(Note: This happened at Mayanot Shul in Jerusalem. Shachrit starts at 8am.)

In this vast sunlit hall

filled with the sound of chanting,

the black and white swaying movement of ancient offerings,

and accusations of going through the motions.

 

The post-modern pieces of relative perspectives

coalesced out of their fractured disjointed dance

into an arrow around a center,

pointing beyond my subjective opinion

to a God who created good and evil.

Somehow…in-between the words of the psalms and the prayers

my moral compass was sewn back together.

 

Like when I was a child and life was real.

The truth, even if unknown, not a preference.

The smug smile of sophisticated arrogance

of complicated meaninglessness

dispelled by the simple light of faith.

 

In this wordless luminosity,

the earth under my feet

and the consequences of my actions

were no longer cynically drained and of significance

into a weak and puny narrative.

 

I stood in creation.

Endowed by the Holy One Blessed Be He  with free will.

I have a choice between good and evil.

Life and death. A blessing and a curse.

 

I must choose life.