivating factor for me to move to Denver in the late 80’s. The empty space, the silence that was felt by many when he left was where do we go now for our spiritual sustenance? Rabbi Twersky also led the way in this community to build bridges across denominations. This would become another silence.
It is often hard enough to answer the question “how we have grown?” but I am interested in the question “why we have grown?” and to that I offer that the why is the empty space that needed to be filled when Rabbi Twersky left.
The curious thing is that the process of filling and creating space is constant—the Torah or any piece of music cannot exist without the empty spaces. Our growth cannot exist without the possibilities presented by empty space.
So I want to invite you all to fill in the blank __________. Please respond to the following:
I would like to see Kabbalah Experience ___________________. Thank you.
