“I want nothing at all! I don’t want Your Gan Eden, I don’t want Your Olam Haba… I want nothing but You alone.”
– The Alter Rebbe, HaYom Yom Kislev 18
Each and every Jew [is endowed] with the potential to have a similar desire, i.e., for his fundamental desire to be that there be a revelation of G‑d’s essence. [Moreover, this desire is so powerful] that when such a revelation does not shine forth — and how much more so in the time of exile when we are lacking [even] the revelation (of light) that existed in the time of the Beis HaMikdash, the person is “crushed.” And he requests three times (or more) every day, “May our eyes behold Your return to Zion in mercy,” i.e., that there be a revelation of G‑dliness, and [indeed,] a revelation of G‑d’s essence.
– The Lubavitcher Rebbe, VeAtah Tetzaveh, and originally delivered in 5741 (1981), appears in Sefer HaMaamarim — Melukat, Vol. 6 (Kehot, N.Y., 5752/1992; see sec. 9 and 10 there, on p. 134ff.), and in the Adar-Sivan volume of Toras Menachem — Maamarim, p. 34.
Mesmerized by the motion picture
maroon and magenta
and dark hues of blues –
the audience –
permeated with the smell of popcorn –
and sunk into squeaky padded leather –
sighs in wonderment
at the scenes
breathed onto the screen.
From time to time escapes
a sigh in wonderment
at the whir of a flickering beam
carving the darkness
from the Projectionist’s booth.
