Ani ma-amin be-emuno sh’laymo
Sheboyray yisborach sh’mo
Yoyday kol ma-asay v’nay odom v’cho machsh’voysom, shene-emar:
Ha-yoytzayr yachad libom ma-mayvin el kol ma-asayhem
“I believe with complete faith that the Creater, Blessed is His Name, knows all of the deeds of human beings and their thoughts, as it is said, “He fashions their hears all together, He comprehends their deeds.”
I was reading through Rambam’s Thirteen Principles of faith the other day, and as I read number ten, a line seemed to jump off the page of the siddur and into my frontal cortex:
“He fashions their hearts all together.”
What grabbed me about this was the possibility that this means that all of humanity was created with a single, collective heart that Hashem has formed from a combination of each of our hearts. Could it be, I thought, that Hashem in his wisdom decided to create each of us bound heart-to-heart in an unbreakable web of love, compassion, mercy? Could it be that our job on Earth is to realize – and actualize – these pre-existing ties?
This is one of those moments where I feel the limits of my Torah scholarship. I have no answers. But this idea offers a great start to my next bout of study.
Hebrew Hutong 
Leave a Reply