Broken — to shine

There are two kinds of broken. The first is when one is desolate, completely broken, nothing to talk about, sad, depressed, down and out. The second is a positive kind, when you want the world to thrive. You’re broken because you want things to be better, you’re driven passionately, because you feel that until things are better it’s empty. You’re broken with the emptiness, and with a passion and intensity to fill it.

So when people are broken, they have two choices: One, do nothing. Or two, do something. Or, to rephrase it: (1) Broken and nothing, or (2) Broken in order to achieve something.

As long as a person is not broken, there’s still something happening. But when a person is completely broken, and feels that it’s completely imperative that things become better, that the world shines, then the brokenness becomes a vehicle to shine.

After October 7, the Jewish world was broken. Everything seemed desolate, empty. Things were terrible. But what happened was rejuvenation. The Jewish people found in themselves the ability to unite and to fight; and even more crucial, they found their Jewish spark, their Jewish identity. And that burst from a tiny spark into a full blowing flame of passionate fire — to change the world, to make the world better, to show the world what morality means, to shine lights.

October 7 changed us forever. October 7 rekindled within us our Jewishness, bound forever with the Almighty, revealed our essential soul which is part of the Essence of G-d.

And it didn’t just stay there. It didn’t just stay as a kind of a knowing, identifying — it then turned into action the world over, mobilizing one another to help each other, and to teach the world what morality means.

We became infused with the G-dly essence within us, as a way to transcend, and permeate our inner selves, so that our thinking, feelings and actions were pointed towards ending the terribleness and bringing peace and redemption to the world.

It was no longer sufficient to have happy moments here and there, it was now imperative to bring our Jewishness, our strength, our bond with the Essence of G-d into the whole world, into everything that we do and feel and think, so that the world too becomes filled with light.

October 7 made us think that instead of all being lost, there’s everything again. October 7 made us realize our true potential, what we can do and what we need to do and what we must do to make this world a better place.

To make from brokenness wholeness.

May the redemption come very soon, and may we be able to very soon see smiles, and enjoy dancing together, together even with our loved ones who perished, together with all the generations all the way back to Mount Sinai and Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, a time when true togetherness and the essence is revealed.

And then the brokenness will be whole again, and forever. May it happen very soon.