Rabbi Menahem Mendel of Vorki was asked what constitutes a true Jew. He said: “Three things are fitting for us: upright kneeling, silent screaming, and motionless dance.”
UPRIGHT KNEELING
(6) Come, let us bow down and kneel, bend the knee before the LORD our maker, (7) for He is our God, and we are the people He tends, the flock in His care. O, if you would but heed His charge this day:
The kneeling crowd fades with the light of the torches. Walt Whitman's Song of Myself
“Don't kneel please. Sometimes people put people on pedestals so they can see them more clearly and knock them off more easily” - Maya Angelou
“For many of us the march from Selma to Montgomery was about protest and prayer. Legs are not lips and walking is not kneeling. And yet our legs uttered songs. Even without words, our march was worship. I felt my legs were praying.” - Abraham Joshua Heschel
SILENT SCREAMING
(1) Now Aaron’s sons Nadab and Abihu each took his fire pan, put fire in it, and laid incense on it; and they offered before יהוה alien fire, which had not been enjoined upon them. (2) And fire came forth from יהוה and consumed them; thus they died at the instance of יהוה. (3) Then Moses said to Aaron, “This is what יהוה meant by saying: Through those near to Me I show Myself holy, And gain glory before all the people.”
And Aaron was silent.
And lo, the LORD passed by. There was a great and mighty wind, splitting mountains and shattering rocks by the power of the LORD; but the LORD was not in the wind. After the wind—an earthquake; but the LORD was not in the earthquake. (12) After the earthquake—fire; but the LORD was not in the fire. And after the fire—a soft murmuring sound.
A time for silence and a time for speaking;
(2) The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky proclaims His handiwork. (3) Day to day makes utterance, night to night speaks out. (4) There is no utterance, there are no words, whose sound goes unheard.-a
“Speak Little. Learn the words of eternity. Go beyond your tangled thoughts and find the splendor of paradise.”
― Rumi
MOTIONLESS DANCING
Ulla of the city of Bira’a said that Rabbi Elazar said: In the future, in the end of days, the Holy One, Blessed be He, will arrange a dance of the righteous, and He will be sitting among them in the Garden of Eden, and each and every one of the righteous will point to God with his finger, as it is stated: “And it shall be said on that day: Behold, this is our God, for whom we waited, that He might save us. This is the Lord; for whom we waited. We will be glad and rejoice in His salvation” (Isaiah 25:9).
A time for wailing and a time for dancing;
(ב) א כְּשֶׁיֵּשׁ, חַס וְשָׁלוֹם, דִּינִים עַל יִשְׂרָאֵל, עַל־יְדֵי רִקּוּדִים וְהַמְחָאַת כַּף אֶל כַּף נַעֲשֶׂה הַמְתָּקַת הַדִּינִין:
(2) When, God forbid, there are Divine judgments/decrees affecting the Jewish people, through dancing and hand-clapping these Divine judgments/decrees can be mitigated.
The Baal Shem taught that there are two kinds of davening — sometimes we fling our limbs in all directions as we pray, like a person who is drowning and calling out for help. And sometimes we pray without moving a limb, in total stillness, where even the slightest sound or movement can break our inner connection.
Prayer life in the synagogue has the “motionless dance” of bowing left and right symbolizing that all creation is under God.
"Sabbath is Judaism’s stillness at the heart of the turning world.” Rabbi Lord Sacks
If we weren’t unanimous
about keeping our lives so much in
motion,
if we could do nothing for once,
perhaps a great silence would
interrupt this sadness,
this never understanding ourselves
and threatening ourselves with death …
Pablo Neruda