Seeing the Monster

Blood curdling screams chilled me to the bone just as I hesitantly sat down to write this newsletter. I ran upstairs, my heart pounding, to find my daughter terrorized by a "gynormous monster!" All I could see was an inch long bug, and I was too shaken by her screams and the heavy exercise to see things through her eyes. I came back downstairs and realized that she had done a great favor for me. I had been struggling with the idea of writing this essay in advance because so much is happening in the world and so quickly, that I didn't want to be locked into an idea. What if something major happens before Thursday and I have to rewrite the newsletter! If she was confronting a gynormous monster, I was dealing with an even larger threat: Doubt. How could I be so concerned about what will happen if I've been writing all these essays about the Seder as singing the song of the future redemption? I have posted an entire series on the Song of the Haggadah becoming part of the ultimate Song of Songs we will read this Shabbat, and I was stifled by what may happen over the next four days! The Bug/Monster answered my question! It's the person who has restricted vision and who refuses to see how a small bug becomes a huge monster, who is concerned with the future. Such a person is locked into his own view of things and is threatened by change. He has to adjust each time a new ingredient is added to the mix. The father who can see that a normal bug can be a large monster to his daughter, and respond to what she sees rather than what he does, lives with unrestricted vision. His eyes are open to all possibilities. It's the father who can see the gynormous insect who can sing the Song of Songs, the song of the future, with joy and expectation. We will also read the Torah portion in which Moshe asks for the privilege of, "Show me Your glory!" God responds by manifesting a great deal, but covering Moshe's eyes so he does not see all. Moshe lived with unlimited vision; he would look at the bug and see the scary monster. He saw the world through the eyes of everyone with whom he dealt. The only limitation on his vision was God's Hand; the limitation of being an imperfect human being. Moshe could not have asked to see everything if he could only see the bug. It would have been Moshe's hand covering his eyes, not God's Hand. The Seder is over. Hopefully it has prepared us to look forward to a world redeemed, a better world; safer and peaceful. We can use that vision to join in the Song of Songs, but we first have to be willing to see that some people perceive a bug as a monster, even if we do not. We have to see the world through their eyes. Only then will we be able to see the world through the eyes of the Song of Songs. The only Hand over our eyes will be God's. "On that day, God will be Unified and His Name will be unified (Zechariah 14:9)." At the time of Redemption all of us will bring our Names of God, our perceptions of the Divine, and unify them, but only if we first learn to see through the eyes of others; even when a bug becomes a huge monster