Thoughts from Rabbi Zac Kamenetz, Senior Jewish Educator at the JCCSF This article is from the Lippman Kanfer Foundation for Living Torah Blog Once, a young man went beyond the walls of his city, with nothing but his pocketknife, and journeyed out to the tree line toward the horizon, until he came upon a wild jungle. He immediately delighted in the jungle’s overwhelming fructuousness. Stepping on and over mounds of plants vying for more space, the young man marveled at the vivid swirling colors—deep vertical browns, bursts of yellow and purple splashed on soft green, glossy orange and red specks dotting off-white, light sandy wisps poking out of loamy grey. While moving deeper into the jungle, the faint rustling of leaves gave way to a low humming, and as he looked, he saw that every shoot, leaf, and flower was slowly but audibly swelling and growing and pulsating. To the young man, the once-vivid beauty of the wilderness began to look grotesquely chaotic. As the young man looked back toward where he had entered, the low hum of the jungle turned to a wailing howl. Palm fronds turned to the sky and blocked out the little bit of light still shining through, […]
