HERE TO HEAR by Rabbi David Cohen-Henriquez The Torah warns us constantly about idolatry. In ancient times idolatry was to make a statue, icon or any other visual manifestation of a deity, molded according to the will of the person so it would solve all of his or her problems. This is precisely what idolatry is today. We are living in a visual world. In the last few decades there was a triumph of the image over the written form. The most popular new word of this year is “selfie”, which is to take a picture of yourself, usually with your phone. One or two occasional “selfies” are fun and even cute. However, there has been a growing phenomenon of people exceeding the normal amount of pictures of themselves and falling into gross narcissism. According to some experts, the exceeding amount of pictures of oneself can denote loneliness, a broken self-esteem and the need of an intimate companion. I believe “selfies” reflect exactly what is wrong with the times we are living in. There is a very inflated “I” in idolatry. Our modern society is driven on extreme individualism, on a gluttonous consumption, on immediate self-satisfaction and indifference for others. The image, MY image, and the image of those similar to my image are the things that call my attention. There is nothing else. Therefore, the general society is a collage composed by lots of “selfies”: lonely although surrounded by people, broken although together, craving for deeper bonds although surrounded by “friends”. Our religion has an antidote for the image-obsessed i-dolatrous society. It is to LISTEN. Since its inception Judaism was very clear about not having images of the Divine, because it is impossible to capture such an essence. A picture or a statue is something dead, a mere object. Not so with sound. Sound is alive, sound is vibration, sound is waves of meaning. Speech needs two sides: it is a transaction between the one causing the sound and the one receiving it. Attune your ears and your hearts to listen to the multiple sounds that surround you: the soft voice inside your soul; the screams of desperation of those in suffering; the whispers of those searching for love, for brotherhood, for a more human touch. HEAR O ISRAEL, to the echo from eternity that emanated from Sinai and it is still sounding loud and clear in our texts and in our prayers. They say an image is worth a thousand words. What they don’t say is that a thousand words have much more transformative power for our intellects and our souls. SHABBAT SHALOM
Posted on: Fri, 08 Aug 2014 19:29:18 +0000
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