God, make me a body,
a body of Torah,
a body of compassion.
let my words of my lips
be action.
let my heart,
God-forbid,
dissolve
touched by the suffering
of others.
let me not grow dull,
unseeing,
unfeeling,
to the sea of suffering,
rising in ever-rising waves around me.
but see each and every individual
in their unique need.
God, make me merciful,
in your image.
and while you’re at,
perhaps, you can rouse
your own mercy as well?
Parshat Hukkat, July 5, 1941
In order to awaken mercy in heaven for Israel and to sweeten all the judgments, we must arouse within ourselves compassion for our fellow Jews. not only must we give them everything we can; we also need to arouse our compassion for them, because when we arouse mercy within ourselves, mercy is aroused in heaven. We must resist becoming accustomed to the fact that Jews are suffering. The sheer volume of Jewish suffering must not be allowed to blur or dull the compassion we feel for each individual Jew. On the contrary, our heart must all but dissolve, God forbid, from the bitter pain. When we awaken within ourselves compassion for Jews, we can accomplish two things: First, our own prayers will issue with more soul and more heart. Second, as is well known from the sacred literature, there are occasions when salvation has already been decreed from heaven on Israel’s behalf, but tarries because it is abstract and cannot come down to this world and clothe itself in physical, practical reality. So, when a Jew not only knows intellectually but also feels with the very core of his body that he must support and help his fellows, then mercy becomes part of his body. When next he prays on behalf of his fellow Jews, he prays with a body full of compassion. Then the salvation that was stopped for want of a channel through which to flow finds in this person a perfect conduit and broadens to meet physical needs as well.
