tikkun olam
i've been thinking today about healing a broken world - the lurianic kabbalist notion of 'tikkun olam'. some strands of thought have been festering for some time, as i have pondered work and God - in particular, and selfishly for me, my need to figure out what i am going to do next.
anyway - reading in the paper today about a young man from Sierra Leone - a child soldier whose innocence was snatched when his family was killed in the civil war, and again when he was recruited at age 13 as a government soldier. Ishmael - a name with so many resonances - has been adopted by a woman in New York whose brother is one of the mentors who has shaped my intellectual and spiritual growth - Dr Norman Simms.
and i thought about those fractured vessels, humanity, and the light that shattered, and was concealed. the light that we are all charged with collecting and piecing together
and i thought of Laura Simms, whom I've never met, who took in a boy whose only memories were of violence, and loved him. and now he has taken that memory of violence, and written a book - so that we all remember.
what a mensch
anyway - reading in the paper today about a young man from Sierra Leone - a child soldier whose innocence was snatched when his family was killed in the civil war, and again when he was recruited at age 13 as a government soldier. Ishmael - a name with so many resonances - has been adopted by a woman in New York whose brother is one of the mentors who has shaped my intellectual and spiritual growth - Dr Norman Simms.
and i thought about those fractured vessels, humanity, and the light that shattered, and was concealed. the light that we are all charged with collecting and piecing together
and i thought of Laura Simms, whom I've never met, who took in a boy whose only memories were of violence, and loved him. and now he has taken that memory of violence, and written a book - so that we all remember.
what a mensch
posted by kate at 6:11 PM
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