Gevurah b’Yesod

by Rabbi Howard Cohen

It is impossible for human intelligence to comprehend God, yet certain places may allow people to experience the necessary risk that opens them, body and soul, to what their minds cannot entertain….[l]iminal places are able, symbolically if not physically, to put people on edge, driving them beyond all efforts to control reality (and even God) by means of the intellect. –Belden C Lane, Solace of Fierce Landscapes;

Reflections / Contemplation:

Remember an experience where you felt that you experienced the kind of risk / divine encounter that opened you, “body and soul”, like Lane talks about.

Maimonides said that prayer enables us to create a wilderness within, where a person can be alone with God.

Do you think he was suggesting that prayer creates for us the kind of experience to which Lane refers?

Have you ever had such an experience while praying? If so, what prayer (s) were you saying? What was the situation? Were you in a synagogue or outside with others, by yourself?

A Commitment for Inner / Outer Action:

Today as part of my18 minutes outside I will sit with my siddur and seek a wilderness experience through prayer with God.