Monday, January 24, 2011

Why it comes out backwards

[This week’s Haveil Havalim is here, at Jack’s new site]

Looking at אפיק בנגב over Shabbos, I saw a great quote from Rav Kook. [The book itself is a tribute to Rav Avraham Yitzchak Neriah z”l, one of the founders of Yeshivat haNegev and son of Rav Moshe Tzvi Neriah z”l.]

Rav Kook pointed out that the gemara (Shabbos 55a) says, "חותמו של הקב"ה אמת," "The seal of Gd is Truth." He added that since human beings are modeled after Gd, we, too, have that seal of Truth.

Rav Kook continued to say that just as a sealing ring’s mark is only visible after the ring is removed from the paper, so a human being’s mark on the world is visible only after ‘the ring is removed from the paper,’ after the person has passed on from this world.

I thought it was a beautiful extension of the gemara’s point, but the comparison of people and sealing rings did leave me with a disturbing thought: With a sealing ring, everything marked on the ring is reversed in its imprint.

So is that why so much of what I try to do comes out backward?

3 comments:

  1. Actually, the mark left by a signet ring only looks backwards if compared to the ring's engraving itself. But in reality, it is exactly as the ringmaker/Maker intended that image to appear.
    V'akmal

    ReplyDelete
  2. Anonymous (Joel?)
    That works for Gd... not necessarily for us...

    ReplyDelete
  3. BC olam Hafuch ra'itah. Brad

    ReplyDelete