endev42 - documenting the meaning of life

Attached prose/poem "Repair of the World" is my answer!

In the beginning

Before there were any beginnings or endings 

There was no place that was not already God. 

We call this unimaginable openness

Ein Sof,

Being without end, world without end,

Ein Sof.

Then came the urge to give life To our world and us.

But there was no place that was not already God

So Ein Sof breathed in to make room

Like a father steps back

So his child will walk to him. 

And we call this withdrawing 

Tzim Tzum.

Into the emptiness Ein Sof set vessels 

And began to fill them with Divine Light 

Like a mother places bowls

In which to pour her delicious soup. 

We call these bowls,

Kaleem.

As the light poured forth

A perfect world was being created. 

Think of it, a world without greed 

And cruelty and violence.

But then something happened. 

The Kaleem shattered.

No one knows why.

Perhaps the bowls were too frail, 

Perhaps the light too intense 

Perhaps Ein Sof was learning.

After all, no one makes perfect the first time.

With the shattering of the bowls 

The Divine Sparks flew everywhere. 

Some rushing back to Ein Sof,

Some falling, falling, 

Trapped in the broken shards, 

To become our world and us.

Though this is hard to believe, 

The perfect world is all around us, 

But broken into jagged pieces 

Like a puzzle thrown to the floor, 

The picture lost,

Each piece without meaning until 

Someone puts them back together again.

We are that someone. 

There is no one else.

We are the ones, who can find the broken pieces,

Remember how they fit together 

And rejoin them.

And we call this repair of the world

Tikkun Olam.

In every moment with every act 

We can heal our world and us.

We are all holy sparks, dulled by separation.

But when we meet and talk

And eat and make love,

When we work and play and disagree 

With holiness in out eyes,

Seeing Ein Sof everywhere, 

Then our brokenness will end.

Then our bowls will be strong enough 

To hold the light.

And our light gentle enough 

To fill the bowls.

As we repair the world together 

We will learn that there is no place,

 No person, no creature

No plant, tree, or rock 

That is not

Ein Sof

*Inspired by Rabbi Isaac Luria's (1535-1572) theory of creation. After the expulsion of the Jews from Spain in 1492, Safed, Palestine because the center of a new form of Jewish mysticism. Lurianic Kabbalah focused on the questions of suffering and evil and how the world can be saved and redeemed.