"Faith is seeing light with your heart when all your eyes see is darkness."
(unknown).
When they took Rabbi Akiva out to be executed, it was time for the recitation of Shema. And they were raking his flesh with iron combs, and he was accepting upon himself the yoke of Heaven. His students said to him: Our teacher, even now? He said to them: All my days I have been troubled by the verse: With all your soul -- Even if God takes your soul. I said: When can I fulfill? Now that it has been afforded me, shall I not fulfill it? He prolonged "One", until his soul left at One. A voice descended and said: Happy are you, Rabbi Akiva, that your soul left during One. The ministering angels said before the Holy One, Blessed be He: This is Torah and this its reward? “From death, by Your hand, O Lord, from death of the world” (Psalms 17:14); God said “Whose portion is in this life.” And then a Divine Voice emerged and said: Happy are you, Rabbi Akiva, as you are destined for life in the World-to-Come.
Babylonian Talmud
Hevrutah:
1. How is Rabbi Akiva interpreting the shema?
2. How is Rabbi Akiva interpreting death?
3. How do you understand God's response?
From The Diaries of Etty Hillesum.
"What they are after is our total destruction. I accept it. I know it now, and I shall not burden others with my fears. I shall not be bitter if others fail to grasp what is happening to us Jews. I work and continue to live with the same conviction, and I find life meaningful — yes, meaningful — although I hardly dare say so in company these days. Living and dying, sorrow and joy, the blisters on my feet and the jasmine behind the house, the persecution, the unspeakable horrors — it is all as one in me, and I accept it all as one mighty whole and begin to grasp it better if only for myself, without being able to explain to anyone else how it all hangs together. I wish I could live for a long time so that one day I may know how to explain it, and if I am not granted that wish, well, then somebody else will perhaps do it, carry on from where my life has been cut short. And that is why I must try to live a good and faithful life to my last breath: so that those who come after me do not have to start all over again, need not face the same difficulties. Isn't that doing something for future generations?"
"Yes,we carry everything within us, God and Heaven and Hell and Earth and Life and Death and all of history. The externals are simply props; everything that comes: the bad with the good, which does not mean we cannot devote our life to curing the bad. But we must know what motives inspire our struggle, and we must begin with ourselves, every day anew."
Esther "Etty" Hillesum (15 January 1914 – 30 November 1943) was the Dutch author of letters and diaries which describe both her religious awakening and the persecutions of Jewish people in Amsterdam during the German Occupation. In 1943 she was deported and killed in Auschwitz Concentration Camp.
https://lyricstranslate.com/en/over-all-these-things-lyrics.html
על הדבש ועל העקץ
על המר והמתוק
על בתנו התינקת
שמר אלי הטוב
על האש המבערת
על המים הזכים
על האיש השב הביתה
מן המרחקים
על כל אלה על כל אלה
שמר נא לי אלי הטוב
על הדבש ועל העקץ
על המר והמתוק
אל נא תעקר נטוע
אל תשכח את התקוה
השיבני ואשובה
אל הארץ הטובה
שמר אלי על זה הבית
על הגן על החומה
מיגון מפחד-פתע
וממלחמה
שמר על המעט שיש לי
על האור ועל הטף
על הפרי שלא הבשיל עוד
ושנאסף
על כל אלה...
מרשרש אילן ברוח
מרחוק נושר כוכב
משאלות לבי בחושך
נרשמות עכשו
אנא שמור לי על כל אלה
ועל אהובי-נפשי
על השקט על הבכי
ועל זה השיר
על כל אלה..
עברית
https://lyricstranslate.com/en/over-all-these-things-lyrics.html
Over the honey and the stinger
Over the bitter and the sweet
And over our baby girl
Please guard my good lord
Over the burning fire
Over the crystal clear water
And over the man who is coming home
From afar
Over all these things, over all these things
Please stand guard for me my good g-d
Over the honey and the stinger
Over the bitter and the sweet
Don't uproot a sapling
Don't forget the hope
May you return me, and may I return
To the good land
Save the houses that we live in
The small fences and the wall
From the sudden war-like thunder
May you save them all.
Guard what little I've been given
Guard the hill my child might climb
Let the fruit that's yet to ripen
Not be plucked before its time.
(Chorus)
As the wind makes rustling night sounds
And a star falls in its arc
All my dreams and my desires
Form crystal shapes out of the dark.
Guard for me, oh Lord, these treasures
All my friends keep safe and strong,
Guard the stillness, guard the weeping,
And above all, guard this song.
(Chorus
Al Kol Eleh-- Naomi Shemer July 13, 1930 – June 26, 2004) was a leading Israeli musician and songwriter, hailed as the "first lady of Israeli song and poetry".