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Welcome to Kolot, the podcast of The Ark Synagogue, a bold, experiential and caring Progressive Jewish community in Northwood, London.
Through sermons, reflections and conversations from across our community, Kolot explores Jewish life, learning and values in the world we live in today. Rooted in tradition and open to new perspectives, these episodes bring together voices that inspire thought, connection and belonging.
Whether you are Jewish, exploring Judaism, or simply looking for meaningful reflection, you are warmly welcome.
To learn more about The Ark Synagogue, visit arksynagogue.org.
The Weariness of the Prophet Elijah
Anna Kamienska (20th century, Poland)
Lord,
You understand such immense weariness
when one only whispers,
release your servant now;
deliver me from the scraps of hunger and thirst
called life.
I don’t need more than
the shade of a broom tree to rest my head,
a shawl of darkness for my eyes.
Call back the angel
who hastens with bread and a jar of water.
Send me a long, purifying,
issueless sleep.
Lift my loneliness above its cumber,
above every bereavement.
Lord,
You know the weariness of your prophets.
You wake them with a jolt of new hurt,
to place a new desert beneath their feet,
to give them a new mouth, a new voice,
and a new name.
11 August 1985
Translated from the Polish by Grażyna Drabik and David Curzon
In our Haftarah (I Kings 18:46–19:13), we encounter a weary prophet, Elijah, threatened by King Ahab and, in particular, Queen Jezebel, who has been proscribing the prophets of Israel in order to supplant them with the prophets of Baal. In Anna Kamienska’s poem, she speaks of the questioning that the rational mind suffers and the call for faith.
Can I endure? Why me? Is my task achievable? Will I let others, will I let God, down?
In the Tanakh, the Hebrew Bible account, Elijah is gifted with a kol demamah dakah. We usually translate this enigmatic phrase as “a still, small voice.” Joel Hoffman offers the alternative, “a thin whisper of a sound.” Another common rendering is “a soft murmuring sound,” or perhaps we can even consider Paul Simon’s “sound of silence.”
Sometimes we are so fraught, so lost, that what usually gives us courage, strength and hope fails. Indeed, we ask about our purpose. Sarah Matthes simply queries in her poem:
I cannot remember the configuration of prayer:
Something goes inside of something else,
Something speaks and touches or
Is touched by what is spoken
And is any of it me?
Many would associate theophanies with the phenomena experienced in Elijah’s vision: wind, fire and earthquakes. However, the time and space after a storm perhaps best describe a contemporary understanding of God and, indeed, this most powerful of prophetic moments.
It is easy to miss the moment. Having assailed our senses, we are often still focused on the crushing violence of a storm, wondering whether it has done more than moisten the crust of the earth in dry times such as these, or marvelling that, through the storms of life, we are still standing. Or we have already moved on to the next task at hand because we are busy people.
We often miss the serenity of the calm after the storm.
Abraham Joshua Heschel perhaps perceives this moment in the evening, for in his poem Palaces in Time he writes:
Evenings: palaces in time.
You live in them, my prosperous God!
So let my longings, too, remain there now,
Gathering wonders in all corners,
And sharing treasures with the world.
Evenings: palaces in time.
However we translate kol demamah dakah, or fathom an understanding of the phrase, it is accompanied by the question, “Why are you here, Elijah?”
Whether this is the voice of the Divine or an echo in Elijah’s mind, it challenges us to recognise the time when we are given the ultimate gift. For in quiet, everyday whispers, Yehudah Amichai suggests in his poetry that we find redemption, love and truth. And, as the poet Zelda describes it, in “the shimmer of silence” one finds “the gentle, hidden grace that quiets the soul’s anxieties.”
Perhaps there we find an answer to our question: “Why am I here?”
Perhaps we may find inspiration in prayer. In our Torah portion this morning, Moses uses prayer to beseech God for his successor.
“Eternal One, Source of the breath of all flesh,” and as Rashi paraphrases: “You know the minds of all people, and how the mind of one differs from that of another. Appoint over them a leader who will be able to bear with the differing spirits of every one of your children.”
A marvel of humankind is our utter uniqueness. Each of us is required to be our own leader; to identify, in the stillest of moments, our truest selves. To find ourselves, to discover that we have the ruach—the spirit—within us. Oh, for that moment of appreciation. In such a moment is bliss, one that is truly blessed by God, as is a moment when we can celebrate two spirits finding each other and, in so doing, magnify one another.
So, on a morning when we celebrate the Auf Ruf of Abi and Dean, let us conclude with this poem from Abraham Joshua Heschel’s collection The Ineffable Name of God: Man. For the two of you, for each of us whose spirit is bound to another, and for the splendour of those moments in our lives when we recognise our true ruach, our spirit, and understand why we are here.
My Beloved
Abraham Joshua Heschel
My hoped-for one,
dreams have promised you my boldest yearnings.
Yet I don’t dare breach the borders
through which dreams alone can steal.
With what, then, can one prepay
for the precious treasures
at the proud border of your heart?
With a veil of concealment?
Or instead with tenacious charm?
Meanwhile, I must cling to the edge
of a barely familiar distant place
and zealously cultivate in secret
the good tidings: you exist.
And when you scatter revelations to the world,
I barely drink in the echo of your voice
and gather together your distant, pale gestures—
the poor possessions of a lavish love.
My words will come to you as late as light
travelling from the most distant star.
But know then, my intended,
that you have always been
the flashpoint of my light.