People. Rebbe Nachman showed us a new way in serving G-d when he told us we need to turn the Torah that we hear into tefillah (prayer). In a very essential way, the dialogue between us and our Maker is God speaking through Torah and us responding through prayer. And when our prayer is specifically responsive to the Torah that we hear, then our relationship is a tight one. Maybe we think of our relationships as snippets of dialogue isolated from each other -- that G-d tells me something and then I do it. But the truth is, we really cannot do it on our own. I, for one, do not understand the commandment of tzitzit at all. I have to pray to be helped to understand -- so maybe G-d will give me the opportunity to read something about tzitzit being connected to the idea of patience. Even then, though I may understand slightly more, I still need to pray -- "God pelase help me receive the gift of patience through the commandment of tzitzit." And when Hashem knows that I am paying close attention to His communication to me, then perhaps He will communicate more through those communications. Life can be full of these dynamic relationships - to ask when we don't understand, to thank specifically, to commend specifically. Real dialogue opens through the inside, every issue is infinitely deep -- through this one commandment of tzitzit and the prayer with which I respond, I may hope to get to the very center of my life-experience.
R. Natan continues, in his explanation of R. Nachman's holy words, that Yom Kippur is exactly this idea of the meeting of Torah and prayer. This is because the Kohen Gadol goes into the Holy of Holies, which is the place of the Ark, where the Tablets, the root of Torah in the world, are placed. And it is also the place through which our prayers rise to God, as is known from Jacob's dream, and from the law of facing toward Jerusalem in our prayers. SO we go into the very place of that relationship, and we discuss with Hashem what keeps us from receiving His communiques to us, and making our own communiques to Him. This way of Hashem communicating with us takes so many forms, be it Torah itself, or a letter, or a newspaper, or a TV show -- all of them are opportunities to make them into the substance of communication. So our work is to make that communication as close as possible so that we may be most real with Hashem and allow Him into our lives as closely as possible.
Rav Gavriel Goldfeder
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Rav Gavriel Goldfeder is one of the first semicha recipients of the yeshiva. A graduate of Drew University in Religious Studies, he came to Bat Ayin after stints in other yeshivot and found a spiritual and intellectual home. Here he met his wife, Ketriellah, who was a student in our short-lived Women's Yeshiva. Upon graduation, Gavriel took the position of rabbi of the Aish Kodesh Congregation in Boulder, Colorado and together with Ketriellah and their growing family, they are busy creating (in Gavriel's words), "a community infused with Torah values, passion for learning and prayer, consideration of one another, and action, as well as deep celebration of the joys of life." |