Patrick Comerford
We are in the countdown to Christmas in the Church since Sunday, which was Advent Sunday or the First Sunday of Advent (3 December 2023), the first day in a new Church Year.
The Church Calendar today (8 December) remembers the Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary.
Before this day begins, I am taking time early this morning for prayer and reflection.
Throughout Advent this year, my reflections each day include a poem or song by Leonard Cohen. My Advent reflections are following this pattern:
1, A reflection on a poem or song by Leonard Cohen;
2, the Gospel reading of the day in the Church of England lectionary;
3, a prayer from the USPG prayer diary.
The Songs and Poems of Leonard Cohen: 6, ‘Anthem’:
In Jewish mysticism, God the Creator breaks through the cracks to pour his light into the world. The light of God breaks through in the crack in the skylight, and the rains fall like a blessing on all God’s creation. Or, as Leonard Cohen sings his song ‘Anthem’ (The Future, 1992), ‘There is a crack in everything, that’s how the light gets in.’
Perhaps it is no more than a coincidence that Leonard Cohen and the former Chief Rabbi, Lord (Jonathan) Sacks, both died on 7 November: Lord Sacks died in 2020 at the age of 72; Leonard Cohen died four years earlier in 2016 at the age of 82.
But it is perhaps less than coincidence that both of them have introduced me to the writings of the 16th century Jewish mystic, Rabbi Isaac Luria (1534-1572), considered the father of contemporary Kabbalah, and to his teachings, known as Lurianic Kabbalah. In his footnotes in the Authorised Prayer Book, one of two prayerbooks I regularly use for prayers and reflections on Friday evenings, Lord Sacks frequently refers to this rabbi.
I find it very difficult to read, think about or understand Kabbalistic writings, and can only deal with them when I read them as I would read poetry. Indeed, Luria’s writings are few, and include only a few poems.
According to Isaac Luria, God created vessels into which he poured his holy light. These vessels were not strong enough to contain such a powerful force and they shattered. The sparks of divine light were carried down to earth along with the broken shards.
The Kabbalah of Rav Yitzhak Luria had a notably strong effect on Leonard Cohen, and his key ideas are reflected in that line, ‘There is a crack in everything, it’s how the light gets in.’
This divine brokenness is a key to many of Leonard Cohen’s poems and songs, according to his rabbi, Mordecai Finley, who says Lurianic Kabbalah gives voice to the impossible brokenness of the human condition. ‘The pain of the Divine breakage permeates reality. We inherit it; it inhabits us. We can deny it. Or we can study and teach it, write it and sing its mournful songs.’
Cohen hints in his songs that redemption – the tikkun olam that will repair the broken world – remains possible. He regularly ended his concerts with the Priestly Blessing (ברכת כהנים; birkat Cohanim). It is also known in rabbinic literature as raising the hands or rising to the platform because the blessing is given from a raised rostrum.
The Jewish Sages stressed that although the Cohanim or priests pronounce the blessing, it is not them or the ceremonial practice of raising their hands that results in the blessing, but rather it is God’s desire that his blessing should be symbolised by the hands of the Cohanim.
Lord Sacks says the Torah explicitly says that though the Cohanim say the words, it is God who sends the blessing: ‘When the Cohanim bless the people, they are not doing anything in and of themselves. Instead, they are acting as channels through which God’s blessing flows into the world and into our lives.’
In many communities, it is customary for men in the congregation to spread their tallitot or prayer shawls over their own heads during the blessing and not look at the Cohanim. If a man has children, they come under his tallit to be blessed.
A tradition among Ashkenazim says that during this blessing, the Shekhinah becomes present where the Cohanim have their hands in the shin (ש) gesture, so that gazing there would be harmful.
An understanding of how God’s light is thought to be present through the outstretched fingers of the Cohanim may lie behind those lines in ‘Anthem’:
There is a crack in everything
That’s how the light gets in.
In his final days, Leonard Cohen was spending two days a week at the Ohr HaTorah synagogue in Los Angeles and reading deeply in a multi-volume edition of the Zohar, the principal text of Jewish mysticism but a book that many find completely incomprehensible. He was also studying Gershom Scholem’s biography of the 17th century mystic and false messiah Shabbetai Tzvi.
