We've gone through so much
For better, for worse this week.
We have no agreements, no concessions
But a simple faith of the weak
And latent love.
*
Missionaries, yet emissaries of ourselves
To fulfill our own.
We oscillate and struggle to grapple
With the known and unknown
And as yet closed heart.
*
Decisions break friendship, test the strength
Of the connection between:
Between man and G-d, Jew and Jew,
Life and all that is unclean
And the music yet unheard.
*
Dreams and visions seem so small --
(even) reality so far away.
The realization of enormity of error
So terrifying today.
And unimagined eternity.
*
Closed to our children, the world;
Aware of our own faults.
Yet a leader emerges who calls
To open up our hearts
And the long road to…
*
He cannot, does not ask
To define the place.
How can he -- when no one
Can see the Face
And live?
*
He only asks that we seek.
Rav Raz Hartman
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Rav Raz Hartman, born to Israeli parents, grew up in Southern California. He was attending U.S.C., majoring in Music Peformance, when he met Rav Natan Greenberg. That meeting eventually result in Raz's coming to the Bat Ayin Yeshiva, where he studied for six years and was given Semichah in 2003. He is married to Leah, and they live, with their three children, in Nachla'ot, Jerusalem. Raz serves as Rosh Yeshiva of Yeshivat Simchat Shlomo, and founder of the v'Ani Tefillah minyan. He has produced several albums of Jewish music. |