DylanCelebration

In the first blessing before Sh’ma—Yotzer Or—we recognize the power of the Divine in the ongoing work of creation. The opening line praises the Holy One as: “Yotzer or u-vorei choshech, oseh shalom u-vorei et ha-kol—Creator of light and darkness, Maker of peace and Creator of everything.” The line is taken verbatim from Isaiah 47:5 with one very significant emendation; the original text refers to the Holy One not as “Creator of Everything” but “Creator of Evil.”

Theoretically, this doesn’t alter much. After all, “everything” includes evil. But the Rabbis changed the word because they felt it was too hard to begin the morning by explicitly praising God as the source of pain and suffering. They were right, it is very difficult—yet that is precisely what Isaiah asks of us.

Bob Dylan does this beautifully and courageously in his song “Every Grain of Sand” from his 1981 “Shot of Love” album. He draws from William Blake’s famous poem “Auguries of Innocence,” which urges the reader: “To see a world in a grain of sand/And heaven in a wildflower. . .” But Dylan, like Isaiah, tackles the hard question, searching for God in the dark moments as well as the joyous ones; indeed, the focus of the entire song is the quest to find holiness in brokenness:

In the time of my confession,

in the hour of my deepest need

When the pool of tears beneath my feet

flood every newborn seed

There's a dying voice within me

reaching out somewhere

Toiling in the danger

and in the morals of despair. . .

In the fury of the moment

I can see the master's hand

In every leaf that trembles,

in every grain of sand

This morning, reflect on where and when you experience holiness—in joy and in sorrow, too.