It’s nearly impossible to sit through a kumzitz nowadays and not hear the song ‘Tzama’ being sung. “Tzama Tzama, Tzama Nafshi L’Elokim — my soul is thirsting for you Hashem.”
Thirsting is an interesting term that Dovid Hamelech chose to use, and it’s certainly an interesting term to hear reverberating whenever young people are getting together to sing and connect these days.
But a thirst of this nature was actually foretold.
“Henei Yamim Baim — Behold days are coming….. I will send a hunger into the land.”
This nevuah in Amos begins like any other prophecy, and then it sounds like it might be about to warn the Jewish people what will happen if they don’t live up to who they are meant to be.
But this passuk actually continues very differently, “…not a hunger for bread, or a thirst for water, but to hear the Dvar Hashem — the word of Hashem.”
There will come a time, when there won’t be a physical lack, but instead a widespread thirst to hear the word of Hashem.
What are we hungry for? We find ourselves in a time where our political power and economic stability are at an all-time high. Our physical needs are met with unprecedented levels of comfort and indulgences. The average American lives with more material comfort than the kings of the olden days! But even within a culture of conveniences, there is still a collective angst — a thirst for a personal, close connection to Hashem. We are bewildered by the chaos unfolding in the world around us. We are confused by the breakdown of norms and the erosion of societal structures, and we crave for clarity straight from Hashem. We thirst not just to belong to a society of ‘Frum people in a Frum community’ but to truly, deeply, feel and see Hashem’s intimate involvement in our lives, and to live fully and freely from that place.
Jews across the spectrum of Yiddishkeit are fed up with the hester panim of galus, and are starving for something more, something deeper, something more clear, authentic, personal, and energizing. It’s one thing to be in darkness, hastara, and to know you’re in darkness. But there is also an experience of ‘hastara shebi’soch hahastara,’ a darkness within the darkness, referring to the sensation of being unaware of just how dark it is, and how Hashem’s concealment is affecting everything. Many don’t even notice how ‘dark’ it is; it has simply become the reality. The only thing that breaks through this apathy that is characteristic of the ‘double darkness’ is the sensation of thirst. From within the hastara, we become aware that we are thirsty; we don’t want intermediaries, we want to connect straight to the Source.
How precious to find ourselves in a time where the collective song is one expressing the neshama’s thirst to connect, hear the word of Hashem, and experience Hashem fully, and without concealment. May it come soon. May it come b’rachamim. We are parched.
This article was found in Nekuda Tova Issue 94.
