Page 3 - HaMizrachi # 23 Sukkot Simchat Torah 2020 USA

TORAT MIZRACHI

Rabbi Doron Perez

Celebrating

Vulnerability

here is no more intense feeling caused almost one million deaths, with The author of the haunting Unetaneh
of vulnerability than over the over 1,000 in Israel, particularly affect- Tokef prayer captures this sense of
TYamim Noraim – The Days of ing the elderly and infirm. Waves of human transience and vulnerability
Awe. The very name conjures up trepi- widespread sickness continue and the with some powerful imagery: “like a
dation for the Great Days of Judgement, situation seems far from under control. broken shard, like dried grass, like a
when the world in general, and our lives COVID has profoundly altered our reli- faded flower, like a fleeting shadow, like
in particular, hang in the balance. The gious, social, financial and communal a passing cloud, like a breath of wind,
image is powerfully captured in the lives and an inescapable feeling of vul- like whirling dust, like a dream that slips
Mishna that says every creature passes nerability hangs over us almost every away.”
before G-d to be judged, one at a time, day. All these images describe the tenuous
and humanity’s fate is determined over fabric of the human condition. Grass,
these days. 1 Vulnerability is linked to a lack of con- flowers, shadows, clouds, dust... all are
trol. When we think we are in control of
This sense of vulnerability is particularly our lives, we feel things are stable, pre- susceptible to external elements that
acute this year, as we embark on 5781. dictable and permanent. The moment can dry them up, blow them away or
Each of us continues to experience the we lose control, we begin to feel the make them disappear in the blink of an
eye. Their predicament is volatile and
unthinkable reality of how a tiny micro- uneasy sense of instability, unpredict- unstable and their similarity to our own
scopic virus has wreaked such havoc in ability and transience. We are now fragility is strikingly all too close.
almost every single corner of the earth. vulnerable. Things can change for the
Over the last 10 months, this invisible worse in a moment and life, G-d forbid, Because the stark truth is that the
foe has infected 30 million people and can cease in an instant. vicissitudes of life guarantee we will

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