The Birthday of the World

Ancient Wisdom from the Kabbalah

Lavender growing at a park we visited recently

I was listening to House Calls, the podcast the US Surgeon General, Vivek Murthy, hosts. He was interviewing the author Susan Cain, whose latest book Bittersweet: How Sorrow and Longing Make Us Whole, is on my to-read list. Near the end of their conversation, he asks her about a story she shares in the book about the “Shards of Glass.” Dr. Murthy says it is a teaching from the Kabbalah, and tries to summarize the story, “…Creation at one point had been like a divine vessel and then at some point that was shattered, leaving these divine shards of glass … everywhere and it seems we have a choice, we can either feel despair over the shattering of the vessel or we can recognize there are still shards of glass—pieces of beauty—around us and seek them out and collect them …”

I remembered hearing this story before, in another podcast—an episode of On Being where Krista Tippet interviews Dr. Rachel Naomi Remen. I remembered being so taken with this teaching when I first heard Dr. Remen share it. So after I finished listening to Susan Cain (I could listen to her all day), I found the episode of On Being and re-listened to it.

Early in that episode, Dr. Remen is talking about her grandfather, who was an orthodox rabbi and student of the kabbalah and who she describes as a “flaming mystic.” When Krista asks her what she means by this, she says,

“…My grandfather felt that the world was in constant communication with him; that there was a spirit in the world, a God in the world that could be spoken to and could respond, at all times; that there was a presence in the world that was holy and sacred, and that he was in constant dialogue with this as he went through the events of his day.”

She goes on to say that for her fourth birthday, her grandfather’s gift to her was the story of the Shards of Light, what she calls, “The Birthday of the World.”

Here is how she told the story to Krista:

“So this is the story of the birthday of the world. In the beginning, there was only the holy darkness, the Ein Sof, the source of life. And then, in the course of history, at a moment in time, this world, the world of a thousand thousand things, emerged from the heart of the holy darkness as a great ray of light.

And then, perhaps because this is a Jewish story, there was an accident. [laughs] And the vessels containing the light of the world, the wholeness of the world, broke. And the wholeness of the world, the light of the world, was scattered into a thousand thousand fragments of light. And they fell into all events and all people, where they remain deeply hidden until this very day.

Now, according to my grandfather, the whole human race is a response to this accident. We are here because we are born with the capacity to find the hidden light in all events and all people, to lift it up and make it visible once again, and thereby to restore the innate wholeness of the world. This is a very important story for our times, that we heal the world one heart at a time. And this task is called tikkun olam, in Hebrew — ‘restoring the world.’”

I learned that Dr. Remen has written a children’s book that tells the story of her grandfather’s gift. It is now on my wish list.

I listened to Dr. Remen tell the story of the birthday of the world over and over, replaying that portion of the interview until I could tell the story too. It touched my heart in such a way that I called one of my Jewish friends and asked him if he knew about tikkun olam, the story from the kabbalah.

“It sounds familiar,” he said, “but you know my studies were so long ago. I don’t go to synagogue that much anymore.”  He offered to arrange for his rabbi to speak with me. “I’m sure Rabbi Urecki will know.” That’s okay, I said, please do not bother that dear man.

But I can’t stop thinking about it. I tell my husband about the tikkun olam as we sip iced beverages on the back deck. His brows knit together as he tries to make sense of what I’m saying. My stylist comes to the house to cut my hair and I give it to her. “I like that,” she says, as she leans in with her comb in hand. “Will you look that way for a minute?”

“Imagine if we looked at the world—at other people this way,” I say to a Jewish friend on the phone. “As if we all carry that light inside of us…”

“It’s a lovely thought,” he says. “But do you think it’s really possible to live that way?”

Do I?

“I don’t know,” I respond. “But shouldn’t we try?”

The trouble I have, is once something captures my imagination, I am easily lost in it. As a little girl, I would read my Nancy Drew books on the school bus—scrunched down in the seat, transported to another world. I often missed my stop. Mythologies from other cultures do this for me as a grown-up. I carry around bits of Native American mythologies, the Wild Woman stories, African American teachings, these bits from the Kaballah… I carry them in my pockets until they become my stories too.

But I don’t want to just carry these stories. I want to live them.

I realize this is what I’m doing when I study the earth in the Master Naturalist classes I’m taking. When I participate in programs like The Year of the Monarch. When I look for those hidden shards of glass in every person I encounter.

I don’t know if it is possible to always live this way. But I want to. I want my children and grandchildren to describe me as a “flaming mystic.” I want to live as if the world is in constant communication with me. I want to look for the shards of light in everything.

Isn’t it worth trying?