I Love the Dawn
I first met Gd in the woods. He surprised me in the pre-dawn, deep in the Smokey Mountains of Tennessee. First was the stillness. My pupils dilated as the sky began to glow. It grew darker between the trees. Birdsong burst from the woods around me as the sun rose, and I knew I was not alone.
Even now I long to greet the dawn. To say seder korbanot in the dark. Sing songs of praise as the hillside emerges under the pale sky. Gd’s malchut is never so clear to me as when no mundane concern precedes its acceptance. And the quiet of the morning is the ideal vessel to receive my heart’s outpouring in prayer.
The vatikin taught us to that the moment the sun breaks the horizon is the time to connect the redemptive consciousness of Gd’s kingship with the act of prayer (שיסמוך גאולה לתפילה). When Ulah went up to Jerusalem, he was told to seek out Rav Bruna and greet him in public because he was a great man. When he tied together redemption and prayer, his mouth was filled with laughter the whole day[1]. Was Rav Bruna’s joy a physiological response to the dawn or consciously generated psycho-spiritual reality?
We live in a built environment. Walking the streets, we see the works of our own hands. Waking in the woods, we are surrounded by other. Liberating. And terrifying. There is a level of experience not commonly found under the glow of fluorescent lights. Four days in the woods will put you in touch with your body’s rhythm, the beat of the world. What could be more joyous?
But Rav Bruna wasn’t praised for being a backpacker. Nor had his society yet paved creation. His laughter came from a more essential point of connection.
Prayer is an act of alignment with Gd’s deepest will for creation. The shaping of self into a vessel for its fulfillment. [2]
Gd’s kingship is found in every manifestation of creation. Redemption is the joining of these particulars in response to His will. Prayer which flows from this consciousness evokes the wholeness of Gd’s vision for creation. This is the source of joy.
So it is no surprise that one who harnesses the link between night and day, who experiences the consciousness of creation as it rises with the sun, will rejoice. May we all merit to tie the pieces to the whole and may our prayers bring redemption, speedily and in its time.
[1] Gemarrah Berachot 9b. It is noteworthy that the gemarrah describes Rav Bruna as being filled with joy all day. This is in contrast with the injunction on 31a against filling our mouths with laughter in this world because אז ימלא שחוק פינו. Perhaps Rav Bruna’s tying together of redemptive consciousness and prayer was actually and experience of redemption available in the present reality.
[2] I am grateful to R Daniel Kohn for this orientation in prayer. Keep your eyes out for his series of audio classes on the practice of prayer coning to our website soon!
