Temple Or Olam is blessed with a boy whose wide-open nature is a constant reminder of what really matters in this world. The child has autism.
He tells us exactly what is on his mind. He is without guile. He does not know subtexts.
Recently, he led a prayer with me at a Kabbalat Shabbat service. When the last notes had been sung, he announced to the congregation, “This was the best prayer ever.”
Everyone in the room smiled and nodded: It was the best prayer ever. The boy had told us so. He had spoken truly.
Abracadabra!
Abracadabra is an Aramaic phrase. Each word in the phrase mirrors cognate words in Hebrew. The first part of the word, abra means “I create.” The second part of the phrase, “cadabra” means “like I speak.” When you say “abracadabra,” you are saying, in effect, “What I speak, I bring into being.”
What are the Days of Awe if not the opportunity to understand – deeply – that by speaking, we create?
In Pri Ha’aretz, Rabbi Menachem Mendel of Vitebsk wrote with tenderness about the power of speech. His commentary on Parsha Vayera states: “And he who speaks, behold this person is creating new heavens and new earth like that which was at the beginning of creation: ‘By the word of the LORD the heavens were made” (Ps. 33:6).’”
According to Targum Bereishit, the birth of humanity that we celebrate each year on Rosh Hashanah was immediately accompanied with God’s loving gift of our capacity for speech: “There was in the body of Adam the inspiration of a speaking spirit, unto the illumination of the eyes and the hearing of the ears.”
God fashioned humanity through divine speech in Genesis 1. God’s own creation inherited the capacity to create, like God, through speech.
What would godly words sound like from human beings? They would be words of truth and possibility, of kindness and understanding, of forgiveness and atonement. They would be the very words of love.
This year, during Temple Or Olam’s High Holy Days, we will consider the power of our words. A new year opens wide before us. Let us name the things we must make. By articulating those things, by naming them through prayer and reflection, we can make them real.
Abracadabra.
