tmbt: teachings upon our hearts
I was told a most beautiful story this week…
The girls listened well again and again to the Rabbi helping to prepare them for Bat Mitzvah. “We must place the teachings upon our hearts,” he said again and again. “We must place the teachings upon our hearts,” they heard again and again. The teachings of God. The teachings of life. The teachings of teaching and learning, and walking through it all, I suppose.
“We must place the teachings upon our heart,” he repeated. And one day, a perplexed looking girl asked the Rabbie in response, “But why do we place the teachings upon our hearts? Why not just put them in our hearts?”
And the Rabbi replied simply, “Oh, but it is not us who can do such a thing. No sun or wind or angel or human can place the teachings of the One inside our hearts. We can only lay them upon our hearts so that when they break, the teachings can fall inside.”
Very nice, and so true. It seems impossibly heavy that our hearts must break for us to move, yet they are not broken all of the time. Often they are filled with joy.
sniff.