His interest in Jewish mysticism seems to have been a constant throughout his life, reflected in his songs in ways that may not be understood by people who are not familiar with Jewish thinking.
The Kabbalah of Rav Yitzhak Luria had a notably strong effect on Leonard Cohen. Jonathan Freedland described it in a feature in the Atlantic in 2016, in which he said Luria’s key ideas are reflected in a line in Leonard Cohen’s song ‘Anthem’:
There is a crack in everything,
it’s how the light gets in.
This divine brokenness is a key to many of Leonard Cohen’s poems and songs. His rabbi, Mordecai Finley, spoke of this when he wrote in the Jewish Journal and referred to his final album, You Want It Darker, released just months before his death:
‘If you are familiar with Lurianic Kabbalah … you will understand this album … and I think much of his body of poetry and lyrics. I think that whatever drew Leonard to me, for me to be his rabbi these last 10 years, was that for each of us, Lurianic Kabbalah gave voice to the impossible brokenness of the human condition. The pain of the Divine breakage permeates reality. We inherit it; it inhabits us. We can deny it. Or we can study and teach it, write it and sing its mournful songs.’
Cohen hints in his work that redemption – the tikkun olam that will repair the broken world – remains possible. Near the end of his life, using the Hebrew expression for ‘bless God,’ he told an interviewer, ‘Spiritual things, baruch Hashem, have fallen into place.’
Leonard Cohen, Anthem:
The birds they sang
At the break of day
Start again
I heard them say
Don’t dwell on what has passed away
Or what is yet to be
Ah, the wars they will be fought again
The holy dove, she will be caught again
Bought and sold, and bought again
The dove is never free
Ring the bells that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack, a crack in everything
That’s how the light gets in
We asked for signs
The signs were sent
The birth betrayed
The marriage spent
Yeah, and the widowhood
Of every government
Signs for all to see
I can’t run no more
With that lawless crowd
While the killers in high places
Say their prayers out loud
But they’ve summoned, they’ve summoned up
A thundercloud
They’re going to hear from me
Ring the bells that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack, a crack in everything
That’s how the light gets in
You can add up the parts
But you won’t have the sum
You can strike up the march
There is no drum
Every heart, every heart
To love will come
But like a refugee
Ring the bells that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack, a crack in everything
That’s how the light gets in
Ring the bells that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack, a crack in everything
That’s how the light gets in
That’s how the light gets in
That’s how the light gets in
Matthew 9: 27-31 (NRSVA):
27 As Jesus went on from there, two blind men followed him, crying loudly, ‘Have mercy on us, Son of David!’ 28 When he entered the house, the blind men came to him; and Jesus said to them, ‘Do you believe that I am able to do this?’ They said to him, ‘Yes, Lord.’ 29 Then he touched their eyes and said, ‘According to your faith let it be done to you.’ 30 And their eyes were opened. Then Jesus sternly ordered them, ‘See that no one knows of this.’ 31 But they went away and spread the news about him throughout that district.
Today’s Prayers (Friday 8 December 2023):
The theme this week in the new edition of ‘Pray With the World Church,’ the Prayer Diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel), is ‘The Hope of Advent.’ This theme was introduced on Sunday.
The USPG Prayer Diary today (8 December 2023) invites us to pray in these words:
Lord, in a world that can often seem to be filled with pain, we ask for the hope of Christ to shine on the world.
The Collect:
Almighty and everlasting God,
who stooped to raise fallen humanity
through the child–bearing of blessed Mary:
grant that we, who have seen your glory
revealed in our human nature
and your love made perfect in our weakness,
may daily be renewed in your image
and conformed to the pattern of your Son
Jesus Christ our Lord,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.
The Post-Communion Prayer:
God most high,
whose handmaid bore the Word made flesh:
we thank you that in this sacrament of our redemption
you visit us with your Holy Spirit
and overshadow us by your power;
strengthen us to walk with Mary the joyful path of obedience
and so to bring forth the fruits of holiness;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Yesterday’s Reflection
Continued Tomorrow
Anthem lyrics © Stranger Music Inc.
Scripture quotations are from the New Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicised Edition copyright © 1989, 1995, National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide. http://nrsvbibles.org
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