REJOINING THE WORLD - PART II

Yesterday me and my husband went to Kever Rochel. I had long been fascinated by gematrias, and so on the way there I did a quick calculation that the words "קבר רחל" ("Kever Rochel") have the same numerical value as the word "רשם" ("imprint"). This made me realize that a visit to Kever Rochel is supposed to make an imprint on a person, and I had a feeling that our visit really would. 

When we got to Kever Rochel, I went to the ezras nashim and started saying Tehillim. For some reason, they resonated with me like almost never before, and it was difficult for me to tear myself away when the rime was up and I had to go back to meet my husband and get on the bus, I was sure that, somehow, a new chapter was starting.

Back home, I decided to review the Torah in "Likutei Moharan" that deals with saying Tehillim- Siman 73 in the second part (all the more so because it is related to the Counting of the Omer, the period that we are in now). There Rabbeinu explains that saying Tehillim helps a person to find the specific gate that they have to pass through to do teshuvah, which also means finding their own path in serving Hashem  (and, the way I understand it, in life in general). I started reading this Torah, and its first sentence literally jumped at me, "Whoever wants to be merit teshuvah should recite Tehillim." The word "teshuvah" also means returning, and so I realized that I was now being presented with my individual path and my particular avodah. So, in my case, teshuvah really meant returning: not only to Hashem, but also finding the way to rejoin the world through that elusive upper opening in the letter "ה". I felt a little dizzy, almost drunk with a feeling that I had indeed merited to something big

I still felt that that gate, and that opening in the ה, was very distant, glimmering far away, somewhere up on a mountain. It was up to me to get there, but I already had the direction and the tools. The main thing was simply saying the words of Tehillim, as explained by R' Nasan Maimon in his class on that Torah. R' Nasan said that this is related to the passuk from "Eicha", "Take with you words and return to Hashem." R' Nasan stressed, "The passuk doesn't say that you have to create words, or to find words; it says that you have to take words! You have to take a certain package and move it someplace else - to Hashem."

So my road is already well mapped out. Today I said my first portion of Tehillim, and now I'm waiting to see how this process will unfold.

Hopefully, to be continued...



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