Skip to content
Member Log-in Contact UsDonate
Woodstock Jewish Congregation
  • Join
    • Membership Application
  • About
    • History
    • Getting Here
    • Transition
    • Clergy/Staff
      • Rabbi Noyo
      • Rabbi Jonathan
        • Teachings
        • Class Audio Recordings
        • Books and CD’s
    • Board of Directors
    • Sustainability
    • Committees & Groups
      • Adult Ed
  • Family School
  • Adult Learning
    • “A Shtickele Toyrah” (A Bit of Torah)
    • A Jewish Book Club!
    • Breathing, Awareness and Joy
    • Witnessing for One Another
  • Calendar
  • Worship
  • Be Involved
  • Sharings
    • Sharings By Rabbi Noyo
    • A Shtickele Toyrah Sharings
    • Sharings from Daily Elul Learning
    • Resources

The Krekhtz

(You can learn more about, and more from Rabbi Angela Buchdahl at https://www.facebook.com/RabbiAngelaBuchdahl/)

 

Texts on the Krekhtz

Abraham Joshua Heschel, The Earth is the Lord’s (Chapter One, “The Sigh,” p. 16):

“There were many who did not trust words, and their deepest thoughts would find expression in a sigh. Sorrow was their second soul, and the vocabulary of their heart consisted of one sound: “Oy!” And when there was more than the heart could say, their eyes would silently bear witness.”

 

Rabbi Nachman of Bratslav, Likkutei Moharan 8:1:
(https://www.sefaria.org/Likutei_Moharan.8.1.3)

See how precious is the sigh and groan (the krekhtz) of a Jewish person. It provides wholeness [in place] of the lack. For through the breath, which is the ruakh-of-life, the world was created. As is written (Psalms 33:6), “… and by the ruakh of God’s mouth, their entire hosts [were created].” The renewal of the world will also come about by means of the ruakh, as in (Psalms 104:30), “You will send Your ruakh —they will be created; You renew the face of the earth.”

This [ruakh] is also the vital force of human life. This is because a person’s breath is their life-force. As is written (Genesis 2:7), “God breathed into the human’s nostrils nishmat (the breath of) life,” and (ibid. 7:22), “All in whose nostrils was a nishmat (breath of) ruakh-of-life.” Regarding this, the sages said: To the extent breath is lacking, so is life (Maaseh Tuviah, Bayit Chadash 2; cf. Zohar II, 24b).

We find then that the quintessential life-force of everything is its ruakh. Whenever a lack exists, it is essentially in the life-force, which corresponds to the ruakh-of-life of that thing. This is because it is the ruakh which gives that thing its existence.

And sighing is the extension of the breath. It corresponds to erekh apayim (patience)—i.e., extended ruakh. Therefore, when a person sighs over the lack and extends his ruakh, that person draws ruakh-of-life to that which they are lacking. For the lack is in essence a departure of the ruakh-of-life. Therefore, through the sigh, the lack is made whole.

 

Sharings

« Back to all sharings

Search

Office Hours

Monday – Thursday
11 am – 5 pm

Friday
11 am – 3 pm

Saturday
Office closed.
Shul open for services.

Sunday
Office closed.


 

Commitment to Sustainability

We care deeply for our corner of holy ground — 35 acres that includes welcoming trails through woods, across fields, and past wetlands and ponds.

We share the Jewish approach to living in balance and harmony with the earth. We do it through teaching and we do it through practice. 

Our goal is to be an organization that fulfills the Torah teaching to be Shomrei Adamah: Guardians of the Earth. Our actions have been recognized by Hazon, the largest Jewish environmental organization in the United States.

LEARN MORE

Directions

1682 Glasco Turnpike
Woodstock, NY 12498

info@wjcshul.org
845-679-2218

 

Join Our Email List

* indicates required

 


 


 


 
 



© 2023 Woodstock Jewish Congregation